IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jcjust/v38yi4p737-746.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The ineffective police leader: Acts of commission and omission

Author

Listed:
  • Schafer, Joseph A.

Abstract

The consequences of ineffective leaders and leadership practices, both in policing and in other occupational contexts, are well-established. Though ineffective leadership is often lamented, it has been subjected to limited scholarly inquiry. This study seeks to understand the traits and habits a group of police supervisors perceived in leaders they characterized as ineffective. Mid-career police supervisors attending the FBI National Academy completed open-ended surveys assessing their experiences with and perceptions of a variety of leadership matters. Based upon a consensus approach, the findings provide a framework to link negative leadership traits with individual and organizational outcomes. Respondents identified a number of traits and habits that were common among the ineffective police leaders participants had observed. In particular, five acts of commission (focus on self over others, ego/arrogance, closed mindedness, micromanagement, and capriciousness) and five acts of omission (poor work ethic, failure to act, ineffective communication, lack of interpersonal skills, and lack of integrity) emerged as recurrent themes in the survey responses.

Suggested Citation

  • Schafer, Joseph A., 2010. "The ineffective police leader: Acts of commission and omission," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 737-746, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jcjust:v:38:y::i:4:p:737-746
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047-2352(10)00103-0
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Engel, Robin Shepard, 2001. "Supervisory styles of patrol sergeants and lieutenants," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 341-355.
    2. Engel, Robin Shepard, 2002. "Patrol officer supervision in the community policing era," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 51-64.
    3. Dias, Clarissa Freitas & Vaughn, Michael S., 2006. "Bureaucracy, managerial disorganization, and administrative breakdown in criminal justice agencies," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 543-555.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nina Tomaževič & Aleksander Aristovnik, 2019. "Factors of Trust in Immediate Leaders: An Empirical Study in Police Service Environment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(14), pages 1-17, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christoff, Thomas & Carleton, Benjamin, 2024. "Buy-in for police early intervention systems: An initial exploration of what works," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    2. Kowalski, Brian R. & Lundman, Richard J., 2007. "Vehicle stops by police for driving while Black: Common problems and some tentative solutions," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 165-181.
    3. Willis, James J. & Mastrofski, Stephen D. & Kochel, Tammy Rinehart, 2010. "The co-implementation of Compstat and community policing," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 969-980, September.
    4. Engel, Robin Shepard, 2002. "Patrol officer supervision in the community policing era," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 51-64.
    5. Abura Samuel Pirir & Ongodia Ekomolot & Kiweewa Emmanuel & Tukundane Benson, 2022. "Assessment of Recruitment Methods and Employees’ Performance in local Governments, Karamoja Sub Region, Uganda," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 6(7), pages 410-427, July.
    6. Lee, Hoon & Vaughn, Michael S., 2010. "Organizational factors that contribute to police deadly force liability," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 193-206, March.
    7. Rabe-Hemp, Cara E., 2008. "Female officers and the ethic of care: Does officer gender impact police behaviors?," Journal of Criminal Justice, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 426-434, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jcjust:v:38:y::i:4:p:737-746. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jcrimjus .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.