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Leadership plays a key role ensuring the achievement of desired outcomes in both formal and informal groups. Insufficient leadership in policing can result in significant negative consequences for agencies and their personnel. Despite the importance of effective leadership within police organizations little is known about the process of developing effective leaders and leadership behaviors. The paper contributes to the limited available empirical knowledge using data collected from police supervisors. The intent is to assess supervisors' perceptions of how leadership abilities might best be developed and to identify the barriers inhibiting such efforts.

Open‐ended surveys are administered to students attending the FBI's National Academy, a career development program for mid‐career police supervisors. Respondents report their experiences with and perceptions of leadership development. The purposive sample of respondents provides insights from supervisors representing police agencies of various sizes and types from around the world.

Respondents indicate leadership skills are best developed through a combination of education, experience, and mentorship. Developing more effective leadership is dependent on the ability to overcome barriers, both within the profession and within individual officers. Finite resources, macro and local aspects of police culture, and failures of leadership by current executives are all viewed as working against the growth of effective leadership practices.

Given the dearth of empirical research considering dimensions of police leadership, myriad implications for future research are identified and discussed.

The findings provide important preliminary insights into the experiences and beliefs of police supervisors.

In recent years, police leadership integrity and standards have been positioned as central to the professionalisation agenda of the police service England and Wales (College of Policing, 2015). The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges for developing innovative, more people-oriented approaches to leadership in a command environment like the police.

A case study approach in one UK police constabulary was adopted. In all, 38 semi-structured interviews were conducted with senior police officers from chief constable to inspector rank. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed.

Police officers drew on managerial and command discourses in their understandings of leadership. Perceptions of the situation, particularly in terms of perceived risk and visibility, influenced leadership practices in the constabulary.

Current research and policy places emphasis on “what works” in police leadership; the meanings of leadership to police officers is overshadowed by a focus on effectiveness. Through the use of semi-structured interviews, this research captures police leaders’ understandings of themselves and their leadership. The findings reveal that, at a time when police leadership needs to become more innovative and people focussed, the pressures and complexities of contemporary policing mean that police officers retreat to leadership that is command-based and driven by the primacy of business needs.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the opinion of 126 police managers from 23 US states regarding their ideal leadership style as expressed under the items of the leader behavior description questionnaire (LBDQ).

Police managers attending a management course – the Administrative Officer's Course at the Southern Police Institute during the academic year 2007‐2008 – were surveyed regarding their opinions of ideal leadership styles. They responded to items on the leadership behavior questionnaire. The analysis is based on this survey.

Item analysis of their responses revealed the existence of three subscales (servant, autocratic, and laissez‐faire leadership), ANOVA revealed a strong preference for the style of servant leadership. These results indicate that these police managers believe that leaders should follow the tenets of servant leadership. They rejected the creeds of both the autocratic, command and control method and the hands‐off, detached style of laissez‐faire leadership. Policing has been long considered an autocratic, quasi‐military organization, yet these police managers expressed a decided preference for servant leadership.

Taking into account the limitations of the data set used in current analyses, the sample characteristics and the sample size, results should be interpreted cautiously. The sample used in this analysis is not a probability sample and cannot be considered representative for the entire population of American police officers. Because this is only an exploratory analysis, the sample used was relatively small. In addition, the LBDQ may not be the most appropriate scale to assess levels of servant leadership. Future studies on this subject and population should take heed of these limitations. However, due to the positive responses received from this sample concerning the applicability of servant leadership in police organizations, justification for further research on this subject is warranted.

The results indicate this sample of police managers believe that leaders should follow the tenets of servant leadership as expressed under the items of the leader behavior description questionnaire. Compared to these values, they rejected the creeds of both the autocratic, command and control method and the hands‐off, detached style of laissez‐faire leadership. Policing has been long considered an autocratic, quasi‐military organization, yet these police managers expressed a decided preference for the style of servant leadership. Perhaps a new wave of leaders is coming to policing with different ways of thinking about how the organization should operate.

