New Directions in Police Leadership

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New Directions in Police Leadership
Entrepreneurial Policing and Entrepreneurial
Leadership

• Dr Robert Smith
• SIPR Lecturer in Leadership

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OVERVIEW OF PRESENTATION

• Police Leadership a resume of styles.
• Entrepreneurial Policing Articulated
• Entrepreneurial Leadership Explained
• What does it mean for the Police Service
• How can it be contextualised within existing
  police ideology
• The Humble Police Leader

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POLICE LEADERSHIP STYLES

• Leadership / Management / Supervision a
  difficult trinity to master
• Militaristic
• Hierarchical
• Bureaucratic / Corporatism
• Autocratic
• Charismatic (Great Men Thesis)
• Laissez-Fair ???
• Transactional versus Transformational

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THEMES IN POLICE LEADERSHIP

• New Public Management (Osbourne Gaebler, 1998)
  But the Police Service is the most resistant of
  all Public Services
• Performance Indicator Culture Drive for
  Efficiency but at what cost
• National Intelligence Model Leadership is now
  enacted within tasking Group Culture
• Political Interference versus the Doctrine of
  Constabulary Independence
• The search for New Doctrine
• New Entrepreneurialism in the public services
• Entrepreneurial Policing ???????

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ENTREPRENEURIAL POLICING ???

• The policing entrepreneurship nexus is an
  underdeveloped phenomenon
• Was first mentioned in America in relation to
  sponsorship on Police Vehicles
• But it has more than fiscal implications for the
  Police Service
• It has Organisational and Operational
  implications
• As used in the context of this argument it refers
  to a loose style of Leadership and Managerialist
  Ideology (Smith, 2009)

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WHY SO?

• Entrepreneurship is a life theme (Bolton
  Thompson, 2000) therefore it pervades society
• Entrants to the Police Service often have prior
  entrepreneurial experience which they must
  unlearn to fit in with Police Culture
• Entrepreneurship is a doctrine or method of
  operating. At its most basic narrative level it
  is all about the Poor Boy Making Good and
  about rising from Humble Beginnings
• So theoretically there should be no reason why
  entrepreneurship theory does not resonate with
  the Ideology of Policing and with the concept of
  Meritocracy

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ENTREPRENEURIAL POLICING

• Emerged as a concept in the late 1990s in
  Academia and in Government and has spread
  throughout the last decade.
• It is used by Academics, Politicians and a few
  Enlightened Chief Officers
• At present it is a loose, floating concept which
  means different things to different people
• It has yet to gain currency in the lexicon of
  policing !
• But is it merely another pseudo-managerial fad?

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POLICE ENTREPRENEURIALISM An emerging
literature

• The Entrepreneurial Detective (Hobbs, 1987, 2001
  Mars, 2000)
• Police Patrol Officers as Entrepreneurs (Various)
• Remaking the Entrepreneurial Officer (Palmer,
  2005)
• The Entrepreneurial Detective and Collator
  (Fletcher, 2006)
• Team Entrepreneurship as a particular strength
  of policing (Smith, 2008)
• Call for entrepreneurial policing and end of risk
  aversion (Flanagan, 2008)

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A REALITY CHECK

• The Police Service with its hierarchical rank
  structure is anti-entrepreneurial
• It is not a free market system therefore there is
  a misfit with many facets of entrepreneurship
  theory You cannot start your own Police Force
  or set up in competition
• However, Corporate Entrepreneurship,
  Intrapreneurship and Managerial entrepreneurship
  are serious options worthy of exploration
• The Entrepreneur-Bureaucrat A Paradox

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ENTREPRENEURIALISM A HEALTH WARNING

• Hisrich Peters (1992) sum up the guiding
  principle of corporate culture as follow
  instructions given, do not make any mistakes, do
  not fail, do not take the initiative, but wait
  for instructions, stay within your turf, and
  protect your backside This restrictive
  environment is of course not conducive to
  creativity, flexibility, independence, and risk
  taking - the jargon of intrapreneurs
• Likewise, Kirby (2003) argues large
  organisations often see enterprising individuals
  as loners (not team players), eccentrics,
  interested in pet projects, cynics, rebels, free
  spirits, responsible for sloppy work

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DARING TO BE DIFFERENTEesley (2006) barriers to
Intrapreneurial Activity -

• Punish risk taking, new ideas and mistakes
• Sidelining new and good ideas
• Failing to sanction, promote or encourage
  difference
• Promulgating politics and infighting or with
  holding cooperation
• Poor communication within organisational silos
• Discouraging staff to take the initiative / seize
  opportunities
• Setting unclear organisational missions,
  priorities and objectives
• Withhold Management Support
• Fail to reward risk taking
• Fail to allow inadequate time or resources for
  staff to achieve
  

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HEIRARCHICAL LADDER help or hindrance ?Where is
the entrepreneur on this scale?
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WHO ARE THE POLICE ENTREPRENEURS ?

