NCJ Number
216229
Journal
Police Chief Volume: 73 Issue: 10 Dated: October 2006 Pages: 160-167
Date Published
October 2006
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This article integrates the perspectives of police psychology and management psychology and applies them to the law enforcement management tasks of making command decisions during crises and maintaining discipline and integrity within the police organization.
Abstract
Most psychologists and emergency-service professionals agree on a basic set of traits and skills required for effective command leadership during critical incidents. First, communication received from others must be accurately heard, processed, and used in making decisions. The leader must also be able to communicate to others the rationale, objectives, and strategies designed to achieve a specific purpose. Second, the command leader must coordinate individual team members' efforts, which involves delegating responsibilities to persons most qualified for the task that must be done. Third, the command leader must be able to process information and make sound decisions under stress. Fourth, leaders must structure their actions to proceed in sequence from planning, to implementation, to evaluation; and then repeat the cycle based on evaluation results. This requires emotional stability and maturity, and rapid critical decisionmaking in the course of a crisis. Regarding the maintenance of discipline and integrity within the police organization, police commanders must make decisions and manage personnel under a consistent standard of personal integrity. Police managers are also required to recognize and deal with the stresses that exist in an organization. When the stresses are due to systemic organizational structure and practice, executives must be sufficiently objective to examine themselves and their policies to determine where they need to change and how they can act to change the organization in a way that improves the climate and performance of the agency. When the proper course has been set, police executives must insist on discipline and behavioral change required to perform the mission set for the organization. 16 notes