Performance, Morale, Job Satisfaction, and Resilience in Law Enforcement Leadership

Introduction

The various styles of leadership can be hard to navigate in law enforcement as organizations are made up of a large generational gap. Within the workforce of law enforcement there are four distinctive generations that are still actively serving their respective communities. The Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1979), Millennial (1980-1994), and Gen Z (1995-2012) are identified as present personnel. The differences between the generations are cause for concern as employers scramble to fill necessary positions for public safety. Generational differences can be described as the characteristics, social values, and beliefs a certain generation holds that are different when compared to another generation (Duron, 2018). With this gap comes the task of trying to find the consensus leadership style to use outside of the normal autocratic style that most law enforcement officers are accustomed to. This is where resilient leadership comes into perspective as law enforcement is vastly changing landscape where leaders have to adapt quickly in both good and bad situations. Davis and Bailey (2018) explained that command-based leadership is task-oriented, directive, and autocratic as police leadership is centralized from a top-down structure and lacks the innovative approach to expanding power throughout the organization. The contemporary policing landscape necessitates a move away from command-based leadership to incorporate innovative approaches to leadership (Davis & Bailey, 2018).

Along with this task is the ability to implement some type of strategy to survey, question, or analyze the temperature of the organization and immediately change the culture. The College of Policing (2015) confirmed the need to develop collaborative leadership practices in which power is dispersed across police organizations (College of Policing, 2015; Davis & Bailey, 2018). Power normally resides with the administration via the Chief of Police, Sheriff, or Commissioners and is flowed downward to the other ranking officials and line officers. Autocratic leadership is a style of leadership where a leader dictates guidelines, policies and directs and governs all activities without any meaningful participation by their employees (Hackman & Johnson, 2009). Law enforcement is turning into a marketplace that is beneficial to the employee to seek out the proper agency that checks off their needs prior to applying. Versus simply applying to any agency that has openings and adequate salaries. Autocratic leadership style has been greatly criticized during the past years and some studies informed that organizations with many autocratic leaders have higher turnover and absenteeism than other organizations (Cherry, 2015).

Many researchers in the past examined the performance and factors affecting employee performance (Chua et al., 2018). As employees are more prone to perform better when they feel a certain level of comfort and connection to the organization versus just simply being another meaningless employee. Leadership style is the most dominant factor that impacts employees’ attitudes and behaviors including organizational commitment (Chua et al., 2018). Research findings indicate the common factors of low morale to be low pay, poor job benefits (Goleman, 2017). Leadership appears to have a relationship with morale, regardless of whether or not the leader sees or understands this. Figuring out what may lead to morale issues within law enforcement agencies is a current challenge (Minto, 2019). Organizational research has found that job satisfaction promotes affective commitment and attachment (Yousef, 2017), reduces burnout (Peng et al., 2016), and increases employees’ intentions to continue working for the employer (Yousef, 2017). Organizational resilience is multi-discipline and multi-dimensional, and relatively new in human resource management science (Suryaningtya et. al., 2019).