Supervising Police Personnel - Strengths-Based Leadership Flashcards
Strength 1
Character
Number 1 value for a person of character?
Integrity
Pole of 10 million people learned what?
- 1/3 people said they had opportunity to focus on their strengths
- People who focus on strengths are 6x as likely to be engaged at work and 3x as likely to report above-average life satisfaction
Basic talents remain stable after what age?
Age 3
Strength Equation:
Talent x investment = strength
The 5 Intelligence:
- physical intelligence (PQ)
- mental intelligence (IQ)
- emotional intelligence (EQ)
- social intelligence (SoQ)
- spiritual intelligence (SQ)
3 components of a trustworthy character:
- Integrity
- Maturity
- “win-win” behavior
The genesis of all human relationships is what?
Trust
The centerpiece of police leadership is?
Decision making
Decision making formula:
D = moment + owned / character
Sources of values and strengths:
- Imprinting
- Modeling
- Socialization
Strength 2
Clarity
Six pillars of character:
- Trustworthiness
- Respect
- Responsibility
- Fairness
- Caring
- Civic virtue and citizenship
Two approaches to vision?
- Top down
- Bottom up
Strength 3
Engagement
3 types of employees?
- Engaged (30%)
- Not engaged (54%)
- Actively not engaged (16%)
The empowerment formula
Delegation + participation + capitalization / trust
4 types of delegation
- Stewardship
- Gofer delegation
- Delegation dump
- Micromanagement
Strength 4
Well-Being
5 universal elements of well-being
- Career
- Social
- Financial
- Physical
- Community
4 common errors with employee evaluations
- Halo errors
- Strictness errors
- Leniency errors
- Central tendency errors
PERMA
Positive emotions
Engagement
Positive Relationships
Meaning
Positive Achievement
5 domains of life:
- Career
- Social
- Financial
- Physical
- Community
Strength 5
Self-control
Poles report adults experience stress in their daily lives:
- frequently (42%)
- sometimes (38%)
- rarely (18%)
- never (2%)
4 dimensions of stress:
- Hyperstress: too much
- Hypostress: too little
- Eustress: favorable or positive change
- Distress: unfavorable or negative change
Strength 6
Teamwork
The process our brain uses when converting a sequence of actions into an automatic routine is called?
Chunking
When/where did SARA start?
Newport News, VA PD, late 1980s
SARA (Problem Analysis Guide)
- Scanning: identifying the problem
- Analysis: learning the problem’s causes, scope, and effects
- Response: acting to alleviate the problem
- Assessment: determining whether the response worked
3 phases of Problem-Orientated Policing (POP)
- Problem identification
- Analysis
- Approaches
PERF
Police Executive Research Forum
Signs of a Supervisor
- Character
- Authority
- Individual
- Results
- Control
- Skills
Signs of a Leader
- Character
- Power
- Team
- Performance
- Empowerment
- Strengths
T/F - For the sake of your team, it is best you put aside your individual strengths.
False
Leadership is the _________ to command.
capacity
Supervision is the __________ to command.
right
T/F - Excessing a strength is a benefit.
False, because you can become blinded.
Four functions of values
- Compass
- Communications
- Purposes
- Strengths
A value is an enduring belief that a specific goal and _________ of attaining that goal are very important.
means
Four ports of the value-programming period
- Imprinting
- Modeling
- Socialization
Genetics (DNA) shapes _________ % of our human behavior.
40%-50%
T/F - One way to change our values is by having a profound dissatisfaction with a particular value.
True, otherwise why change.
T/F - Another way to change a value is by experiencing a simple emotional event (SEE).
True
T/F - The single-most-important decision you can make on a daily basis is the choice of you attitude.
False, attitude is the second-most-important; the first is your character.
Your character and competency are most often described in terms of your __________.
strengths
T/F - The formula for integrity is simplistic.
False, the formula is simple but it is anything but simplistic.
T/F - Ethical values only require an honorable purpose.
False
T/F - There is a difference between police and personal ethical choices.
False
Three approaches to handling ethical challenges:
- Neglect
- Compliance-based
- Values-based
Six Pillars of Character:
- Trustworthiness
- Respect
- Responsibility
- Fairness
- Caring
- Civic Virtue and Citizenship
T/F - In the workplace, you get the behavior you reward.
