Developing Transformational Leaders in Police Departments

This episode of Beyond the Bandaids is brought to you by Project PACT (Police And Community Together).

LinkedIn
Instagram
Facebook
Contact Us

Connect with the co-hosts of Beyond the Bandaids:

Chief Mike Butler on LinkedIn
Dr. Carol Engel-Enright on LinkedIn
Kristin Daley on LinkedIn

The following three organizations—each committed to enhancing community well-being and policing integrity—joined forces to create Project PACT.

Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP)
New Blue
The School of Statesmanship, Stewardship & Service (SOSSAS)

Beyond the Bandaids is dedicated to exploring how police officers, public safety professionals, community leaders, and community members can reconnect with their sense of purpose and inspire positive change in their local community.

Subscribe via Apple Podcasts
Subscribe via Spotify
Subscribe via YouTube

This episode was produced by Story On Media & Marketing: https://www.successwithstories.com

Jennifer (narrator) 00:02
Sarah, welcome to Beyond the band aids with Project pact, hosted by Dr Carol Engel Enright, Kristin Daley and Chief Mike Butler, where we explore how police, public safety experts, city leaders and dedicated community members can work together to drive meaningful change.

Carol Engel-Enright 00:19
Welcome to this episode of beyond the band aids. I’m here. I’m Carol with Mike and Kristin, and we’re going to dive right in to to thinking about or rethinking. I’m going to just reference some of the popular authors right now and some of the books that are out there, think again and atomic habits and thinking about how we move forward as a society, but it’s in specifically how we move forward with the leadership that’s going to guide the next police department. So what do we need to see in a police chief and the role of policing is changing. It’s becoming much more working with the public, working with the community, trying to identify the needs within the community and and a rise above just law enforcement. And I’m we’re here with Mike Butler, and of course, he’s the only one that’s been in the shoes of police chief over I say, I always say, for over four decades, but as a police chief, 26 years, and a police and fire so he will specifically speak to public safety in the town. I’m from Longmont, too. I’m a citizen of Longmont, and I can say that working with Mike, I often hear people talk about Thank you. I often hear thank yous, thank you for everything you did, thank you for how you moved this town forward. Thank you for the programs that you put in place. Thank you, or thank you for being there that day of the worst day of my life. Thank you so Mike. I want to thank you for your service. I want to thank all, all police chiefs who have given their lives to public service, all police officers and all police officers, firefighters and those first responders who are doing a job that’s necessary in our society. Yeah, we often think we’re It’s a thankless job in many, in many, and quite a lot of criticism coming your way. So, but let’s, let’s talk about thinking again, about leadership and and how, how we move forward to develop and choose really transformational leaders as we go into departments. So Mike, just talk about how chiefs are currently selected, how you were selected. What did it take, and what’s the resume look like currently?

