The concept of servant leadership has recently become very popular, but it is by no means new.  Many leaders through history have demonstrated servant leadership by showing others what they expected of them:  the greatest leader is the lowliest servant also. Good leaders naturally do good things and make their lives matter.  Servant leaders do great things.  They help others to make their lives mean something.  They do this by serving others.  They don’t tell people what to do.  In this radical approach to leadership, they ask their people, “What can I do for you? What can I do to help you succeed at your job?  What do you need from me?”  This is contrary to most people raised in a law enforcement culture with its formal hierarchy.  Most older officers, who are now in leadership positions, grew up in an environment where orders were given, questions were frowned upon, and the boss never asked what he could do to be of assistance.  Servant leadership was rarely modeled and even more, rarely rewarded in the past.  Leadership skills were used for personal gain and career advancement, and rarely, if ever, in the service of others.

That is somewhat ironic in that the success of most leaders is measured by the results produced by their people and not by their individual work product.  Most chiefs and sheriffs are concerned about reducing the crime rate or the number of injury and fatal accidents.  This can only be done by the collective effort of every member of the department.  It is the sergeant’s job to find out what training and resources people need to do their job more effectively.  This can only be done by asking the questions from the previous paragraph.  A sergeant can order people to work harder and demand that they do more to reduce the crime rate, but if they don’t have what they need to do the job, all the demands in the world will not lower the crime rate.  In fact, the only thing coming down will be morale, while the sergeant’s blood pressure goes up.  Officers are good at what they do and when given the proper tools (i.e., crime statistics by beat, surveillance equipment, adequate staffing, training specific to the issue, etc.), they can better accomplish their organization’s goals.  This makes them feel good about their work and makes their leader look good.  Servant leadership is not easy for some supervisors to embrace, but it permits the greatest number of people to experience the greatest rewards.  It is the ultimate “win-win” relationship. These are the major topics to be discussed throughout this lesson:

*Identifying the most essential skills needed to be a successful servant leader.

*Discussing examples of great servant leaders and what made them so.

*Implementing an Empowerment Model to help followers make better decisions on their own.

*Discussing ways to consistently demonstrate servant leadership.

*Developing coaching and mentoring skills that help some followers improve unacceptable performance and allows others to achieve greatness.

*Developing a career plan for followers that serves as a meaningful guide to help them with career decisions.

TARGET AUDIENCE:  This four-hour class involves a lot of student interaction and is recommended for every member of a police department – civilian and sworn.