True
T/F - A police agency that wants a strong ethical workplace hires for skill and trains for character.
False, hires for character and trains for skills.
T/F - Only good people feel guilty.
True
T/F - Public office is a public trust.
True
T/F - Having integrity means the tough choices become the easy ones.
True, having integrity means that you have the willpower and habits to turn the tough choices into easy ones.
T/F - A departmental vision is best from the top down to the line employee.
True
The bottom-up approach to conceiving a departmental vision depends on _________ ownership.
shared (and accountability)
T/F - Change is constant.
True
Four points of clarity:
- Whom do we serve?
- What are our core strengths?
- What is our core score?
- What actions can we take today?
T/F - Vision is fairly stable over time.
True, since vision consists of several values and purposes, it is relatively stable over time.
Three phases of building a good strategy:
- A diagnosis
- A guiding policy
- Coherent action
T/F - Typically a police agency has a single goal.
False
T/F - Of the two, stated goals are more influential than real goals.
True, state goals are often excessively influenced by what society believes police organizations should do.
T/F - Predicting a trend is more challenging than spotting one.
True
T/F - Anticipation occurs when we become conscious of the coincidences in our lives.
True, when we organize trends and correctly interpret them, they can be detected.
Communication is the…
- Transfer of meaning
- Understanding
- Environment
Five types of downward (supervisor to staff) communications:
- Job instructions: specific task directives
- Job rationale: information need to understand task and relation to other task
- Procedures and practices: information concerning procedures and practices
- Feedback: about officer’s performance
- Organizational goals: information to instill a sense of mission
T/F - One of the main benefits of an Issues Assessment workshop is that Command Staff knows exactly who has certain issues.
False, these workshop have the advantage of a large degree of anonymity to them.
Four reason for assuring across and diagonal communications:
- Teamwork: information necessary to ensure teamwork.
- Common problems: information for identifying and defining common problems to solve through cooperation.
- Feedback: from teammates that fulfills individuals needs.
4: Professional guidance: information needed to provide this for a work team so that it can maintain the members’ compliance with its standards and values.
Four conduits to communicate:
- Oral
- Written
- Nonverbal
- Electronic
Six types of Listening:
- Empathic Listening
- Appreciative Listening
- Comprehensive Listening
- Factual Listening
- Evaluative Listening
- Feedback
Ways to combat information overload:
- Slow down message handling
- Alter existing message network
- Change the transmission rules
- Group message traffic
- Improve the quality of the message
Empowerment is a ________________.
relationship
T/F - How we choose to experience the world is not shaped by our mindset.
False
T/F - Empowerment allows a supervisor to effectively give away his responsibility for making a decision.
False, empowerment is not giving away the decision; it is encouraging those who are affected by it to input their ideas and aspirations.
Four factors comprising empowerment:
- Trust
- Delegation
- Participation
- Capitalization
Of the four factors comprising empowerment, ______________ is the most fundamental.
Trust
T/F - When you delegate, you always delegate one thing for certain…uncertainty.
True
Four Types of Delegation
- Stewardship: concentrates on results instead of methods and commitment in five areas…(1) Desired results, (2) Turf, (3) Resources, (4) Accountability, and (5) Consequences.
- Gofer Delegation: highly routine assigned work, a total turn-off for police employees.
- Delegation Dump: you give one of your staff all of your work.
- Micromanagement
The crux of participation is ____________.
Sharing. You must share knowledge and information with others to gain their cooperation.
T/F - Strength-based leaders should ignore individual weaknesses.
False, It is your job to spot them and then decide whether it is a matter of training or talent. if the later, manage around this weakness and neutralize it by (1) finding the person a work partner who has a countervailing strength or (2) rearrange the person’s working world so that his weakness is no longer in play.
T/F - The driving force in one’s job satisfaction is most often recognition.
False, being empowered is the key driving factor in one’s job satisfaction. In other words, the more empowered you are the higher your job satisfaction, and vice versa.
What are the baseline values that promote a spirit of performance?
Baseline 1: Nonnegotiable High Standards
Baseline 2: Opportunities
Baseline 3: Character
Baseline 4: Emotional Intelligence
Baseline 5: Teamwork
LBO means…
Leading by objectives. This necessitates setting goals that are tangible, attainable, and measurable. Rather than using goals to control, LBO seeks to use them to engage.