Mike Butler 03:04
Well, yeah, thanks, thanks for that lead in. And so I I’m not happy, and I think today we’re going to probably say some things that may be concerning to some people and and so be it, I guess. But I think these, some of these things I think have to be the conversations have to begin differently, and have to change around, around that. And you know, right now we tend to the vast majority of police chiefs that are selected are selected because they were really good at the jobs they used to do. And sometimes I use that metaphor, the 20 game winning pitcher, the people, men and women, who were really good at being doing their job in operations, and they were good at overseeing operations, or they were good at overseeing specialized units, or they were good at and I can recall, recall, and still see so many circumstances where city managers or mayors typically select those people who are kind of the political choice or the choice that people people like already, so to speak, and and they’re, they’re the 20 game winning pitcher, but they may or may not have those kinds of skill sets, attributes, characteristics, qualities that we need and those complexities have everything to do with organizational development and all the moving and parts and pieces in an organization that we’ve talked about. At some level, they have everything to do with all the incredible number of moving pieces and parts and communities. And then, maybe even more important, how those moving parts in each of those entities, the police the police department and the community, kind of integrate, and how you move from a perspective. Of just very controlled top down, command and control, like mindsets, to a mindset and a heart that says, you know, we’re all in this together. And I want to create a whole that’s greater than the sum of the parts. I just I just have to become aware, as police chiefs, we have to become aware of what those parts look like, what they are, what they do, and so, so we all do that. And so we end up selecting people, you know, who are the most popular, the most politically favorable. Sometimes we’re the 20 game winning pitchers. But I’ve not seen a process yet that really delves into the idea that, you know, we need a leader that’s going to be able to take our organization and change, change, shift and transcend the culture that exists into a different kind of culture. And we need a police chief that understands that the police department is merely a part of the larger community organism in which they can become a leveraging part to bring that organism together, how to surface and activate the social capital, how to identify the goodness that exists, how to, how to, how to develop an organization in which each person believes their voice, counselor thoughts matter, so that you maximize the potential of each person that You have on your staff. How do you do that for each citizen in the community? So community, members of the community feel like they they’re part of developing their safety, and not just feel that, but begin to have that expectation and sense of responsibility that they are a big part of that. So the shift we need to make is pretty immense. And I also want to say on the front end here that I’m familiar with a number of national police organizations, and I won’t name them, but they’re everyone knows who they are, and none of them at this point really delve into how to prepare people to become police chiefs in America, how to how to prepare people in for with quality, skills, attributes and characteristics, where people, when they become police chiefs, can do that transformational work. Can do the work that’s necessary to go from where they’re at to where they need to be in a more complex, fast moving society where connecting dots across many disciplines becomes the norm on every single day. So we’re not there. And by the way, I just want one last point here, and then I’ll turn it over. Project pact is that’s what project pact is about. One big piece of project pact is how to develop police officials, even city managers and mayors, into being able to have that kind of transformational mindset with the skills, qualities, characteristics and attributes necessary. And so we have the coursework, we have the instruction work in a sequential way that can help people navigate the complexities that they will encounter once they become police chiefs.

Carol Engel-Enright 08:08
Okay, Kristin, I’m going to ask you to chime in about leadership and what you’re seeing as you’re working with transformational leaders. And then I want to have a conversation around leadership, moving into kind of the stewardship of a whole community and a group of people, the relational part. Okay, so can you talk to what you’re seeing out in the field?

Kristin Daley 08:32
I think at the broadest level, good leaders prioritize transparency and accountability, and they don’t just pay it lip service, or treat it as an external piece between police departments and their communities, but they really prioritize it internally and make sure that everything they’re doing is transparent to their team and people are being held accountable for their responsibilities and for when they do make a mistake. And then the second piece is what Mike was getting at, I think, in that good leaders are not afraid of change. So if we’re looking for a leader who is going to take an agency into, you know, the next generation and really prioritize the culture change that we know is so necessary. We can’t select someone who is going to stay kind of bogged down in the way things have always been done and that very traditional mindset. We have to have people that are open to coming in and looking at what really works and what doesn’t, and being willing to create change and prioritize change.

Carol Engel-Enright 09:40
Okay, so I’m going to speak from the academic side, having a PhD in human resources and organizational development and walking into classrooms and being taught leadership theory, but never being taught the relational value of developing understanding. Learning a little more compassion, being able to connect with others and to connect I want to go back to that ecosystem side. So I imagine city managers often say, I’m going to hire somebody with a master’s degree in public policy so they can write to more policy. They can they can create more kind of legislation. But how do we and Mike, how did you, how did you develop the relational skills that you have and the communication skills, and then, how did you teach that to others? Because I can say I’ve been in those masters and doctoral classes, and it’s not there.