One of the most popular texts on his subject, Donald T. Phillips’ Lincoln on Leadership – Executive Strategies for Tough Times, offers a superb examination of the President’s views on how to lead an organization. The purpose of this paper is to outline Lincoln’s leadership principles (15 chapters, 126 principles), illustrated and supported by 14 stories that narrated by Lincoln himself. This analysis is based upon papers submitted by police managers who analyzed Lincoln on Leadership that considered his examples through the lenses of their personal and professional experiences in policing. These police managers attended the Administrative Officer’s Course at the Southern Police Institute at the University of Louisville. In their assignment, these students identified three principles and three stories they felt were most significant to police leadership.

The authors conducted a content analysis of police student responses to questions about Lincoln on Leadership.

These police leaders made specific reference to the following leadership methods as practiced by Lincoln. It is best to get out among the troops from time to time to show your support, make direct observations and get relevant information about conditions and experiences. Honesty and integrity are crucial foundations for leadership that are irreplaceable. Give credit where credit is due. It is one of the best ways to establish credibility and loyalty. Sometimes leaders must do things they would rather not do but it is best to handle things quickly before disaster results. Yet, it is also often best to avoid conflict and difficulties when you can so you do not create problems for yourself – if there is another acceptable way to get the job done. When something needs to be done, leaders do not wait for others to do it for them. They strike when the time is right and the situation demands it.

These respondents represent a non-random, convenience sample and may not represent the population of police managers. These officers are selected by their departments to attend the AOC. Thus, they are interested in career development and their views may not be typical of the population of police managers.

The research findings support leadership conclusions in the research literature on leadership in general and police leadership in particular.

The findings indicate that these police leaders are open to the use of methods that would be more acceptable to the community and members of the police organization.

The study provides a glimpse into the views of police leaders and the methods that they endorse.

Police leaders and leadership remain understudied within existing criminal justice scholarship. Using data derived from police supervisors participating in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) National Academy program, the purpose of this paper is to examine effective leaders and leadership. Specific consideration is given to the traits and habits of effective and ineffective leaders, the assessment of leadership efficacy, the development of leaders, and the barriers to the expansion of more effective leaders and leadership in contemporary policing.

Surveys were administered to over 1,000 police supervisors. Respondents ranked the traits and habits of effective and ineffective leaders, methods to evaluate leadership efficacy, and barriers to the expansion of more effective leaders and leadership. Though a convenience sample, the supervisors represent a diverse mix of police agencies of various sizes and types from around the world.

Ratings suggest respondents saw effective and ineffective leaders as expressing nearly opposite sets of traits and habits. Efficacy was most strongly linked with integrity, work ethic, communication, and care for personnel; ineffective leaders were characterized as failing to express these traits. Respondents cast leadership development as a process best‐achieved through a mixture of training/education, experience, and feedback. Surprisingly, the most highly‐rated barriers to the expansion of effective leaders and leadership practices were not fiscal, but cultural, structural, and political.

Findings suggest key policy implications for police organizations and the policing profession. Many highly‐rated traits and habits may be linked with personality traits; this could complicate the capacity of leadership development initiatives to enhance these behaviors. Results suggest development programs need to do more than simply expose students to a diverse set of theories and perspectives of leadership; mentoring and guided experience were also rated as helpful. Major barriers to the expansion of effective leadership were not issues easily or quickly overcome, complicating the long‐term prospects of enhancing the quality of leadership within policing.

Given the paucity of systemic and large‐scale studies of police leadership, the findings offer important parameters to guide future research efforts. Though some results validate what might be assumed about police leadership, that validation is largely absent from the extant literature. The results provide a starting basis to guide subsequent research assessing the outcomes, evaluation, and development of police leaders.

In common with other public sector bodies, the police service recognises that the development of leadership capability amongst its workforce is key to improving levels of both performance and service delivery. The recently developed Police Leadership Qualities Framework lays out a clearly defined model of leadership, and is underpinned by a framework of values and behaviours that enable that model to be developed in practice. This paper expands on one of the key underlying principles of the model that leadership is evident at all ranks and grades of the service, and is a skill that can be developed. This article postulates that each individual has their own ‘leadership space’ which it is important they are able to fill effectively. Individual and organisational failings often occur when this ‘space’ is not properly filled ‐ through lack of skill, development opportunity or experience. The paper considers a cognitive and behaviourist approach to learning and explores some of the ways in which leadership capability is developed in the police service.