Seven steps to setting objectives…
- Identification of the issue.
- Definition of the issue in a specific statement.
- Development of optimal strategies to deal with the issue.
- Selection of the appropriate option.
- Implementation.
- Evaluation.
- Feedback.
T/F - The reliability and validity of a performance evaluation system depends on a job analysis.
True, job analysis consists of researching the job and discovering what the job calls for in employee behavior. Then is a procedure for gathering the judgements of people who are knowledgeable about the organization, and the position within it it, and the specific content of a job (work activities and tasks).
Five sources of performance appraisals…
- supervisors,
- peers,
- the person being evaluated,
- subordinates of the person to be appraised, and
- people outside the immediate organization, such as citizens.
T/F - Your responsibility for being fair and helpful changes from your home to your work.
False, your responsibility for being fair, truthful, courteous, helpful, loyal and so on does not change from your home to your work. Ethics are ethics; they are not situational.
T/F - Having an internal affairs unit relieves the supervisor of a responsibility to maintain discipline.
False
Three types of problem employees:
- The Malcontent: the most common type of all and can be the most difficult to correct.
- Professional Misconduct
- Criminal Misconduct, also referred to as “corruption.”
T/F - A major distinction between professional misconduct and criminal behavior is “personal gain for the officer.”
True
Three phases of a citizen complaint:
Phase 1: Receipt of a Complaint
Phase 2: Investigation
Phase 3: Adjudication
If charge sustained, list six penalties that can be recommended by the supervisor.
Descending order of severity:
1. Oral reprimand
2. Written reprimand
3. Remedial training
4. Loss of time or of annual leave in lieu of suspension
5. Suspension of up to thirty days (but no longer)
6. Removal from service
T/F - Time management is in fact self-management.
True
T/F - Your approach to time must concentrate on you as a supervisor.
False, your approach must involve the total you. Dealing with your role of supervisor exclusively would be meaningless, or at best a long list of “to-dos,” many of which would never get done. Concentrate on your purpose-driven life, the total you.
Time is ________.
subjective
T/F - Leisure time is idle time
False, some of the most valuable work done in the world has been done at “leisure” and has never earned a salary.
Four Generation of Time Management:
- Characterized by notes and checklists.
- Epitomized by calendars and appointment books.
- Reflects the most prevalent form of time management (energy allocation).
- Recognizes that time management is misconstrued and seeks preserving and enhancing relationships and getting results through teamwork.
Time Management Matrix:
Fast/Slow and Critical/Noncritical Activities organized into four categories.
Category I: Fast/Critical (crises, pressing problems, deadline-driven projects)
Category II: Slow/Critical (preventing conflicts, planning, team-building)
Category III: Fast/Noncritical (interruptions, e-mails, meetings)
Category IV: Slow/Noncritical (busy work, phone calls, wellness activities)
Leaders should strive to become Category ______ time managers.
II
The first step to more effective time management is __________.
develop a personal mission statement.
Five organizing steps required of a Category II leader:
- Produce an individual mission statement.
- Identify your roles.
- Select your goals.
- Use weekly scheduling.
- Take action and be flexible.
T/F - You cannot control time.
True, while you cannot actually control time, you can certainly control yourself.
T/F - Happiness is an absence of all negative emotions.
False, happy and sad moments occur, and we should deal with both, making certain that the sunny side prevails. Raising your se point of happiness means feeling positive most of the time, not unbridled bliss.
Seligman, Jefferson, and __________ emphasize that happiness is a natural human right.
Aristotle
Leaders are usually well above average in ___________.
resiliency
Life’s five domains:
- Career
- Social
- financial
- Physical
- Community
The Losada Ration of how many positive strokes it takes to overcome one negative experience is ________.
Three
T/F - Accomplishment = skill x effort
True
T/F - Happiness is not a singular positive emotion.
True, actually it is known as a hive or constellation emotion. Comes from doing rather than having. It is not constant. Searches for new challenges and goals.
T/F - Engagement is different from positive emotions.
True, because if you ask someone who is engaged in an activity or thought process what he or she is thinking and feeling, the person will usually say, “nothing.”
