Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security Quotes

“Situation awareness means possessing an explorer mentality A general never knows anything with certainty, never sees his enemy clearly, and never knows positively where he is. When armies are face to face, the least accident in the ground, the smallest wood, may conceal part of the enemy army. The most experienced eye cannot be sure whether it sees the whole of the enemy’s army or only three-fourths. It is by the mind’s eye, by the integration of all reasoning, by a kind of inspiration that the general sees, knows, and judges. ~Napoleon 5   In order to effectively gather the appropriate information as it’s unfolding we must possess the explorer mentality.  We must be able to recognize patterns of behavior. Then we must recognize that which is outside that normal pattern. Then, you take the initiative so we maintain control. Every call, every incident we respond to possesses novelty. Car stops, domestic violence calls, robberies, suspicious persons etc.  These individual types of incidents show similar patterns in many ways. For example, a car stopped normally pulls over to the side of the road when signaled to do so.  The officer when ready, approaches the operator, a conversation ensues, paperwork exchanges, and the pulled over car drives away. A domestic violence call has its own normal patterns; police arrive, separate involved parties, take statements and arrest aggressor and advise the victim of abuse prevention rights. We could go on like this for all the types of calls we handle as each type of incident on its own merits, does possess very similar patterns. Yet they always, and I mean always possess something different be it the location, the time of day, the person you are dealing with. Even if it’s the same person, location, time and day, the person you’re dealing who may now be in a different emotional state and his/her motives and intent may be very different. This breaks that normal expected pattern.  Hence, there is a need to always be open-minded, alert and aware, exploring for the signs and signals of positive or negative change in conditions. In his Small Wars journal article “Thinking and Acting like an Early Explorer” Brigadier General Huba Wass de Czege (US Army Ret.) describes the explorer mentality:   While tactical and strategic thinking are fundamentally different, both kinds of thinking must take place in the explorer’s brain, but in separate compartments. To appreciate this, think of the metaphor of an early American explorer trying to cross a large expanse of unknown terrain long before the days of the modern conveniences. The explorer knows that somewhere to the west lies an ocean he wants to reach. He has only a sketch-map of a narrow corridor drawn by a previously unsuccessful explorer. He also knows that highly variable weather and frequent geologic activity can block mountain passes, flood rivers, and dry up desert water sources. He also knows that some native tribes are hostile to all strangers, some are friendly and others are fickle, but that warring and peace-making among them makes estimating their whereabouts and attitudes difficult.6”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“The information in this topic of decision making and how to create and nurture it, is beneficial to every cop in their quest to mastering tactics and tactical decision making and are a must read for every cop wanting to be more effective and safe on the street. My purpose is to get cops thinking about this critical question: In mastering tactics shouldn’t we be blending policy and procedure with people and ideas? It should be understandable that teaching people, procedures helps them perform tasks more skillfully doesn’t always apply. Procedures are most useful in well-ordered situations when they can substitute for skill, not augment it. In complex situations, in the shadows of the unknown, uncertain and unpredictable and complex world of law enforcement conflict, procedures are less likely to substitute for expertise and may even stifle its development. Here is a different way of putting it as Klein explains: In complex situations, people will need judgment skills to follow procedures effectively and to go beyond them when necessary.3 For stable and well-structured tasks i.e. evidence collection and handling, follow-up investigations, booking procedures and report writing, we should be able to construct comprehensive procedure guides. Even for complex tasks we might try to identify the procedures because that is one road to progress. But we also have to discover the kinds of expertise that comes into play for difficult jobs such as, robbery response, active shooter and armed gunman situations, hostage and barricade situations, domestic disputes, drug and alcohol related calls and pretty much any other call that deals with emotionally charged people in conflict. Klein states, “to be successful we need both analysis (policy and procedure) and intuition (people and ideas).”4 Either one alone can get us into trouble. Experts certainly aren’t perfect, but analysis can fail. Intuition isn’t magic either. Klein defines intuition as, “ways we use our experience without consciously thinking things out”. Intuition includes tacit knowledge that we can’t describe. It includes our ability to recognize patterns stored in memory. We have been building these patterns up all our lives from birth to present, and we can rapidly match a situation to a pattern or notice that something is off, that some sort of anomaly is warning us to be careful.5”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Tactics is the art (understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your people and of your opponents and applying this differently to every situation) and the science (the technical aspect of understanding your equipment and its abilities) of winning engagements and conflicts. Tactics refers to the concepts and methods we use to accomplish a particular objective.