• Enlightened Chief Officers (Richard Brunstrom,
  Mike Fuller, Sir Robert Mark and Sir John
  Alderson are all excellent examples)
• Any police employee including the Questioning
  Constable because entrepreneurship and
  entrepreneurial proclivity knows not the bounds
  of rank this poses problems in hierarchical
  organisation
• External Academics or Experts particularly when
  working in conjunction with police forces on real
  policing issues. This resonates with Australian
  experience
• It is paradoxical that quite often the individual
  capable of leading an organisation is to be found
  at its margins.

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ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP

• Because autonomy of action and the
  superintendence of resources in its widest sense
  in a police setting require the individual to
  hold rank it stands that the majority of Police
  Entrepreneurs must be those who hold a managerial
  rank
• This brings the notion of Entrepreneurial
  Leadership very much in to play
• BUT entrepreneurs emerge from a system and cannot
  simply be appointed
• A very Real Dilemma for Command

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ENTREPRENEURIAL LEADERSHIP EXPLAINED

• Leadership is a function associated with
  entrepreneurship (McGrath MacMillan, 2000)
• Casson (2000) we are socially programmed to exalt
  leaders and entrepreneurs gain power and
  legitimacy from twin levels of social approval
  from being a leader and an entrepreneur
• Entrepreneurial leadership is associated with
  charisma and communicational ability
• But beware the Maverick Label

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WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE POLICE SERVICE ?

• Entrepreneurial Policing is very much about
  changing the present Blame Culture in Policing
  and in particular in relation to the prevailing
  aversion to controlled risk taking
• It is about the Empowerment of Staff and building
  in freedom to fail on occasion
• It is about renegotiating the boundaries of trust
• It is about changing the Rank Legitimacy
  Paradigm
• NO EASY TASK

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RE CONTEXTUALISING ENTREPRENEURIAL POLICING

• Entrepreneurship is a life theme therefore it
  does not entail learning new tricks merely
  unlearning old restrictive ways of doing things
• Nor does it necessarily entail sweeping changes
  to organisational or operational procedures
• It does not require the implementation of
  expensive training courses
• It merely requires a willingness to embrace
  change and to value and reward creative
  difference in a genuine problem solving
  environment

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• Above all else it requires the implementation of
  a variety of LEADERSHIP STYLES appropriate to the
  situation
• No one leadership style fits every situation and
  so it is with Entrepreneurial Leadership and
  Entrepreneurial Policing
• Neither are panaceas for all the ills in
  contemporary policing
• There will be costly mistakes along the way in
  the new era of devolved budgets but future
  leaders would do well to learn best from the
  mistakes of others.

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• The Entrepreneurial Organisation is a Learning
  Organisation
• What constitutes Entrepreneurial Policing in one
  police force may not be applicable to another
• The Art of Entrepreneurial Leadership lies in
  having the confidence to work towards a realistic
  and achievable vision of the future. Not as it is
  but as it could and should be.
• It entails having the courage to let go of
  existing restrictive philosophies and step boldly
  into the future

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CONCLUDING REMARKS

• Embracing change requires humility of leadership
  alien to existing models of Police Leadership
• Humble Leadership ???? Worthy of exploration
• Remember Entrepreneurial Leadership and
  Entrepreneurial Policing are only two of many
  possible leadership styles. To be of utility in a
  policing context they will have to survive on
  merit
• Policing as a family business? Police Families?
• Most police entrepreneurs emerge from non police
  families (Panzerella, 2004)
• Entrepreneurialism as the doctrine of collective
  individualism?

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• In this presentation I have only touched upon a
  fraction of the possible applications and
  outcomes of Entrepreneurial Policing
• It is a subject worthy of serious academic and
  practitioner debate
• To join the debate email me on
  r.smith-a_at_rgu.ac.uk to contribute
• THANK YOU !