_____________ is/are the best predictor of happiness.
social relationships
T/F - If smart and careful, you can avoid stress.
False, stress is unavoidable.
Stress is a demand on us to ___________.
change, how we handle stress determines whether it is harmful (distress) or helpful (vitality).
Stressors come from three sources:
- Personal
- Environmental
- Organizational (or social)
Four major dimensions to stress or change:
- Hyperstress: Too much
- Hyposstress: Too little
- Eustress: Favorable or positive changes
- Distress: Unfavorable or negative changes
T/F - Hypostress is always a negative change.
False, similar to hyperstress, hypostress can be either good or bad, depending on how one adjusts to its demands.
T/F - The U.S. Army CSF (Comprehensive Soldier Fitness) program is to help soldiers grow psychologically from excessive stress.
True
Three components to CSF:
- Building mental toughness
- Building strengths
- Building strong relationships
Five Strategies for Dealing with Poststress Events:
Strategy 1: Supportive Relationships - supportive structures; helpful people; give and take; positive strokes; stay-away-from -folks.
Strategy 2: Mental Discipline - mind focusing; comfort zone; avoid the 90-10 trap (thinking or focusing on the worst 10% of our lives).
Strategy 3: Helping Others - be there; listen carefully; being reasonably angry is okay; recommend professional counseling.
Strategy 4: The Three R’s - Reading for enjoyment; Relaxation; and Recreation
Strategy 5: Altruistic Egoism: looking out for yourself but in an altogether different frame of reference. This egoism is to be developed in and around being necessary to others. Eliciting the support and goodwill of other is a key ingredient.
T/F - There is no better predictor of a leader’s success than self-control.
True
We use willpower to exercise self-control over our ___________.
- thoughts,
- emotions,
- impulses, and
- performance.
T/F - You can’t alter your mood by using our willpower.
True, what we can change is what we think about or how we behave.
T/F - The very act of making a plan allows our brain to relax and preserve energy.
True
Self-awareness is a process whereby we compare ourselves to ____________.
self-regulating standards
T/F - Our brain can’t tell the difference between good and bad habits.
True
There is/are ________formula(s) for changing habits.
hundreds, there’s no secret formula.
Framework to change existing habits have three progressive steps:
- Identify the Routine
- Experiment with rewards
- Isolate the cue
T/F - There is no automatic sensation of lowered willpower.
True, it’s up to you to check yourself for subtle and not-so-subtle signs.
Our self-control depends on two variables:
willpower and positive habits
Two solid reasons why team leadership is on the rise:
- Issues are cross-disciplinary or cross functional
- Increased staff empowerment
T/F - When compared to a “Team Leader,” a “supervisor” tends to want their subordinates to rely on them.
True
T/F - Power is the capacity to command.
True, power to lead others is derived from your expertise and example.
The following is needed to help manage your boss:
At minimum, you need to appreciate your boss’s goals, and pressures, strengths and weaknesses, and values.
A good working relationship with a boss accommodates differences in work style. What are the five work style differences?
The boss’s…
(1) preferred way of receiving information;
(2) preferred method of making decisions;
(3) degree/type of expectation;
(4) amount of information required; and
(5) willingness to delegate.
T/F - Courageous team members assume responsibility for themselves and their police department.
True
What are the five things courageous team members must do?
- Assume responsibility.
- Work hard.
- Challenge.
- Champion change.
- Separate.
T/F - Effective leaders first establish their vision and ideas, then allow their integrity to develop over time.
False, effective leaders must establish their integrity first and their vision and ideas second.
Positive self-regard is a triangle consisting of what three components?
Side one: Competence (build positive self-regard by recognizing strengths and compensating for weaknesses)
Side two: Other-Regard (spread positive self-regard to others)
Side three: Wallenda Factor (don’t think about failure, instead learn from those experience of setback or delayed successes)
T/F - The worst mistake (aside form lying, cowardice, stealing, etc.), a leader can make, is to duck accountability.
True, there are three big mistakes a team leader can make, (1) ducking accountability, (2) taking all or too much credit for a job well done, (3) groupthink.
Eight symptoms of groupthink:
(1) Illusion of invulnerability.
(2) Belief in a sacred mandate.
