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Morale: Whose Job is it anyways?

Karl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian military general and military theorist, identified morale as a fundamental military principle.  Since Clausewitz published On War morale has developed into a concept seen as critical to organizations, including law enforcement.  Unfortunately, morale is difficult to define and in many circles has become somewhat synonymous with motivation.  In this article…

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Ethics: How Essential Is It?

Sergeant Joan Smith arrives for work at her police department fifteen minutes early. She likes working midnights and enjoys working at what she feels is an excellent police department. Most of all, she enjoys the teamwork of her shift, because she has a motivated group of officers working for her. Sergeant Smith is a good…

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The 3 Cs of Ethical Leadership

Unfortunately, all supervisors or managers are not leaders. A good cop is genuinely a leader to the community they serve. But everyone in a position of authority is not really a leader. A well rounded leader possesses the 3 Cs: character, charisma, and compassion. These are the core foundation of ethical leadership. Character Character starts…

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The Jump Start

The Use of Power Its your first day in your assignment.  Perhaps you are a newly appointed leader, or you have been transferred into a new assignment.  How do you establish leadership?  How do you get things moving in the right direction?  You have the positional authority, the stripes or bars or whatever symbol of…

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Leadership in Tough Times

Times are getting tougher.  Most of us are not the top person in leading our organization; we are line supervisors and middle managers; but it’s still getting tougher.  While we don’t make the big decisions we have a responsibility to provide leadership for our organizations and for our followers.  Indeed, if enough of us in…

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Defining Leadership

This series of articles is about small unit leadership.  Not leadership in a wider organization sense, but leadership down in the weeds.  We will be looking at the kind of leadership necessary for employees involved in highly complex problem-solving tasks (tactical situations to interpersonal communication skills).  The primary focus is for those leaders practicing their…

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