Mike Butler 10:41
Well, it a lot of it was self taught, and a lot of it was choosing people to surround myself with who could teach me as well. One name that two names I’m going to bring up that have been instrumental in my own career. Have been a world known author named Peter Black, who wrote about organizational development early in his in his writings, authored great books called the Empowered manager, the book stewardship, choosing service over self interest. Community is another book that kind of transcends into community. And then John McKnight, another great author and community development person who I’ve learned from a lot from his writings, a lot from conversations, and so I’ve had mentors in my life, and I’ve been self taught as wide done my own level of self teaching around organizational development, and I’ve attended a number of seminars and classes Along the way, specifically designed to give me a perspective, a different mindset, around organizational development, community development. You know, hundreds of books have been written about 1000s, maybe about, you know, community and what community looks like. But there’s only a few out there that I think really are at the top of the shelf, so to speak, on the top shelf, and and those are the books that I really focused on. And then took courses, and then took a lot of read a lot of other materials related to communication and how to have the conversations we need to have, how to ask questions, which Peter Black really focuses on in his writings. And so mentors, leaders, other leaders that I’ve learned from who went, who kind of had a different, entirely different mindset, being self taught. And then, of course, my own experience in terms of growing up in an organization that was quite patriarchal, where I before I became the chief, and then and another organization, first organization I worked in, and then the municipal organization, and then having the experience and opportunity to become a police chief, and then kind of learning by trial and error, even though these books say one thing, and we’ll talk about this more in a later podcast, how it plays out and is applied experientially can become entirely something different. And so you learn along the way. Well, this sounds good on paper and in someone’s book, but then how does it play out in an organization in real life? Can often be two different things, two different ways of looking at it. And so, so anyway, being inspired by certain books that I’ve read in my lifetime, and then having the experiential opportunities that I did to see what works and what doesn’t work, as we transcended and shifted culture, as we brought community together, as we engaged a community in a very deep way that that surface activated and coordinated tremendous amounts of social capital. And as we did our work, you know that there was, you know, one of the things, because I was in Longmont long enough, I was able to build off the successes, but also learn from the failures. Sometimes police chiefs don’t stay around long enough to learn from the failures, or even get there long enough to kind of most police chiefs are around. Could Talk about a program that they plopped in and tried to plug in and play. But you know, there’s this idea that if you’re around long enough, which is one of the things I highly recommend to our police profession, that we stay around long enough to learn from our failures and to see that we can do something different and better than what we did tried, but that we can also build on our successes. Those are also important. So. So anyway, that’s kind of my story. And

Carol Engel-Enright 14:33
when you, when you when you think about how, how we can do selection in the future, what does it look like it when it’s just the city manager? Um, you’ve got one person selecting you don’t necessarily have a panel. You might have a panel that they go through for a review process. But, yeah, they do, um, but how do you, how would you how. Would you put your skills that you developed into an interview today,

