SERVE YOUR FOLLOWERS
By Robert Vernon
Published in Law Officer Magazine © 2006
For the last two decades, much attention has been devoted to
visionary leadership, which emphasizes mission and objectives. This
concept is right on target and helps develop leaders. Now, in
addition, successful leaders promote a powerful leadership style
called “servant leadership.”
Servant leadership is based on a basic premise: Once leaders inspire
followers to “buy in” to a clear mission or objective, the leaders
shift their role to that of a supportive coach. In other words, the
leader serves the followers by giving them whatever they need to
pursue the mission. The leader gets out of their way and assumes a
supportive, serving role rather than that of a whip-cracking boss.
Important: Motivation and even inspiration are not enough.
The people who get the job done need support, and the leader must
see that they get it.
Equip Your Officers
During our first three years of operation, members of the Pointman
Leadership Institute conducted a survey in more than 15 countries,
including the United States. We asked seminar participants to
indicate what behaviors they appreciated in their leaders. The top
10 behaviors included the expectation that the leader equip them for
their task or mission. We learned the participants meant “equipping”
in the broadest sense. Providing training, education, mentoring and
technical equipment are just a few examples of the supportive
behavior they rated as highly desirable. Our survey revealed this
responsibility was the most neglected of the top 10 leadership
behaviors identified.
Servant leaders do not perceive the individuals they lead as a means
to an end, but rather as a major part of the end. A servant leader
views followers as fellow human beings with similar dreams,
aspirations and needs. This kind of leader knows achievement of
excellence brings fulfillment and joy. Therefore, servant leaders do
whatever is needed to support followers in tangible ways. They keep
an ear to the ground to stay abreast of cutting-edge hardware,
equipment and other supportive systems. Then they do their best to
get these supportive items to their followers.
Caution: Focusing on one area of support to the neglect of
others can cause problems. In other words, providing the latest in
technology without education, training and other types of
preparation can prove futile.
Learn From Mistakes
My best insights on leadership have come through personal failures
and blunders. At one point in my career, I commanded seven detective
divisions. Having worked on some homicides, I was aware of the mass
of paperwork involved in each investigation. We referred to our
investigation documents as homicide books—and books they were, often
several inches thick. I determined I would do something to help the
officers involved in this laborious documentation process. I
succeeded in getting state-of-the-art dictating equipment for
homicide detectives in one of the divisions, and I arranged for the
necessary clerical support. I was well-intentioned. I wanted to
relieve them from the time-consuming task of manually writing the
volume of documents involved in each investigation. However, the
captain of the detective division involved in the initial deployment
of the equipment grew frustrated, reporting the detectives were
resisting the use of the new technology. He said when he put
pressure on them to use the new device, he discovered our blunder.
In response to his direction, some of the detectives were actually
reading from their traditional yellow tablets into the dictating
devices. In providing equipment, but failing to prepare them for its
use, I had unwittingly doubled their work rather than helped them. I
had not given sufficient attention to building dictation skills and
confidence in the new system. From a practical standpoint, you can’t
lead people to perform an act they remain incapable of doing.
The Bottom Line
It’s been said followers don’t care so much about how much the
leader knows, but rather how much the leader cares. Amazingly,
followers will tolerate and forgive a leader for inadequacies if
they know that leader is sincerely trying to support them.
Simply put: People are more likely to follow a leader who provides
them whatever they need to help them do their jobs. Servant leaders
accept the essential role of providing their followers with
everything possible to get the job done safely, efficiently and
effectively—on point.
Bob Vernon retired from the Los Angeles Police Department after 37 years on the force. He earned an MBA at Pepperdine University and is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Managerial Policy Institute and the FBI’s National Executive Institute. After retirement, Vernon founded The Pointman Leadership Institute (visit http://pointmanleadership.org), which provides principle-based ethics seminars around the world for police agencies, parliament members, military leaders and a variety of other groups.