Leadership Effectiveness

LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT

LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS – 1820-12301

EXPANDED COURSE OUTLINE

1. Introduction
   1. Administrative Details
      1. Instructors will provide each student with a course package containing agenda, name plates, restaurants, restrooms, phones and message services etc. All required forms and documentation will be turned in for processing. College registration is completed by appropriate staff. Instructors will explain and familiarize students with the overview and purpose of the class.
   2. Introductions - Each student will introduce themself using the following format:
      1. Name
      2. Unit of Assignment
      3. Years experience
      4. What is your definition of leadership?  Loyalty?  Courage? (Chose one)
      5. What do you see as a current problem/challenge in your agency/law enforcement?
      6. What do you expect to gain from this course?

2. Significance of Paradigms/Values/Principles
   1. Paradigms                                           
      1. Use "Butch Cassidy" clip to illustrate paradigm shifts.
      2. Paradigms: a view of reality constrained by fundamental assumptions and beliefs (value judgements).   Information outside of this reality is unrecognized, ignored or discounted as absurd  unless we challenge and suspend those assumptions, thereby allowing a paradigm shift.
      3. Our paradigm becomes a barrier to our learning and /or problem solving.
      4. We act on the assumption that our beliefs are absolute truths.
      5. What is the basis of our truths?
      6. Our truths are composed of all of our programing: how we were raised; education; life experience; religious background; socialization.
      7. Explain how our assumptions cause us to ignore information and to become arrogant.  “Ignorance begets arrogance.”
      8. All of the above contribute to the formulation of our value system.
   2. Values: Students will understand the need for recognizing value systems. Critical decision making regarding this separation of principles, morals and ethics. This section will include prejudice and the problems with gut level responses. Brief discussion regarding conflicts with personal and organizational goals. What are the desired organizational goals and leadership?
      1. Values: our deepest held beliefs, upon which we base the desires and decisions of our life.  They are not necessarily recognized, reasonable or beneficial.  All of our gut-level judgements of right/wrong, good/bad, important/unimportant are evidence of our value system at work.  Prejudices and biases are a part of this system.  (Note:  The instructor must steer away from a religious discussion, and recognize that religious

 beliefs are superior to any beliefs suggested by this course and that this course has neither the format nor the expertise to handle religious argument.  A simple statement to that effect avoids any controversy.)

1. 2. 2. Value systems
         1. Cultural
         2. Societal
         3. Organizational
         4. Personal
      3. Are values absolute or are they relative (dynamic)?
      4. Are there any values that are absolute or immutable?
      5. What is the highest value you have that is immutable?
      6. Is there a value that has no exceptions?
      7. Values are hidden and don’t come out without conflict.
      8. Do we change values?  How quickly?
      9. Where does “integrity” come from (root)?  What does it mean?  (wholeness, completeness) - def. To form , coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified whole.
      10. Integrity is not a value, but includes all of your values.
   3. Principles: Certain concepts, beliefs or standards which can be reasoned that to adhere to them will achieve greater good and minimize harm.  Not to consider them or violate them will cause harm.
      1. Have students give examples of principles (i.e. reverence for human life; obedience; being truthful).
   4. Ethics: The reasoning process we utilize to resolve perceived conflicts of principles in order to achieve the greatest good and minimize harm.
   5. Morals: Standards of conduct.  In contemporary use, those standards perceived as most private such as religion and sex.

3. River Game
   1. 1. The River Game is intended to challenge the student’s perspective on ethics, based on their demonstrated biases and assumptions, evidenced through games scenario.
      2. How can other ethical dilemmas be examined from the perspective of what has been presented in the morning session?