Mike Butler 15:06
well into an interview process you’re asking so part of what I would do is find people who can do just that, a city manager or mayor. There’s a lot of Mayor oriented communities, a strong mayor or city manager run cities all over the country, but whoever’s making that call needs to surround themselves with people who know what we’re talking what we in this podcast, and what we’re talking about in terms of what it means to be a transformational leader. And oftentimes that doesn’t happen. More often than not, you know, you find the HR director, you find other police chiefs, sometimes to panel, you find citizen groups. Very few of them know much about what we’re talking about here in terms of organizational development, or how to be got to transcend and shift a culture from one of patriarchy to one of partnership, or how to surface, activate, coordinate great amounts of dormant social capital in your community, or how to create an organization where people’s voices counts or thoughts matter and their potential beginning to be realized. Those are those we’re not asking the right questions. We need to ask different kinds of questions. We need to really kind of look at but I will tell you that the vast majority of police chiefs who would would apply like in Longmont or boulder or near us, or even a larger city like Chicago, they wouldn’t, they wouldn’t know how to answer those questions. And so we have to start from this perspective, where we’re starting from, in terms of how do we change the nature of the conversation we’re having about what’s necessary to be a police chief in tomorrow’s world, that a police chief that can create a different kind of future, and is willing to kind of not use it, utilize their organization or in as a stepping stone, but willing to kind of hang in there for A number of years, I’ve had police chiefs in my life say I’ve been five different I’ve been a police chief in five communities in five different states, as if it’s a badge of honor, so to speak. And the union got in the way, and I had to leave, and I couldn’t change anything because the union wouldn’t let me or because there was something that happened. It wasn’t outside of my I was outside of my control. How do we get beyond those things in ways that can that those become part of your experience, not necessarily the ending part, the ending factor that created you created the circumstances that you have to move on. The new police chief comes in and begins their program of the month, way of thinking, and that’s how a lot of police officers, by the way, think about and I’ve had police chiefs say and large from large departments, small departments and medium sized departments say they Outlast they know that I’m only gonna last four to five years, and so they just outlast me, and they don’t, you know. And so it’s kind of like this game of whack a mole in terms of what, what’s going to happen. When it’s going to happen is, it’s just a matter of time before I leave. And so, so it’s like the unions Wait me out, the officers Wait me out. And and that’s what begins to happen, and especially in our larger urban centers across this country, a three to five year shelf life in most of those organizations. So so we have to get much better at thinking those things through. And oftentimes, as we know, I mean, unfortunately, large urban centers run by mayors, often are, you know, whoever, if there’s a new mayor comes in, new mayors say, I’m going to find a new police chief. And sometimes that’s just the way it’s going to be, because of how the politics run, and so, so those that, but that does a great disservice to the organization, and it does even a bigger disservice to the community, because there’s no time to kind of form those long, lasting trusting relationships that that Kristin talked about. There’s no time to kind of gain a track record of credibility in terms of, you know how we’re going to do things. There’s no time to institutionalize kinds of major shifts and changes that has to that have to happen over time. And so this kind of musical chairs with police chiefs is got something that has to end. And so, but your question is, how do you select these people who are police chiefs? Along these lines, I think there’s some, there’s some in signs and indicators that the language is changing, the the the the conversations are changing around, what we’re going to need is police chiefs. It’s just that we haven’t necessarily figured that out yet. And by the way, I’d said project pact is what, that’s what we’re about. And I just want to also emphasize that project pact is a big, a big portion of what’s making project pact work is the law enforcement action partnership leap in ways that you know, other organ other national organizations, aren’t working that way. And. So leap is supporting this effort in terms of how we create and find better police chiefs around the country and their support of project pack,

Carol Engel-Enright 20:08
yeah, and I just want to remind our audience, that’s why it’s called Beyond the band aids. You know this embedding and investing in long range, long, long term connections, relationships, infrastructure, ecosystems of the entire community, not not just the police department, not dependency on the police department to change the culture within every within a community to one of well beingness and safety for all. So Kristin, you know, just chime in. What do you what do you have for Mike, in terms of questions? And

Kristin Daley 20:44
I think, you know, four or five years goes by in the blink of an eye. So Mike, in your opinion, and I think some of this is what we are building into project pact. But how do you start to cultivate those leaders that are in it for the long term, who see the bigger picture, who want to really stay and build something sustainable and new in their agency and in their community. What are some of the key indicators that we’re looking at a leader who is willing to do those

Mike Butler 21:16
things? Yeah, great question, and for me, it’s the cultivating, on a personal level, is very much about having individual relationships. And I did that with a lot of my staff, in terms of having individual relationships with people all over and in a way that they got to see how I operated, how I thought they were part of decisions, and they were part of having experiences that they wouldn’t have had before, because they were quite what was made accessible to them was all the decisions that a chief would make. They had to help be part of those decisions. And so my own personal cultivation was personally mentoring others into that realm. And and so, and we created very, very effective, high level leaders in law in terms of what they were able to do and and create. And so that was a big part of that. But, you know, for those who want to, who are long standing, are in the profession for maybe as a career or for a number of years. I highly recommend a call to project pact. Highly recommend that we you begin a conversation. I’d be happy to sit down with anybody or have a conversation with anybody about what that’s going to look like, what it’s going to take. In fact, I’m doing that right now. I do that with a few people already in terms of calls or Zoom sessions or relationships that I have with a number of women and men around the country that are trying to figure out just what you talked about, Kristin, the question you talked about in terms of, what’s that look like? What can I do personally and professionally, and what do I What skills do I need to develop how? How do I need to start thinking about the future?

