The four R's for police executives.

For grammar school students of by-gone eras, basic education centered around the three R's - reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. Today, instructors who teach police management and leadership to executives or those who are just beginning their ascent into administrative positions need to focus on a set of professional basics - reading, 'riting, rhetoric, and roots.

In real estate, success hinges on location, location, location. For the law enforcement executive, "communication, communication, communication" serves as the axiom for success. Effective communication involves both input and output. The input comes from reading; the output, from 'riting and rhetoric (oral communication). Combined with an individual's roots, which encompass philosophies, values, and experiences, these elements form the cornerstone for executive development.

Reading

Reading often is the nemesis of law enforcement executives. The volumes of documents crossing their desks can be overwhelming. There is a never-ending flow of staff studies, reports, and correspondence. The papers found in their in-baskets beg for movement to their out-baskets. An abundance of other reading material and work fills their briefcases to be taken home at night.

Considering that all this information is pertinent to their departments, do these executives think that there is time to read anything else, even if they could enrich themselves by doing so? Most likely not.

Yet, the need for the contemporary executive to be well-read and knowledgeable in a number of areas cannot be disputed. In this age of technology and information overload, the adage "Knowledge is Power" becomes even more true. Gaining power through knowledge requires executives to develop broad reading patterns and speed-driven, organized habits.

Executives can stay ahead of the information power curve in a number of ways. Trade and professional journals, such as Police Chief Law Enforcement Technology, and the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, allow executives to stay abreast of trends in the profession, technological and programmatic innovations, and new law enforcement management techniques. Journals outside traditional law enforcement literature, such as Public Administration Review, Harvard Business Review, The Futurist, and Governing, promote a wider view of issues with a potential impact on law enforcement. Finally, daily papers at the local level or those with expanded perspectives, including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, can serve as predictors of political, social, and economic issues and forecasters of change.

Books on management, especially such classics as In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner, offer insight into a variety of topics applicable to virtually any law enforcement agency. Police executives only need to use imagination, insight, and energy to take a book's message and make the transition from the corporate to the public sector.

Santayana, the Spanish-born U.S. philosopher, humanist, and essayist, posited that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."(1) Hegel, a 19th-century German idealist philosopher, more cynically held, "What experience and history teach is this - that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."(2) Regardless of one's point of view, historical analyses of law enforcement issues or other important events and people offer a perspective from which executives can learn.

Sun-tzu's The Art of War, one of the earliest known compilations on the subject of war and strategy, serves as a primer for corporate strategies. Biographies and autobiographies provide insight into the personalities and tactics of political, military, corporate, and law enforcement leaders.

Books and monographs that focus on the strengths and weaknesses, successes and failures of public and private programs not only can be food for thought but also can identify the political and programmatic pitfalls that accompany efforts at institutional change. Most of these volumes contain ideas that law enforcement executives can transfer easily to the law enforcement or community setting.

But, what of the volume of material that contemporary executives constantly must digest? Reading, like any other learned skill, requires commitment and practice.

For the successful executive, this means scheduling uninterrupted time for serious reading and prioritizing reading as any other administrative task. It requires learning how to scan a variety of reading materials for meaningful information without becoming bogged down in minutiae. It also may mean enhancing one's existing reading level by completing a speed-reading course or, to manage one's time better, using services that summarize new executive-level books, provide them on tape, or publish newsletters that focus only on specific issues, such as supervision, diversity, or communication.

'Riting

The power of the written word, especially in this age of electronic information exchange, cannot be underestimated. It follows, then, that the ability to express one's values, ideas, and programs effectively remains critical to the success and survival of any public or private sector executive. Those who meld the executive role with the art of wordsmithing recognize that this skill relies on both knowing how to write and practicing it continually.

Effective writing requires the ability to assess the target audience and tailor the writing to the audience's needs and reading level, not the author's. It is based on a commitment to quality that forces an effective writer to edit and re-edit until a document is clear, concise, grammatically correct, and structurally sound.

Law enforcement executives face a variety of audiences that require their writing skills to be sharply honed. Within their departments, personnel must understand clearly the executive's vision for the agency, the values upon which this vision is based, and the articulation of day-to-day policy on procedural, managerial, and operational issues.

Within the community, the executive must be able to respond to correspondence from a myriad of constituents, articulate the department's vision and mission to political leadership and special interest groups, and translate the department's position on issues so that the average newspaper reader understands the executive's editorial responses or "op ed" pieces. Success requires enough flexibility for the executive to adapt fluidly to the unique needs, levels of understanding, and technical expertise of each of these diverse groups.

An important and often-forgotten audience for an executive's writing is other law enforcement executives. As programs come to fruition and executives analyze their successes and failures, it becomes not only expedient but also professionally responsible to share such information in professional and technical journals and magazines. Law enforcement can only grow and gain insight by such meaningful dialogue.

Writing for professional journals and magazines should be viewed by experienced executives as a personal obligation. Executives who contribute to and promote an ongoing exchange of ideas give something back to the profession that has nurtured them. With this obligation comes an added responsibility to influence the direction of law enforcement.

