POLICE DYNAMICS LEADERSHIP SERIES
Developed and presented by Sheriff Ray Nash, the Police Dynamics program is a series of character-based principles, known as “dynamics,” that are designed to empower law enforcement and public safety leaders to be more effective in both their professional and personal lives. The dynamics are packaged in a fast-paced and exciting program that is entertaining, enlightening, and relevant to the challenges facing public safety today. The principles are universal in their application and can strengthen and stabilize relationships within the community, inside the organization, and even family. After implementing Police Dynamics, agencies from around the world have reported an increase in morale, performance, and public support coupled with a decrease in crime, citizen complaints, and ethical failures.
Dynamic of Coactivity: The Power of Relationships
Coactive policing is a philosophy, not a program. Crime is a community problem that demands a community solution. The power for effective change rests within the agency’s relationship with the citizens it serves. In this session, officers learn how to tap into the power of community relationships and focus it on solving the underlying problems that manifest themselves in criminality.
Dynamic of Virtue: The Character Connection
Character is the seed that produces the fruit of high achievement. Most police training programs focus on competencies (behavior, performance, achievement), yet most of our problems stem from a lack of character. Establishing character-based standards is the first step to building trust in the community, encouraging high standards, strengthening internal relationships, and improving both morale and performance. Successful agencies have built a culture of character by gaining a new vocabulary, making the “character connection” by recognizing the qualities that produce achievement, and learning to anticipate the character test.
Dynamic of Authority: The Centurion Principle
This dynamic is the cornerstone of the Police Dynamics program. Faithfully representing authorities and remaining under their protection is key to avoiding negative consequences, infusing trust into relationships, affecting positive change inside and outside the walls of the agency, generating voluntary compliance with the law, overcoming resistance without force, and avoiding ethical failures. Officers have been delegated all of the lawful authority necessary to accomplish the police mission, yet they give it up on a routine basis and resort to ego-power. Virtually all instances of police misconduct can be traced back to a violation of this principle.
Dynamic of Restoration: The Way Back
Restoring renegade officers may be our greatest leadership challenge. Most officers agree that the majority of their work-related stress stems from unhealthy internal relationships. Unresolved conflicts can result in hurt, depression, anger, and jealousy that undermine internal discipline and agency effectiveness. The integration of specific character qualities is necessary to restore renegade officers and stabilize internal relationships.
Dynamic of Strongholds: Taking Back the Streets
Simply enforcing the law might solve a crime, but it does not solve the problem of crime. Criminals often rule the streets through fear and intimidation. Learn how to reclaim criminal strongholds by reducing the fear, apathy and tolerance for crime that enable them to exist.
Dynamic of Relationships: The Process of Trust
Building trust-based relationships takes time, effort and good character. But the process can be confusing and frustrating. This session gives officers a deeper understanding of the complex dynamics involved in building vital relationships within the community.
Dynamic of Discretion: The Just Exercise of Authority
One of the more powerful tools available to the executive branch is the discretionary use of authority. However, much of our discretion has been limited by legislation or judicial rulings because we have used it in an unjust manner. In this dynamic, we explore the judicious exercise of police authority and how to make discretionary decisions based on the principles of good character.
Dynamic of Compliance: Tactical Communications
In this dynamic, learn how to generate voluntary compliance through words. Physical force is often utilized prematurely resulting in liability, officer injury, disciplinary action, and other negative consequences. A professional standard of conduct exists to protect officers while overcoming the subject’s natural inclinations to resist authority. By following this standard, you will become more effective in all three of the deadly arenas: the streets, the courts and the media.
Dynamic of Jurisdictions: Making a Wise Appeal
What if your authority is operating out from under authority? What if you are instructed to do something that clearly violates an established standard? How do you make an effective appeal and what are the proper grounds to do so? The answers will help us explore jurisdictional limitations on authority.
Dynamic of Expectations: Taking Coactivity to the Streets
Citizens are sometimes critical of the police even when you have done your job well. Often, they are evaluating you based on unrealistic expectations. Learn how to ground their expectations in reality. Then discover a strategy for building public support by methodically exceeding their expectations. This powerful dynamic applies coactive policing at the street level.
Dynamic of Interposition: The Duty to Intervene
It's well recognized in the police profession that a senior officer has a duty to intervene when a subordinate officer becomes abusive towards a citizen or suspect. But what if the offending officer outranks him? Does the junior officer have a duty to intervene in order to protect the citizen? The answer is a resounding "yes!" The justification for doing so is found in a long standing legal principle called the Interposition of the Lesser Magistrate. In this session, we will explore the rationale behind the doctrine and how to exercise it in the midst of a crisis. Failure to employ this “duty to intervene” has resulted in untold tragedy in the modern era.
Dynamic of Wellness: Building Resiliency
This “bonus dynamic” focuses on the principles of emotional health and physical wellness. Both are critical to build the resiliency necessary to cope with the pressures placed on officers. Regretfully, these practices are often neglected and lead to a host of physical and emotional problems, including PTSD. Officers are presented with practical steps to implement a wellness lifestyle within the constraints of the job.
Dynamic of Supervision: Synergizing Roles
Effective supervision and dynamic leadership are found in the integration of complex organizational and team-building roles. An understanding of these specific roles is essential to motivating others to the highest standards of morale and performance.
Dynamic of Change: Mastering the Environment
Leaders must be agents and instigators of change by masterfully manipulating the environment to create conditions that are conducive to change. The ability to inspire others is the key to moving an organization forward toward accomplishing its goals. Also included is the “Integrity Check” guide for ethical decision-making.
Dynamic of Discipline: Enforcing the Standard
Typically, bad behavior is punished without giving much thought to the underlying character failure that caused it. In its simplest terms, enforcing character is making the "character connection" in reverse. A character-based model of progressive discipline provides leaders with room to exercise discretionary authority without compromising internal order.
Practical Exercises Students participate in a series of interactive exercises specifically designed to reinforce leadership perspectives and problem-solving capacities.
E5 Leadership: The Essentials of Ethical Excellence
The synergism attached to these five principles create a roadmap for character-based leadership and building a culture of character. Each one points back to the character-based standards of the organization:
1. Establish the Standard
2. Embrace the Standard
3. Encourage the Standard
4. Embody the Standard
5. Enforce the Standard