4. LUNCH

5. Pro-active vs. Reactive: Learning Goal:   Positive actions are understood as necessities for the overall good.  Seeking blame is explained for negative organizational impact.
   1. Reaction Stages: the first four are “fear based.”  The last two are based on “love.”(e.g., death of a loved one, cancer, 9-1-1, etc.)
      1. Shock
      2. Denial
      3. Anger
      4. Bargaining
      5. Acceptance
      6. Forgiveness
   2. Stimulus v. Choice
      1. We have choices of whether to respond or type of response.
      2. In order to have choice we must first accept responsibility.
      3. Deny responsibility and you eliminate choice.
         1. “I had to do it” - denial of choice
         2. “They made me do it”- denial of responsibility
      4. Determinism
         1. Genetic (my grandparents did it to me)
         2. Psychic/Behavioral (my parents did it to me)
         3. Environmental (my boss/wife did it to me)
      5. Modern society lives on excuses.
      6. Leaders accept responsibility for everything in their purview.
      7. Frankl did not have many choices, but once he knew he had choice, he became more powerful than his captors, who had more freedom, but followed bosses out of fear.
      8. How does the above relate to the concepts of “dependence, co-dependence, independence, and inter-dependence?”

6. Responsibility
   1. Responsible versus culpable is discussed for group identification. Feelings of helplessness and organizational issues are viewed.
      1. The world originally meant that we accept responsibility before an act, but now it means that we accept responsibility after the event.  It now means something similar to culpability.
   2. Video: “One Child’s Labor”
      1. How does Craig Keilberger define responsibility?
      2. Does his view of responsibility beg the questions “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
      3. Who is responsible for the homeless?  Do homeless lack discipline, motivation, character, values, principles?
      4. Who are the “homeless” in our organization?
      5. Defining and understanding responsibility as an intrinsic value is a significant paradigm shift.

7. Loyalty and Accountability
   1. Video - “A Matter of Honor” (Annapolis cheating scandal)
      1.  Learning goal: students will understand how organizational values are enforced.  Which organizational values are real and which ones are not?  Effectiveness at all levels stressed.
      2. What loyalty values came into conflict during the cheating scandal?
      3. How do “codes of silence” arise in organizations?
      4. Why are codes of silence so destructive to organizations and individuals?
      5. How is trust broken down by a code of silence?
      6. Where does loyalty become directed with codes of silence?
      7. Can a code of silence ever benefit an organization?
   2. Loyalty: quality, state of instance of being loyal; steadfast or faithful adherence to principle.

1. 1. 1. Steadfast: always present; unwavering.
      2. Faithful: belief beyond reason or proof.
      3. If loyalty means steadfast, this means loyalty all the way and not just when convenient.

1. 1. 4. Loyal implies undeviating allegiance to a principle which one feels morally bound to support or defend.
      5. Are we loyal to principle only?  What is a gang?  What characteristics do we as police have?
      6. What is misplaced/blind loyalty?
      7. How do we organize individual group principles?
      8. Placing one’s loyalty in an individual subjugates one’s principles to that individual.  The worst things that happen in our organizations are a result of misplaced loyalty.
      9. Loyalty recognizes that conflicts must be resolved by higher principles.
      10. Adhering to personal principles will allow one to be supportive of others.

VIII.     Leadership Defined - Students will understand the need for recognizing their role, as a leader, within the organization and the community at large. Students will understand the perceptions they have of themselves and others.

1. 1. Students’ discussion regarding the concepts and definitions of leadership. What are the differences between supervision, management and leadership? Cause and effect of shifting paradigms and how to allow fundamental shift in beliefs.
      1. Managers want followers.
      2. Management is a science because it is measurable, quantifiable and can be replicated.  We measure productivity.
      3. Leaders want to develop leaders -Utilizing a flip chart, placing the words planning, organizing, directing, controlling, under the heading management is generally sufficient for the students to provide comparative words under the heading of leadership such as inspiring, motivating, challenging, etc. This provides an excellent basis for drawing the extrinsic/intrinsic difference between the two concepts.  Request participants to think of the BEST leader ever personally known, and think of one outstanding quality that comes to mind.  List several on the flip-chart.  Repeat with the worst.  Compare and note almost total value nature of lists.  Note that “management” from first chart, fails to address the qualitites we most treasure in leaders.