There is a proven linkage amongst the theories, practice, and literatures of entrepreneurship, management, and leadership. Accordingly, this chapter explores these linkages in policing and criminal contexts. Traditionally, the police have adopted a combination of heroic, bureaucratic, and autocratic approaches to leadership although individual police leaders do utilise a wide variety of appropriate leadership styles including charismatic and Laissez–Faire leadership. Great Man theory also influences police leadership styles and actions. Other novel appropriate leadership styles such as ‘humble’ and ‘agile’ leadership are also considered because of their potential fit with entrepreneurial policing philosophy and practice. Police leadership is immersed in the Military model of policing discussed in Chapter 2 and this includes its semiotics and symbolism. There is an inherent and ongoing tension between two very different competing leadership styles namely the ‘Commander Model’ versus the ‘Executive Model’. Both are relevant in different circumstances.

Although an increasingly complex work environment requires shared forms of leadership in the police, there is little empirical evidence on how to facilitate shared leadership in the police. The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of transformational leaders in supporting shared leadership.

The study is based on an online survey in a German state police (3,000 invited participants, a 39 percent response rate). The empirical analysis relies on a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach.

The study findings reveal that transformational leaders exert a direct, positive influence on shared leadership and have an indirect, positive influence through their capacity to clarify organizational goals and create job satisfaction for followers.

This large-scale study is the first to examine antecedents of shared leadership in the police. The results expand on the literature on transformational leadership by highlighting transformational leaders’ role as “SuperLeaders” in supporting shared leadership.

Although the private sector has long understood that a customer-focused service is synonymous with success, the concept is less embedded in public agencies such as the Police. Cultural studies consistently argue that police practitioners perceive “citizen focused” or “quality of service” approaches as distant to “real policing”, making the concept difficult to implement. The purpose of this paper is to explore the complex infrastructure required for the implementation of this approach, specifically focusing on senior police leadership.

Using semi-structured interviews across a diversity of police officers and staff it provides a case study of a city Police Force in England, who attempted to introduce a citizen focused approach between 2006-2010.

Senior police leaders were reported to exhibit distinct and consistent leadership styles with a “transformational” style more positively associated with the implementation of this agenda.

The study argues specific leadership styles are critical to the delivery of “quality” approaches.

No other case studies currently exist that have explored the role of police leadership in the field of quality service/citizen focused approaches.

The purpose and approaches of this article differ from those of prior research in several ways. First, while existing leadership meta-analytic research has focused on the relationship between specific types of leadership and organizational correlates, this study is a comprehensive and systematic meta-study of overall leadership types and organizational effectiveness. Second, while most of the aforementioned previous leadership meta-analysis studies target various countries and organizations, this study focuses on the leadership of the police, especially the South Korean police, and organizational effectiveness. In particular, this study is necessary because leadership meta-analysis studies of police organizations are rare. Third, this study can contribute to the accumulation of leadership knowledge in the context of contingency theory. According to contingency theory, no form of leadership is effective in all situations. Both the environment and organizational factors of leadership have a significant impact on the effectiveness of leadership. In this regard, it is very meaningful to meta-analyze the studies on leadership and organizational effectiveness of the Korean police and interpret the results in conjunction with the Korean national context and the characteristics of the police.

In this study, the authors conduct a meta-analysis of the studies on the leadership and organizational effectiveness of the South Korean police. To select the literature for the meta-analysis, the authors used the Preferred Items for Systematic Views and Meta-analysis procedure. First, 254 papers were searched, of which 133 were published in academic journals and 121 were dissertations. Second, 84 studies were selected, excluding 135 double-discovered studies, 30 studies unrelated to police leadership and 5 undisclosed studies. Finally, the authors checked the abstract and content of the literature. The authors evaluated the quality of the 36 studies that were selected through the above process. The authors estimate the sample size–weighted mean correlation by reflecting the sample size of each study in the converted Fisher's z-value. The final result is presented by reverting to the correlation coefficient for convenience of interpretation. Through this meta-analytic process, the authors estimated the mean effect size of whole leadership on the organizational effectiveness of the Korean police by integrating the effect size of each study.

