Understanding the worldview of law enforcement recruits can help organizations know who they are recruiting – new hires go through a regiment of interviews, background checks, medical and psychological tests, and polygraphs to get into the profession. Hopefully, at least at the beginning of a recruit’s career, we know who they are and why they have come to this profession. Most organizations wouldn’t hire someone with an overly cynical attitude or someone who distrusted everyone they met – generally we would consider these as negative character traits. But these are traits which develop in an officer over time and for a variety of reasons – why is this and why is it important when we discuss servant leadership?
Servant leadership isn’t a panacea. It isn’t the current buzz word in management training settings. It isn’t a quick fix to a problem that took a long time to create. In fact, it is a way of being – it is a worldview.
For an officer, it is a concept that is asking many of us to do something that we are not comfortable with because it asks us to be vulnerable. Vulnerability and the officer safety mindset don’t mix well. How can we bring a concept like servant leadership to a culture of officers who are cynical?
What thoughts do you have about how a worldview as basic and powerful as servant leadership can be cultivated in a culture which is suspicious by their developed nature? How can leaders assure those they serve grow and become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? More likely to become servants to their community?
I look forward to your responses.
Kim Edmondson
Servant leadership isn’t a panacea. It isn’t the current buzz word in management training settings. It isn’t a quick fix to a problem that took a long time to create. In fact, it is a way of being – it is a worldview.
For an officer, it is a concept that is asking many of us to do something that we are not comfortable with because it asks us to be vulnerable. Vulnerability and the officer safety mindset don’t mix well. How can we bring a concept like servant leadership to a culture of officers who are cynical?
What thoughts do you have about how a worldview as basic and powerful as servant leadership can be cultivated in a culture which is suspicious by their developed nature? How can leaders assure those they serve grow and become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? More likely to become servants to their community?
I look forward to your responses.
Kim Edmondson