Given their responsibilities, any police agency’s leaders face scrutiny during trying times. Therefore, departments must provide a continuous long-term approach aimed at increasing their leaders’ requisite competencies. More specifically, this includes the skill sets relevant to their respective rank, authority, and responsibilities within the context of their operating environments.

In the 1970s, additional federal inquiries further examined the concept of PLD. These became memorialized in the President’s Commission on Campus Unrest and the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals.²

Recommendations produced from these federal reviews noted a significant need for increased educational and training efforts relating to PLD. The suggestions for human resource corrective action focused on the full range of state and municipal jurisdictions. Moreover, the examination of PLD has caused a reoccurring debate over the value of academic education as a professional development tool.

The police industry has been slow to recognize the value of higher education, suggesting professional advancement programs would be better suited for alternative educational platforms.³ Despite this observation, a review of the published literature regarding such debates has shown they have diminished over the past decade.⁴ Among leadership scholars and practitioners, there is a prevalent demand for increased PLD.

Leadership Competencies

Individuals who exhibit leadership abilities are highly sought-after commodities and assets who contribute to achieving organizational goals.⁵ This need is reflected in the abundance of pedagogical literature discussing leadership as a current and timeless concept.⁶

Research suggests that creating conditions where employees assume management roles without relevant training, education, and instruction results in polarizing multilevel organizational conditions. In such situations, leaders encounter conflict between unit-based objectives and the agency’s strategic goals.⁷ Despite this caveat, police leadership research has not kept up with general business leadership development.⁸ Further, police managerial practices have demonstrated a lack of cohesion and standardization across the industry.⁹

Public leadership should facilitate necessary change amid complex environments, yet notable gaps exist in the competencies of future public leaders.¹⁰ This shortcoming derives from the failure of current leadership development programs to prepare leaders for today’s operating demands, resulting in agencies’ inability to achieve organizational objectives.¹¹ Given the increasingly diverse and complex responsibilities of police departments, providing a robust PLD program commensurate with the leaders’ respective authority and mission is essential.

However, many agencies rely solely on the initial professional development personnel receive upon promotion to first-line supervisor as sufficient to last throughout their career. Subsequent promotions to higher levels of command often occur without follow-on contextual leadership training.

In practice, many industries and sectors adopt this approach, suggesting organizations have no obligation to provide a strategic conduit for professional advancement regarding leadership. Some police departments’ published doctrine confirms this. The traditional police leadership approach runs contrary to the transformational leadership required by current municipal management goals.¹²

However, one industry provides a foundational framework example for building a relevant strategic human resource management program that solidifies the organizational obligation for and the individual’s dedication to leadership development into a cohesive effort.

Strategic Program Model

The U.S. military recognizes effective leadership development as a prerequisite to organizational effectiveness. Its strategic human resource management program is initiated at the entry level. Then, as service members ascend in rank, they are introduced to higher levels of leadership development requisite for their authority, position, and span of control and influence.

Based on this approach, the military continuously provides leadership development throughout the employee’s tenure, even at the highest levels of the organization. This human resource management approach reaffirms an ever-learning mindset in the student and establishes the importance of training at every level. Further, it helps optimize organizational objectives in concert with the strategic mission.

Whereas financial considerations are the usual constraint limiting the leadership development effort, alternative options reduce budgetary burdens. State and local municipalities can take advantage of federal programs that offer leadership-related development at minimal or no cost to state and local police departments.

The FBI National Academy is a prime example.¹³ In addition, routine monitoring of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center course offerings will help identify these reduced-cost training opportunities when they become available.¹⁴

Additionally, industry-related organizations provide scholarships to further minimize the financial burden associated with professional development coursework. For instance, the FBI National Academy Associates¹⁵ and ASIS International16 offer such endowments. When looking for scholarship opportunities, it is important not to restrict searches exclusively to law enforcement- and security-related entities but to also explore public service-related scholarships, grants, and fellowships.

Conclusion

Law enforcement agencies are obligated to provide a pathway for their sworn members, at all ranks, to develop the leadership competencies necessary to support the organizational mission. Police leadership development efforts should be as diverse as the operating environment conditions and contexts experienced by modern police leaders. It is incumbent upon all departments to exhaust every internal and external resource available to optimize the leadership potential of their leaders.