1. 2. Unwanted Values/Traits/Skills
      1. Learning Goals : Students will understand and define unwanted traits. A list will be developed to illustrate these unwanted skills. Differences are discussed and how negative traits are developed.
      2. Break into four groups and generate lists of qualities, skills and values desirable in a leader.
      3. Preponderance of values.  Intrinsic nature of leadership.  Reexamine first charts, noting values of leaders.
      4. Competing qualities.  Complexity of a leader.
      5. Discuss possible logical groupings of listed items into meaningful topics that might lend themselves to instruction.
   3. Discussion
      1. The practical difference between Leadership and Management, is understanding the Intrinsic quality of the former and the Extrinsic quality of the latter
         1. the following is a comparative presentation:

                                                LEADERSHIP             MANAGEMENT

                                                Values                          Skills Training

                                                Power                                      Authority

                                                Accountability               Blame

                                                Post Heroic                              Heroic

IX.       Video: “Twelve O’Clock High” (this video is used as the cornerstone to discuss blame vs. accountability, task vs people management, Theory X & Y, power vs. authority, and discipline vs. punishment)

1. 4. Play the video till General Savage walks out of his introductory briefing and discuss
      1. Blame vs. Accountability (handout)
         1. Revisit concept of “responsibility” discussed earlier and contrast to Col. Davenports “taking (stealing)” responsibility from Lt. Zimmerman.
         2. Accountability is positive while blame is ALWAYS negative.
         3. If you blame someone for something, you are dodging responsibility.  You are deflecting it and putting it on someone else.
         4. Accountability accepts responsibility completely. If you are in an organization that blames, it hides mistakes.  But, if you hold people accountable, you bring mistakes and problems to light so that they can be fixed.
      2. Tasks vs. People (handout)
         1. Theory X believes that people do not inherently want to work; that they need the boss (leader) and external motivation to get things done.
         2. Theory Y believes that people inherently want to work; that they thrive on it.  People have internal motivation.
         3.  Terms such as: Heroic and Post heroic are identified in the culture.
   5. Continue video; play till conclusion of Inspector General episode.
      1. Power vs. Authority: Students will understand the need to care for others and where power and authority arise. Definitions of power are addressed and how power affects morale, professionalism and effectiveness of services. Authority is given as a possible opposite.
         1. Difference between power and authority
         2. Authority is given by management and is extrinsic
         3. Power is earned through leadership and is intrinsic
         4. Authority is most often perceived as negative while power is perceived as positive
         5. We must use both, but the focus of leadership must be on power.
         6. A true measurement of leadership ability is the effectiveness of the unit in the absence of the leader.  If you must be there then you are a manager.
      2. Discipline vs. Punishment: What are the traditional views of discipline?  A standard to set normal behavior versus seeking to exceed the standard. Negative connotations are discussed for group interaction.
      3. Discipline is always positive.  Discipline is not punishment or corrective action.  A disciplined individual is one who seeks to achieve or exceed the standard.  The absence of discipline means absence of trust, thereby a relationship falters and fails.
      4. When do we apply punishment?  In the absence of discipline.
      5. Authority is only legitimate in the absence of discipline.

1. 1. 6. Applied discipline is external, an outside entity sets that standard and demands that it is; in other words it is AUTHORITY.
      7. Internal discipline is when the standard is applied internally, by oneself, you set the standard for yourself and expect to meet it; in other words it is POWER.

X.        Group Attitudes - Students will recognize the different dynamics involved with group characteristics. Students will study the consequences of intergroup activities and the lack of individual action.

1. 6. Relationships
      1. Personal-Group-Intergroup Relations
         1. Facilitate a general discussion about some of the dynamics of these relations
         2. What do people seek through these relations?
         3. What kinds of dysfunctional behavior can emerge from these relations?
         4. Why do people undermine these relations?
   7. Video: “Group Think” - Discussion of group think (page 10 of workbook)