Kristin Daley 23:04
And there’s something I keep hearing you say in talking about what kind of conversations you had with your team, and it’s that you did really let go of that command and control type of way of running an organization, and had conversations that were honest and where you were treating people as decision makers and like they were a full part of the team. And I think that is a great indicator of a good leader, someone who brings the team in and makes them responsible for decisions and doesn’t just dictate and tell them what to do, and really listens to their thoughts and to their ideas.

Mike Butler 23:45
One of the things I totally agree with what you’re saying, but I’m going to change one word. I never made anybody do anything. I wanted them to choose this way of doing business. And so the the idea came with an invitation. Here’s the invite for you to kind of rethink, recalibrate, reimagine what we’re doing, how we’re doing what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and then let them make that choice for their own sense of accountability, their responsibility, their how they were going to be. Most people accepted that. And by the way, when we talk about that invitation, we can make that very same invitation to anybody in your organization. And as we’ve talked about before, this was done by invite. It wasn’t done by mandate, by coercion or barter or cajoling or anything like that. It’s all invite. But you make that same kind of invite, a police department makes that same kind of invite to the community to say, hey, we need you to be we. We invite you to be part of the responsibility for bringing about safety in your neighborhood, in your community, or your business or school, whatever that might be. But so the invite word was important for me. I never forced or mandated anybody to do anything. Now, if we were promoting people into positions, one. Of the things we had x we had expectations for certain jobs, for sure in terms of how they were going to be and what those jobs look like. But anyway, great question. Thanks, Kristin.

Carol Engel-Enright 25:12
I love to talk about Project pact. I think the training, you know, our pillars of training are around self leadership and emotional intelligence, social intelligence. I was just thinking, Mike, as you were talking, most people will say, Well, I want to be a leader, but I’m not a people’s person. I’m a Systems person. And I often, I often find, mmm, systems. What does that mean? You want to work with the computers. You want to work with the complexities, but you don’t want to deal with the complexities of humans and and I, I appreciate Mike, that you would go, that you that you worked, and we’re going to put a an article that you wrote as you stepped away from your official position as police chief for a local newspaper. Of the attributes that you thought cities should look for municipalities should look for in a police chief, and one of them was that you were able to relate to different people, and certainly in different neighborhoods, in one

Mike Butler 26:16
different different cultures, different ethnicities, different perspectives,

Carol Engel-Enright 26:20
all the things that that really come with being a police chief and understanding the needs and the desires of a community in terms of safety and creating well beingness and creating trust.

Mike Butler 26:36
Let me build on one thing you said in terms of systems versus people, I had a decision once to make in terms of promoting someone into a high level position within the police department, and had in the last part of that process was after everyone else had had an opportunity to say, here’s who we think are the best candidates. There were two people that emerged, kind of floated to the top, and I had a conversation with both of them, and I wanted to get to that point in terms of where they I kind of knew already. I want to get to that point where I got them to kind of think through a little bit the nature of this upcoming promotion job that they were going to give. And one person says, I’m not a social animal. I like I’m not big with people, but I am big in terms of developing plans and putting processes together. And that was fine. The other person, basically, was a social animal, and was also very good at putting processes and systems together. And so it was never an either or proposition for me, it was always we need both. That’s how complex this position is becoming. That’s how it’s not just that police chief’s level, that’s that it’s at management level positions as well, that that’s required and so, but especially for police chief. And so I chose to select the person who was really good with people, because they were really good with people in the community, they were good with the staff. And that’s in essence, where leaders at that level need to play in terms of if you can, if you can encourage or create the environment culture where people want to do something, choose to do things differently. Want to be more responsible and accountable, that sense of being a more more social and more relatable, more connectable, more approachable, and that having that sense of of understanding, presence, social intelligence, personal kind of way of being with people that that was much more valuable than kind of, well, I’m a good strategic planner, and that’s good. We need that. We need that. But none of the we just we need a lot more at the chiefs that gets back into that 20 game winning pitcher in terms of career, you know, because they were good in the job they did, or good at doing specific things, were they really good with the overarching way of seeing how a police department needed to operate, not only operationally from a technology perspective, systems and structures perspective, but also from a perspective of, most importantly, the human perspective,