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“A Change in Culture, Top down and Bottom up! There can be no true problem solving without decentralization of control and individual initiative. To change from a culture of “tell me what to do to one that breeds and nurtures creativity, innovation, adaptation and time critical decision making,” we must move, really move from centralized control to a decentralized form of leadership. We have been talking about decentralized control in policing for years now, since the onset of “community policing” initiatives. True! But that's the problem we have been “talking about it, and that is all.” We need to be practicing it. Get beyond the talk and walking the talk if we truly want to see results that meet the challenges we face in policing. Yes there have been some organizations in law enforcement who have taken this approach seriously and the results show the value of frontline decision making. It takes constant practice to master these cultures!   The action taken by leadership needs to be more than written mission statements and words.  It takes action, action over time through learning, education, and training. Not just in the formal sense but in the real world sense of learning from everything we do at all levels of the organization and throughout the community on a daily bases.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Tactical decision games are situational exercises on paper representing a snap shot in time. A scenario is handed out that describes a problem related to your profession (law enforcement, security, military, business, etc). The facilitator sets a short time limit for you to come up with a solution to the problem presented. The TDGs can be conducted individually or in a group setting. As soon as time is up, with the facilitator using “time hacks”, an individual or group is told to present their course of action to the rest of the group. What you did and why? Justifying your actions to everyone else! It is important that individuals or groups working together are candid and honest in their responses. You’re only fooling yourself to do otherwise. The lesson learned from the TDGs can make you more effective and safe in the performance of your job. The time to develop the strength of character and the courage to make decisions comes here, in the training environment. Mistakes can be made here that do not cost a life and valuable lessons are learned.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Consequently, trust is the essential trait among leaders in effective organizations. Trust by leaders in the abilities of their frontline and by frontline in the competence and support of their leaders. Trust must be earned, and actions which undermine trust must meet with strict censure. Trust is a product of confidence and familiarity built through rigorous professional development. Confidence among fellow officers results from demonstrated professional skill. Familiarity results from shared experiences and a common professional philosophy.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“The United States policing style of dealing with conflict and crisis requires intelligent leaders with a penchant for boldness and initiative down to the lowest levels. Boldness is an essential moral trait in a leader for it generates power beyond the physical means at hand. Initiative, the willingness to act on one’s own judgment, is a prerequisite for boldness. These traits carried to excess can lead to rashness, but we must realize that errors by frontline street cops stemming from over boldness are a necessary part of learning.  We should deal with such errors leniently; there must be no “zero defects” mentality. Abolishing “zero defects” means that we do not stifle boldness or initiative through the threat of punishment. It does not mean that leaders do not council subordinates on mistakes; constructive criticism is an important element of learning. Nor does it give subordinates free license to act stupidly or recklessly. Not only must we not stifle boldness or initiative, but we must continue to encourage both traits in spite of mistakes. On the other hand, we should deal severely with errors of inaction or timidity. We will not accept lack of orders as justification for inaction; it is each police officers duty to take initiative as the situation demands. We must not tolerate the avoidance of responsibility or necessary risk.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Learning the art of operations and develop the fingertip feel for applying tactics during interplay between adversaries, you can see is crucial to our success. This interplay teaches us that interaction leads to maneuver and maneuver opens up opportunities to exploit weaknesses. Then through superior situational awareness and insights you develop innovative ideas as you accord with an adversary. This leads to well thought out and/or intuitive decisions and actions to meet our strategic goals, whatever those goals may be.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“You must always keep in mind that it is impossible to control exactly how the adversary(s) will respond to your actions. So the goal is to control the adversary’s mindset with both direct and/or indirect action which takes decision making and adaptability. Interaction, Insight and imagination are needed to adapt tactics and apply them in an initiative driven way to the particular problem at hand.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“It is my experience and from research, that law enforcement professionals all too often needlessly rush, using dynamic responses, in circumstances where a non-dynamic (scaled) response would clearly better our position of advantage. We have to reconsider the way we do things in an effort to keep ourselves and those we protect, safer when responding to situations. If an individual is no longer in position to harm others then the conditions requiring high risk intervention has changed and a more scaled, cautious solution should be pursued.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Sun Tzu's definition of speed is often misconstrued and shown through quick responses such as; doors being immediately kicked in upon arrival. You see knee jerk reactions to the report of a single gunshot and immediate entry made without knowing anymore than the fact that a gun went off. You see it in tactical responses and approaches to various calls for service where the possibility of danger exists.