(3) Rationalization.
(4) Rejection of external groups.
(5) Self-censorship.
(6) Direct pressure.
(7) Mind guards.
(8) Illusion of unity.
Groupthink usually occurs when…
- A team is highly insulated with limited access to outside feedback
- A team is in a stressful decision-making context
- A team is exposed to intense external pressure(s)
Team policing was a program of the __________.
1970s
T/F - Citizens will accept a range of response times for different types of calls.
True, when adopting COPS (community-oriented policing services).
COMPSTAT means…
computerized criminal record files
Crime fighting relies on five tactics:
(1) patrol
(2) rapid response to calls for service
(3) technology
(4) follow-up investigation of crimes
(5) performance measurements
T/F - COPS is a matter of more budget dollars.
False, COPS it is rather a need for internal transformation and community support, with the understand that crime is everyone’s business and that police really cannot do it alone.
T/F - Police agencies can be viewed as either incident- or problem-driven.
True, in reality they are typically a combination of both with an emphasis on one approach or the other.
T/F - POP is another word for crime prevention.
False, POP is much, much more. It involves an organization-wide and in-depth basic shift in policies, practices, and most of all, thinking. POP places effectiveness first and efficiency second.
There are eleven interrelated steps that comprise POP. Each step falls into one of three phases:
Phase A: Problem Identification
Phase B: Problem Analysis
Phase C: Approaches
(POP) Steps in Phase A: Problem Identification
Step 1: Grouping Incidents as Problems
Step 2: Focus on Substantive Problems
Step 3: Effectiveness First
(POP) Steps in Phase B: Problem Analysis
Step 4: Setting Up a System
Step 5: Redefining Problems
Step 6: Who’s Interested (or Should Be)?
Step 7: What’s Working Now?
(POP) Steps in Phase C: Approaches
Step 8: Customized or Canned (POP relies on tailor-made responses)
Step 9: Take the Offensive
Step 10: Decision Visibility
Step 11: Evaluation and Feedback (Without this step, POP is likely to fail.)
T/F - If POP is approached as a method for improving the police, it will fail.
True, if, however, it is looked on as a way to solve community problems, it has a chance of working.
T/F - Collecting data will automatically improve police work.
False, what improves police operations are the questions, conversations, and analyses that are ignited by supervisors, and the action that are pursed once the data starts to flow.
Pros of performance measurement are:
- Improve performance
- What gets measured gets supervised
- It’s workable
- Resource justification
- Transparency
Cons or reasons for resisting or downplaying performance measurements are:
- A threat or viewed as suspicious
- It’s been done before
- No cause-effect outcomes
- Unfair comparisons
- Performance measurement is a political tool
- There’s no way to measure what I do
- You’ll attach my pay to my performance
Performance measures consist of four words:
(1) Inputs
(2) Activities
(3) Outputs
(4) Outcomes
T/F - Performance measurement is a management tool to better gauge mission accomplishment.
True, performance measurement is not the end-goal…better mission accomplishment is the goal.
Four types of yardsticks used to measure police performance values:
(1) Statistical: output, rates, ratios
(2) Oversight: city councils, courts, media
(3) Community: surveys, neighborhood watch, citizen review
(4) Pro-steering: collateral assignments, projects that are time-certain, and pinpoint individual responsibility
Reasons why COMPSTAT is a good illustration of a statistical measuring tool:
- Oversight: It produces hard data that external overseers want.
- Accountability: It makes managers accountable for their performance.
- Reliable: The data is objective, simple, and behaviorally anchored.
- Rewards: Police managers are rewarded based on meeting or exceeding performance markers.
- Transparent: The performance reviews are frequent and open to public scrutiny.
- Clarity: Everyone is clear about measurables and markers. Guesswork is supplanted by hard work.
Three unintended benefits of COMPSTAT:
(1) Teamwork
(2) innovation
(3) Interest
T/F - Every time feelings and facts collide, feelings will bury the facts.
True
T/F - Hiring more police officers is solely responsible for drops in crime rates.
False, the hiring of additional police accounted for approximately 10% of the 1990s crime drop.
T/F - Measuring performance, outcomes, and strengths assures us that we’re leading police organizations toward what works rather than fixing what doesn’t
True