Kristin Daley 29:16
and you need a person who creates a sense of safety in terms of letting people open up and have hard conversations, and you know, you’re a person who’s approachable in that people aren’t afraid to connect with you and tell you things. Think that’s really important.

Mike Butler 29:35
Yeah, thank you, Kristin. I appreciate that. And that’s that is big, that is huge. And one of the conversations that you know Peter, we talk about is this conversation of dissent, creating a culture where people can say no people creating a culture say a sense of safety, where people can express their reservations and doubts without being questioned or interrupted or people or the leader feeling like, well, you’re against. Me, there’s this for me and against me kind of way of being that I see quite a bit in leaders. And when you disagree with them, it’s almost like you’re against them, so to speak. And you got to get out of that mode. You got to create that. And people pick up on that, they pick up on that, and they don’t say the things that need to be said. They don’t. They’re not going to gift you with what you don’t know, and that is one of the greatest gifts a leader can get from those that they’re leading. Are that, hey, leader, every leader has blind spots. Every leader has something they don’t know a lot of and so surrounding yourself, if people are willing to gift you with what you don’t know, or to help you kind of see your blind spots, becomes critically important for a leader, and you got to leave your ego somewhere else, and you got to, you got to have that internal temperament that other people’s gifts count just as much as yours, their talents, their skills. And so that’s all big part of the future, future leaders we’re going to need in policing and and I don’t care what organization you’re running, you need, you need to walk away from your ego, you need to kind of hang it up and move somewhere else. It’s not that easy. It’s an overtime kind of proposition. But if you’re going to maximize the potential of your organization, if you’re going to create a whole that’s greater than the sum of the parts, you got to have that internal temperament that everybody’s gifts are important. Everybody’s No, by the way, when they say no, it’s not the end of the conversation. It’s the beginning of a new conversation. And so and so, it’s really important for all of us to kind of think that way, as as leaders and as we select police chiefs. Are we selecting those people? Are we selecting people that like, as you said, Kristin, that are better comfortable being disagreed with and and so you kind of people just shut down when they know that the leaders, well, I’m not going to talk to you anymore, because you think differently than me. That happens a lot.

Carol Engel-Enright 31:51
Yeah, we’re moving into a whole new generation of collaborative workplaces and people feeling that they want to have impact earlier versus bide your time, take your step by step, pay your dues, and maybe you’ll get a chance to lead, but really leading by example and coaching and mentoring your your collaborative team that can certainly achieve more together than they can by themselves and not feel isolated. So, Mike, I want you to think about this question. I’m a police chief. I’m listening to this podcast. I’m very command and control, because that’s what I was taught, and almost, you know, the military hierarchy of the traditional Police Department, but I hear what you’re saying, and I don’t know what to do next. Help me.

