Leadership Skills in Law Enforcement

Leadership Skills in Law Enforcement
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Leadership Skills in Law Enforcement
Introduction
Leadership Skills in Law Enforcement Introduction             This essay will answer four questions related to organizational leadership and management. The first question will compare transactional and transformational leadership. The second question will discuss at least four distinctions between leaders and managers. The third question will define the three components of the leadership skill mix. The fourth question will identify Down’s four styles of leader behavior. A Comparison of Transactional and Transformational Leaders             Transactional leadership is a type of managerial style where leaders rely on rewards and punishments to motivate and attain optimal job performance from their followers. Conversely, transformational leadership is a management philosophy where leaders rely on their strength of personality and vision to motivate and improve the job performance of their followers. Both styles of leadership involve leaders and followers working towards a common purpose. Transactional and transformational leadership styles have inherent aims in mind (Smirnov et al., 2019). Moreover, the two leadership styles are motivational in their outlooks. They use well-established psychological methods of motivation to ensure optimal job performance among groups of subordinates. However, there are some differences between the two styles of organizational management. For instance, transactional leadership is based on exchanges and rewards between leaders and followers while transformational leadership goes beyond exchanges and rewards to include charismatic leadership (Cho et al., 2019). Unlike in transactional leadership where leaders rely on positive reinforcements to meet specific work targets, transformational leaders rely on their ability to inspire followers to achieve organizational goals. Transactional leadership is practical in nature and leaders can easily recognize and reward subordinates’ accomplishments promptly. However, the focus on exchanges and rewards means that followers are not motivated to be creative. Leaders are also less likely to foresee issues and to intervene before problems occur since a lot of attention is given to followers and how they are meeting a predetermined performance criterion (Schafer, 2008). On the other hand, transformational leaders establish close supervisory connections with their followers and can inspire creativity by motivating subordinates to go beyond required expectations. Transformational leaders also inspire openness and can foresee issues and intervene before they come to the fore. Four Distinctions Between Leaders and Managers The first distinction between leaders and managers relates to work and tasks. Leaders will motivate followers to perform their best when carrying out their duties and responsibilities. However, managers are more specific in their demands since they are responsible for organizing work flow and schedules, assigning duties and responsibilities to team members, monitoring job performance, and ensuring the entire workload is completed. Managers will therefore use rewards and punishment to ensure team members are meeting work performance standards. While leaders may not have the same job description or title as managers or the capacity to employ rewards and punishment, they will focus on motivating subordinates and optimizing their skills and talents to achieve organizational objectives (Arruda, 2016). The second distinction between leaders and managers relates to their approach in eliciting follower support. Leaders will cultivate an atmosphere of trust, responsibility, openness, and accountability to ensure optimal work performance while managers will use systems and protocols to deliver organizational goals. Leaders look to their followers to inspire results while managers rely on organizational structures to achieve work goals. The third distinction between leaders and managers relates to goal setting. Leaders are forward-thinking in their goal setting and tend to focus on long-term goals. On the other hand, managers are tasked with meeting specific goals within set timelines. This work title means they have to focus on short-term goals. The fourth distinction between leaders and managers relates to strategy. Leaders will try to use their charisma and personality to sell a vision to their followers and get them on board (Arruda, 2016). Conver...