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First-line leaders across the emergency services are instrumental in leading the development of a workforce fit to face current and future challenges. As such in addition to utilising their specific craft, leaders need to be equipped to understand and apply evidence-based practices. With a focus on first-line leadership in policing, this paper will have both national and international resonance for those organisations attempting to embed an evidence-based culture.

The paper utilises a review of literature to develop a viewpoint identifying challenges and benefits of the adoption of evidence-based policing (EBP) by first-line leaders.

First-line leaders, whether police officers, police staff or volunteers, require opportunities to develop their own knowledge, understanding and skills of applying EBP in the workplace. Acknowledging challenges exist in the widespread adoption of EBP, such learning, at the appropriate educational level, will enable leaders to effectively champion the adoption of EBP, informing both their own decision-making and professional practices as well as those across their teams.

The first-line leader role is highly influential, as such, it is essential that these leaders develop their knowledge, understanding and application of EBP in the workplace in order to lead the expected cultural change.

This paper provides a current framework for the understanding of the context and potential impact of educationally levelled formal leadership learning required to champion the broad adoption of EBP across policing.

This diary study tested some propositions to determine the effect of discrete emotions on three dimensions of emotional labor and their consequent effect on leaders and follower’s perception about leaders’ authenticity.

The data were collected from a cohort of city traffic police consisting 69 police officials at four different time points between their two shifts using experience sampling method. The data were analyzed using the latest technique known as latent growth curve modeling.

The statistical results demonstrated that negative emotions were negatively associated with deep-acting and three forms of emotional labor did not significantly affect followers’ perception about leaders’ authenticity. This study also demonstrated that surface-acting is not significantly associated with leaders’ self-perceived authenticity, but genuine-acting and deep-acting were negatively associated with leaders’ self-perceived authenticity.

This study also offers certain implications for policing officials for improve authentic behavior through daily emotional displays in policing organizations.

This study offers some practical implications for policing officials about emotion regulation strategies during policing practices with respect to the authentic sense of the leaders as well as the followers.

This study offers an insight about how emotional labor affects the perceptions of policing officers about the authenticity of their leaders in the context of traffic police.

This paper aims to consider the training provided to Volunteer Police Cadet (VPC) Leaders in police forces across England and Wales who, as part of the wider policing volunteer family, lead organised youth development activities for uniformed police cadets.

An online ethically approved questionnaire was administered to volunteer leaders across six VPC schemes hosted by police forces in England and Wales. The sample population being selected due to their geographical spread across both nations, along with the similarities of their VPC schemes. The questionnaire collected demographic information of respondents, then used a blend of closed questions. Likert scales and free text boxes to explore attitudes.

The training for the volunteer leaders seems to focus on the mandated elements provided to protect the cadets from harm and also the organisation from litigation. With little development of additional knowledge, skills and behaviours (and in some cases required qualifications) to enhance the service and opportunities delivered to the young people by the volunteers.

Due in part to the limited response rate, this research cannot claim to be representative of all individuals engaged in this voluntary role; it does however provide insights into the training of such volunteers.

The research informs the decision makers of how the training of volunteer cadet leaders within forces seems to focus on the completion of the mandatory elements, with little further development of the volunteers to deliver both varied and challenging activities for the cadets.

The research provides an insight for decision makers on how the training of volunteer cadet leaders within forces seems to focus on the mandatory elements, with few opportunities for further development of volunteer leaders to deliver new, varied and challenging activities for the cadets.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the leadership styles of police chiefs and how these styles related to demographic, personality, and effectiveness.

Participants included 161 police chiefs in Texas who completed the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X-Short) leader form, the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI), and a background characteristics form.

Results indicate that the police chiefs were fairly evenly classified across leadership styles with the Transformational leaders rated as most effective. Transformational leaders are characterized as confident, energetic, and open-minded. Although few of the demographic variables predicted leadership styles, several of the personality characteristics were significant predictors.

Few previous studies have reported the relationship between police leadership style, personality, and effectiveness. This study adds to the body of knowledge regarding the relationship between these variables by specifically targeting police chiefs.

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.

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.

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.

The police service in England and Wales faces unprecedented challenges as it moves further into the twenty-first century. Globalisation, increases and changes in types of crime, including cybercrime alongside perennial terrorist threats, coupled with budgetary constraints, mean that the way the police service has traditionally operated needs to change. In part, the police service sees the drive for professionalisation as assisting in providing an efficient and effective answer to the challenges ahead. Previous approaches to leadership styles, based upon hierarchy and rank, may not be the best approach for leaders in such a dynamic and professional organisation. The purpose of this paper is to argue for a debate and a rethink regarding the leadership styles employed by the police in their current role in the context of the influx of new graduate officers.

This paper presents a discursive argument based upon servant leadership (SL) models that aspire to address the multi-faceted challenges faced by the police service.

Leaders in the police service may well consider SL for its ability to release the potential and manage the aspirations of graduate officers. SL is also recognised for its potential in helping the police to better engage with important societal changes that will impact on its organisation and its structure in the future.

Previous approaches to leadership styles, based upon hierarchy and rank, may not be the best approach for leaders in such a dynamic and professional organisation. This is discussed in relation to a suggested style of leadership.

This paper considers the problems faced in leading a professionalised police service and the suitability of a novel approach to leadership, that of the “Servant Leader”.

Police leaders have been set an objective to achieve an increase in efficiency and productivity in all the various functions that the police force carries out, while continuing to drive the focus on developing public confidence in their service. There is also a focus on sharing knowledge, especially with forces of similar size and demographics and an emphasis on making efficiency and productivity a core responsibility for all chief officers and other police managers (Home Office, 2009).Knowledge management is not currently viewed as a core competency within the police service, although the creation and sharing of knowledge has always been core to policing (intelligence, incidents, statements, papers, reports and so on). This paper argues that knowledge management (KM) offers the police service a mechanism through which change can be achieved. It is proposed that by employing KM frameworks that separate knowledge creation from knowledge transfer, blockages rooted in culture, structure and competencies become evident, and police leaders can circumvent blockages and mobilise change in their various functions.

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.