Mike Butler 32:48
Call me. We’ll talk about there’s transitions going on here. I appreciate anybody who says that. I appreciate I have great respect and admiration for people who say my command and control style has a diminishing point of return in terms of how valuable and effective I can be as a leader. And then I want to figure out another way to lead that I can I can create what we’re talking about here on this podcast. I can create. We can create something more and different and and so a lot of that comes from fear. A lot of that comes from, as you talked about Carol modeling in the past, a lot of that comes from, kind of their sense of control. And we understand that. And believe me, we all kind of go through that. And by the way, leadership is situational. There are times when you have to be command and control in the police business, leadership is always situational. But 80 to 90% of the time, that’s not the case. And you can create environments and cultures where people believe that they’re they can bring their brilliance to the table. I always said in my own organization and elsewhere that you don’t have to have officially sanctioned rank to have brilliance. In fact, everybody has brilliance. In fact, how many times have we said on this podcast that everybody really has unlimited capacity. And so how can we help people? So if you’re if you’re there, if you’re there, and you have that kind of question in your head, I respect and admire that, because that sense of awareness is the first step towards saying I could be a different kind of leader, happy to take a phone call from anybody and and let me tell you, I’ll walk you through my own, my own transition in terms of going from one who was in command and control at one point to one who was very partnership oriented and talking and living my life and being that Chief, that was the way that we’re Talking about now. So happy to have a conversation, and just know that it comes with great respect and admiration if you choose to make the call.

Carol Engel-Enright 34:48
And I have a second follow up. I’m a young college student, and I have great ideas and and I I want to impact a community, and I can see it happening. In public service. What do I do next? How do I prepare myself for coming through the ranks and keeping my idealism and and and working towards that leader? So here’s

Mike Butler 35:16
how I here I get I get that sense of ambition. We’ll say one thing about ambition. Everybody has ambition. At some level. I have ambition. We, all three of us, have ambition. But that ambition has to be socialized for the good of the whole and that’s an aspect of you can’t do it without living through the experience of being in different groups and different circumstances and kind of then realizing that that your ambition has to count with everybody else’s ambition. How do you make room for everybody’s ambitions in ways that creates that whole that’s greater than some of the parts the other part that I the other mantra that I utilized for myself, and I was very true to this, because I was always present in the moment when I had to do things. I was a strategic planner. We did a lot of strategic planning, but in the moment, you had to be in the moment with you, when you’re with people. And that is for the quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live each moment loyally as a tadpole. And so so you may want to, you have all of these ideas about working through the ranks, or I heard a lot of people I want to get on Swat, or I want to be a detective, or I want to do what they do on TV, the CSI stuff. I mean, you hear all that, you hear all of that, but you got to live in the moment, and you got to be present in the moment. And that’s where you, that’s where you grow. That’s where you that’s where you don’t, you don’t know about your own growth. That’s growth is unconscious. But six months down the road, if you’re living in the moment for six months, your growth will be tremendous in terms of your own intellect, your own emotions, your own intellectual capacity, your spiritual capacity, or whatever that is for you, that that you you want to be able to do more of but the other part is, I’ll be happy to take your phone call. I talk to a lot of people who want to be police officers or firefighters and and here’s, how do I prepare to become one? It may be a different conversation than you’re thinking about why you got to go to school, you got to learn language, you got to be strong so you can pass the physical agility test. You know, those are, those are basics. But how do you make yourself so that you’re so resilient to the work that’s there that the work actually begins to feed you the you actually become a better person as a result of being exposed to that kind of environment and the kinds of man’s inhumanity to man that you’re going to be exp your experience and how do you become that kind of person, in a way, because what we’re talking about is your own human development. It’s not just that. I’ve been to school and I’ve got a four year degree, great. We know you know how to learn, and that’s important. Bless you, Kristin. We know you know how to learn, and we and that’s important, because in policing, learning is lifelong. There’s no question about that. Happy to have that conversation with anybody who wants to be a police officer or firefighter as well, in terms of, what’s it what’s it take to be the best human being I can be when I’m doing this work? And how do I live in the moment? How do I live in the present? And how do I socialize my ambition in a way that it works for everybody, not just for me? And and all those things become important questions that each of us have to answer as we move through whatever career we’re in in terms of how we or how we’re going to live our lives. And so anyway, happy to have that conversation too. And