It is most difficult to write for an audience of one's peers, but this audience should not be ignored or treated lightly. Executives must recognize that they do have something to contribute and that it takes time to convey that knowledge in writing. An increasingly popular alternative, especially for first-time writers, is collaborative writing, that is, working with a colleague. Such an approach not only allows for the expression of two perspectives but also can reduce some of the initial trauma of "going it alone."

Rhetoric

The most successful leaders in any field can express themselves effectively and persuasively not only in writing but also when communicating orally. John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Ronald Reagan each demonstrated the ability to paint a picture of his vision of the world so that others could envision and be captivated by it. Such a skill is no less critical in those who lead law enforcement agencies.

Yet, skillful oral communication is not so much a product of innate ability as one of desire, training, and practice. While the desire comes from within the individual, the training that forms the platform for exceptional performance in oral communication readily can be acquired.

Most institutions of higher learning offer courses in public speaking. An increasing number of police academies incorporate courses in public presentation because the needs of the profession have dictated it. Perhaps most beneficial, though, are those organizations, notably Toastmasters International, that provide the training, ongoing opportunities to speak, critical feedback, and social support necessary to excel at public speaking.

While training lays the foundation, practice, not just the ability to "wing it," allows executives to refine their presentation skills. Rhetorical and oratorical abilities come from adequate preparation. Executives must concentrate on the subject matter and dedicate time for preparation. They must select a topic carefully that conveys a meaningful message, and they must exhibit the energy and nonverbal skills that make the audience active participants in the communication process.

Yet, as part of the four professional R's, rhetoric requires a component not ordinarily included in its definition. This component is the ability to listen. Effective executives not only must articulate their visions and persuade others of their beliefs but they also must listen actively to the rhetoric - the words, feelings, concerns, and nonverbal expressions - of others.

Active listening, with its emphasis on body language, hearing, and understanding, is critical to the communication process that allows executives to integrate their visions with the actions and responses of others. Rhetoric, then, accentuates the exchange of verbal and nonverbal communication between executives and their constituents.

Roots

As law enforcement's role continues to evolve in response to communication needs and social change, it is imperative that its executives develop a sense of roots. Such roots are grounded in the professional and personal philosophies, values, and experiences that form the basis for decisions, actions, and visible displays of leadership.

The successful nurturing of these roots requires certain acts. Nurturing means continually thinking, reading, and incorporating individual experiences into the philosophical underpinnings of one's own professional and personal life.

To nuture their roots successfully, executives first must take the time to develop their own philosophy, to determine who they are and for what they stand. An unspoken mandate dictates that they identify those points of honor and integrity of greatest value to them, points that are subject to neither negotiation nor compromise.

Second, executives must be willing to live their philosophy. The adage "walk the talk" becomes an even more important truism for contemporary executives. Integrity spoken must become integrity lived.

Further, executives should accept the Socratic principle that "the unexamined life is not worth living" and critically evaluate, even challenge, the practical application of values that they express. One way is to use the four professional R's as focal points for reflection and self-examination.

Finally, executives must be willing, through role-modeling and mentoring, to encourage up-and-coming executives to develop personal and professional philosophies and values of their own. The challenge becomes the maintenance of an environment that allows one's staff to learn to make decisions, to make mistakes, and to grow in preparation for the mantle of leadership.

Within that environment comes the expectation that mentoring is an integral part of the organization's culture, that all managers accept the responsibility of developing the agency's future leaders. It means developing clinical skills that allow executives to observe proteges critically, to analyze their behavior as leaders objectively, and to facilitate the networking necessary for proteges to develop their own personal system of knowledge and support.

Conclusion

The preparation of today's law enforcement executives requires an effective integration of learned skills and natural abilities, as did teaching America's school children in earlier days. The successes of present and future executives will depend on their ability to communicate - using reading, 'riting, and rhetoric - and their reliance on, and understanding of, their roots to guide their actions. With these skills and abilities, law enforcement executives will be prepared to direct their profession masterfully into the next century and beyond.

Endnotes

1 George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905-1906, vol. 1, chap. 12 (New York: Macmillan, 1981).

2 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosophy of History (1832), trans. J. Sibree from Great Books in Philosophy (New York: Prometheus Books, 1990).

RELATED ARTICLE: Focal Points for Reflection and Self-Examination: The Executive's Challenge

Read, for instance:

* The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey (1989)

* A Call to Character by Colin Greer and Herbert Kohl (1995)

* The Death of Common Sense by Philip K. Howard (1994)

* Megatrends 2000 by John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene (1990)

* Mind of a Manager, Soul of a Leader by Craig R. Hickman (1993)

* My American Journey by Colin Powell (1995)

* On Our Own Terms: Portraits of Women Business Leaders by Liane Enkelis and Karen Olsen (1995)

* Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision Makers by Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May (1986)

Write:

* Your autobiography, especially a description of your greatest moment

* A statement of your philosophy and your vision of the world

* Your vision of the future

* Your definition of success

Talk: (Rhetoric)

* With individuals different from you in race, gender, lifestyle, and education

* With your parents, your mentor, your boss, your significant other

* With people who work for you and for whom you work (elected and appointed officials as well as citizens)

Think: (Roots)

* What is important to you

* Where you want to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years

* For what accomplishment you would most like to be remembered

* How you want to be described in a eulogy

Dr. James D. Sewell is Director of the Criminal Justice Information Services Division for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in Tallahassee, Florida.