The findings of this study have the following theoretical and practical implications. First, the results of this study indicate that the above trends in international leadership research have been applied to the Korean police as well and that the above trends in international leadership research have been applied equally to research into the South Korean police. The authors argue that more servant leadership studies are needed on the South Korean police. Second, the results of this study demonstrate that leadership is strongly correlated with organizational effectiveness among the South Korean police as well. Leadership is also found to be significantly positively related to attitude, behavior and satisfaction among the South Korean police. These results suggest that the leadership of police managers is very important for effective organizational management and improved police performance. Third, the results indicate significant differences in the effect sizes of each type of leadership. The largest effect size is the empowering leadership (EML), almost double the smallest effect size, authentic leadership. The results of the current study also indicate that transactional leadership (TSL) has a strong correlation with organizational effectiveness. Advanced research shows a significantly smaller effect than the magnitude of the effect size in this study. The authors examine the powerful effect of EML among the South Korean police from the perspective of organizational culture and the characteristics of the South Korean police. Influenced by social culture, the South Korean police also have hierarchical characteristics and a rigid organizational culture. In addition, although the police have strong discretion due to the nature of policing, individual police officers often have to take responsibility for the consequences of police discretion.

The most significant limitation of the current study is the lack of research using meta-analysis. The meta-analysis of the study was conducted on the police leadership and organizational effectiveness of one country, Korea. This is both a strong and weak point of the study. The lack of effect size on other leadership styles except transformational leadership and TSL can make it difficult to generalize the study results. There are only four samples of effect size, so careful interpretation is needed. This is also the inherent limitation of meta-analysis. After sufficient research is accumulated, it is necessary to re-estimate the effect size in future studies. In this study, the authors found differences in the effect sizes on organizational effectiveness by leadership types among the South Korean police, but more research is needed to determine the cause of the difference. In addition, this meta-analysis has a very high level of heterogeneity. This implies the possibility of various moderators, but the current study does not consider moderators. The authors recommend a continuous study on moderators that play a role in the relationship between police leadership and leadership outcomes.

In this study, the authors found differences in the effect sizes on organizational effectiveness by leadership types among the South Korean police, but more research is needed to determine the cause of the difference. In addition, this meta-analysis has a very high level of heterogeneity. This implies the possibility of various moderators, but the current study does not consider moderators. The authors recommend a continuous study on moderators that play a role in the relationship between police leadership and leadership outcomes.

The authors’ empirical evidence once again supports the claim of leadership contingency theory that leadership is the result of the interaction of factors such as followers, leaders and organizational environments. It is difficult to conclude that the most effective leadership style among the South Korean police is EML. However, the authors’ findings can raise reasonable questions about generalized leadership effects and serve as evidence that the effects of leadership can vary across national and organizational contexts. Nevertheless, the authors can ask reasonable questions about the existence of generalized leadership effects. Furthermore, the authors’ findings can serve as evidence that the effectiveness of leadership can vary depending on cultural and organizational contexts.

Numerous studies have been conducted on leadership and organizational effectiveness. However, meta-analysis studies on the relationship between leadership and organizational effectiveness focusing on certain national police forces have been limited. In this regard, the current study conducted a meta-analysis on the correlation between leadership and organizational effectiveness for South Korean police. While existing leadership meta-analytic research has focused on the relationship between specific types of leadership and organizational correlates, this study is a comprehensive and systematic meta-study of overall leadership types and organizational effectiveness. While most of the aforementioned previous leadership meta-analysis studies target various countries and organizations, this study focuses on the leadership of the police, especially the South Korean police, and organizational effectiveness. Previous research studies on the leadership of the Korean police have not properly considered national and cultural contexts. Most of them have the same limitations, that is, they applied each leadership theories that were developed in foreign countries (especially transformative leadership and transactional leadership) to the Korean police to explain whether each leadership type has a significant relationship with organizational effectiveness. The meta-analysis of this study can contribute to existing literature by overcoming this limitation. In addition, if the authors’ results match the cultural and historical characteristics of Korean police, they can provide evidence of the potential for effective police leadership in each country. The authors can also argue that meta-analysis of police leadership in other countries is necessary.