I am the Lead Instructor for the Police Leadership and Management Development course at Dalhousie University.

This course provides the basis for the Certificate in Police Leadership. It provides police personnel with an improved understanding of how police organizations function in our society. Methods of futures thinking are exercised with some emphasis on trend identification and analysis and on how policing issues emerge. Looking ahead and planning strategically are major thrusts.

Key learnings

• Explain how police fit both in and out of the criminal justice system.

• Describe alternate ways of doing the work.

• Provide police service to groups in conflict.

• Describe the economics of policing and how the trend toward more private policing affects democracy.

• Identify and analyze both good and bad leadership in others.

• Manage excessive force.

• Exercise the fundamentals of ethics in policing.

• Describe the five kinds of power at play in a police hierarchy.

• Instill a sense of values and build trust within an organization.

• Put systems thinking and systems building into practice.

• Explain how to get an organization to learn.

• Conduct a field study on motivation.

• Prepare a plan for personal career development.

• Prepare a plan for personnel career planning.

• Use futures thinking, visioning and contingency planning to develop a strategic plan.

• Examine a spectrum of policing strategies and employ methods for defining these strategies.