Carol Engel-Enright 38:39
and I just, I hope the the younger generation is being encouraged to head into public service, both on the public safety side, which is, you know, a majority of of what city budgets deal with in terms of creating health and wellness and and safety within the community. And then you know, how do you grow your community? How do you respond to your community? How do you impact your community? What are the possibilities for community, and what can you do in the very little garden plot that you’re planted in, whether you’re officially sanctioned or you’re just a volunteer and a and a good citizen, a good citizen, but you want something more. So let’s, let’s, I just want to repeat that. We’re going to put Mike’s article that goes over 25 attributes that cities should look for in their next police chief. They are relevant and wonderful, full of wisdom and full of enlightenment. But you’re going to get them. I can’t read through them all right, here, a copy of this will be on project pack.org so you can copy those off, print them out. Think about them. Think about those values. If you’re a young person or you’re in the position of chi. Now, what can I think about now? How can I how can I work on my mindset and others around me, the team I’m leading, the collaboration I’m making happen within a city. So Mike, give us your closing remarks. And Kristin, let’s wrap it up with with transformational leadership,

Mike Butler 40:20
yeah, and I it’s, it’s something that we desperately need to do, and we desperately need to rethink, reimagine, recalibrate our own perspectives on how people become police chiefs. What? What’s it going to take? I would encourage any national organization in policing or in the fire service to kind of recalib rethink their own what their purpose is, because this is going to become incredibly important for our policing profession and our fire profession as we move forward. And so And Lee and project pact is very much here, willing to help with any of, any of that we can help with.

Kristin Daley 41:01
And I think Mike said it perfectly. And I would add that I think a good leader’s ambition isn’t to be the leader and to be the loudest voice in the room, but to build a strong team and a strong community

Carol Engel-Enright 41:16
beautifully. Well said, the complexity of public safety today demands something. You know, we’re we’re reading about it in media. We’re thinking about it. We’re looking at leadership styles that seem to be a little to me, outdated. You got I’m going to build myself and I’m going to tell other people what to do so I can be a good leader versus I’m going to grow myself, and I’m going to create a culture of growth and and positive impact for others to have room for their ideas.

Mike Butler 41:51
Yeah, I think for and I think for future podcast, I’d like to kind of talk some something about what’s going on currently in our country, in terms of the kind of the juxtaposition police departments and police chiefs have been put into, in terms of some of the things that they’re now encountering that will, that will take all of these things that we’re talking about into account. So stay tuned for that, folks.

Carol Engel-Enright 42:16
Okay, stay tuned. And again, we’re beyond the band aids, and we are project packed. You can reach us@projectpact.org you can schedule a free collaborative advising session with either Mike or Kristin, and very, very soon, we’ll have our digital training up where you could sign up for going through the training on self leadership and really developing your emotional intelligence, developing those highly communication skills, where you can interact with all kinds of different people, crossing those count, those cultural norms, and being able to be the very best version of self, so as You work and and grow and impact and engage. And so thank you for listening in, and please give us a five star rating if you get that little those little stars up and and subscribe to beyond the band aids. We’ll be back next week with another great episode on beyond the band aids. Thank you.

Jennifer (narrator) 43:23
Thank you for tuning in to beyond the band aids with Project pact, we hope today’s episode has inspired you to think differently about public service and community engagement. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and leave a review. Your support helps us reach more listeners and continue bringing you valuable insights and stories. For more information and to stay connected, visit our website@projectpact.org and follow us on social media. We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas, so feel free to reach out. Pioneered by law enforcement action partnership, new blue and the School of statesmanship, stewardship and service. Project pact is the culmination of three leading organizations committed to enhancing community, well being and policing integrity. Until next time, keep moving forward and stay engaged together, we can create a safer, more connected future. You.