The NJ Police Chief Magazine Volume 23, Number 5 | Page 25

The New Jersey Police Chief Magazine | May 2017
Continued from previous page
this brought to a head were intense; one commented he felt like his time was
being wasted, one had feelings of being disrespected, many were disengaged,
some were distracted, some looked entirely quizzical, even intrigued. Stood before
them was a highly respected leader and trainer, who simply wasn’t speaking to
them. And there we have it, disengagement from interacting with your staff leads
to all sorts of problems, evident even if disengagement occurs for a short period of
time.
You’ll notice the last comment - they were intrigued, and so too are your staff.
They are made for relationships. They want to get to know you better; its human
nature, most probably they also want to impress you, but without employee
engagement you will never know what extra capabilities and extra discretionary
value your staff can commit to. So, how does this link to Chief Williams’ work?
Well, we all recruit good people, people who speak very wisely in their interviews, with a positive growth mind-set. They have an
interest in the job, they are idealistic in their answers to interview questions, they are keen and motivated, and intrigued about
what is going on in the police. Yet, according to Chief Williams’ research, many soon become sceptical and pessimistic, and
without engagement by their bosses, are permitted without intervention to spiral into the despair outlined above.
This isn’t likely to be occurring solely within the police. A quick glance of Chief Williams’ website reveals many testimonials from
other hard-working public and private sector leaders and their staff that have also spiralled in pessimism. The problem, it would
appear, is that many leaders think of ”engagement” as if it were a World War II dictionary definition of ‘first contact with the
enemy.’ I think we have all witnessed staff dive for cover whenever they see the Chief coming along the corridor!
So, within the classroom, I upped the tempo and began to “engage”, and the mood lifted.
John C Maxwell, renown author and leadership guru identifies that in order to move from a “positional” level of leadership (i.e.
people follow you because of your rank), you need to ensure people follow you because they want to (Maxwell calls this
“Permission”). The key word here is relationships, but without engagement leaders will never build the relationships required to
move up a level, and therefore the team will not be freely producing as much as they are capable of, as there will be no
discretionary effort. Find out personal things about your staff, care for them, empower them, trust them, in other words engage
with them and change the culture by creating a positive atmosphere to improve mind-sets.
Some fast-paced learner-led training activity in the classroom resulted in identifying factors that reveal your team may not be
“engaged.” We also explored the benefits in policing for employee engagement, and revealed, too, the causes of people
becoming disengaged. We then shared good practice, (tricks of the trade), 10 ‘I’s’ to improve engagement.










Involve employees in business planning and vision;
Inform employees through a knowledge sharing system;
Inspire employees through creating excitement;
Instruct correctly during on-boarding new recruits;
Incentivise employees by linking (creative) rewards and recognition;
Invite family to share successes at awards ceremonies;
Initiate Hackathons / Skunkworks;
Identify with employees’ sense of charity;
Interest: take an interest in your team;
Inside Out – get outdoors / teambuilding days
Some would say walk-the-walk as well as talk-the-talk. Speak to your team. On the way to your desk, make a point of taking a
detour and whilst doing so, take an interest in them, deliver a handwritten thank-you note for good work, place them on a
sought-after training course. Engaged employees are therefore not only committed to their organisation’s vision and values, and
contribute to their department’s success, but they are also passionate about their own work, boosting their feelings of
well-being. The antipathy of the aforementioned 5 strings.
The research for “Johari’s Window” reveals that the best performing teams, and best leaders, engage with each other, and do all
they can to ensure truth and honesty, with as much as possible out in the open, rather than hidden from the team. To do this
you need to be self-aware, and engaging with your team helps towards this.
One such way to become more self-aware is to be coached. Likewise for your team, one way is to coach or mentor your team.
So, quickly, here’s the difference: You go to a Mentor for answers, and you should only go to a Coach for questions!
A Leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aims fulfilled, they will say, we did it ourselves -
24
Continued on page 29