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Mastering speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of a large enemy’s inability to keep up. Use a philosophy of avoiding difficult situations. Attack the area where he doesn’t expect you.” ~Sun Tzu the Art of War1   In handling dynamic encounters, the phrase "time criticality" is often discussed. In this discussion there is often a miss-conception that to put time on your side, you must force the issue or, force the subject into action and always advance your position by moving forward. Speed is the essence of conflict, but speed does not always mean moving fast physically. It means preparing so you are in a position of advantage, which gives you time, hence speed.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Adaptability comes from training in all the dimensions of conflict mental, moral and physical, decentralized control with strict individual, organizational and community accountability.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Leadership’s role is to develop individuals who understand and practice integrity, courage, initiative, decisiveness, mental agility and personal accountability. These fundamental qualities must be aggressively cultivated which in turn allows for an atmosphere of adaptability at the lowest level, on the street. “I am here now in the situation that requires a decision…”  I AM EMPOWERED, SUPERENPOWERED TO DECIDE and ACT!”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“A leader is accountable for actions of frontline personnel whether they are on scene or not, so it is imperative that leaders train and prepare those on the frontline. Leadership accountability comes from our preparation and the continued education, learning and developing of frontline decision makers.  NOT from standing over them directing them, or written policy and procedures, or checklists on how to perform in a given set of circumstances. A leader does not have to be on every call, it is impossible to be on every call. It is just not necessary if you prepare your frontline people effectively and development is an ongoing process.  Train and Trust FRONTLINE Personnel! They will get it done and done right!”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“After Action reviews help develop communication, trust and unit cohesion and helps in a team approach to developing best practices in a variety of situations.  A key component to remember in conducting both TDGS and AAR is a candid open dialog, in an effort to learn. Anything less and you are only fooling yourself.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“If our initial response brings a semblance of control to chaos and helps us realize, get a better picture of what’s going on, then a viable response can be initiated quickly based on a sound strategy and effective methods and tactics to mitigate the situation. If we respond out of emotion and take reckless action, then we lose control of the situation and it becomes more chaotic and only leads to more”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“If I were to ask you about let’s say coaching a high school football team for your local high school and told you the only time you were needed to be there as coach, was on game day. That is right no practice during the week, just take the team and win is all we ask. How do I prepare them if I cannot practice you ask? Well sir they have been trained and practiced in their freshman, sophomore and junior years. You will be the varsity coach and the team knows the game and how it’s played, all you need to do is set up the game plan on game day and organize your team so they win! Ludicrous! How can I be expected to develop the cohesion necessary to put a winning team on the field, without practice, despite their prior training and the three-plus years’ experience? Yes it is ludicrous. Yet this is exactly what we expect of law enforcement, security personnel and other first responders tasked with responding to and winning in crisis situations.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Efficiency is an important aspect to policing. We must ensure things that need to be done such as information and evidence gathering, dissemination and documentation in reports, etc., is indeed getting done. However it is important for leaders not to get lost in the efficiency of processes as it breeds a zero defects environment that creates a frontline that waits to be told what to think and slowing down considerably the effectiveness of timely decision making and tactical problem solving.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“The difference between how we currently train and prepare versus the philosophy I am advocating is similar to the difference between techniques and tactics. Techniques require inflexibility and repetition, while tactics require flexibility, good judgment and creativity. Officers can only gain the ability to execute this new philosophy with experience and education, stressing free play force on force training brought to a conclusion with clear winners and losers. Keep in mind no tactical concept is an end in itself and that there is more than one solution to a tactical dilemma.   ”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“One of Col. John Boyd’s most important insights we need to make a greater effort to understand is, “Machines don’t fight wars, people do and they use their minds.” How this applies to law enforcement is to understand what technologies, processes, policies and procedures work on the street, one must first understand how people think and act in the uncertainty, fear and chaos of dynamic encounters and what creates friction in decision making as a cop interacts with a suspect bent on getting his way or in a crisis situation such as a multiple car accident with mass casualties, a blizzard, hurricane, tornado, or fire etc.2”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Remember, real change is actually evolutionary; small victories through implementation of well thought out ideas, changes cultures over time. Implement the ideas in this book, one step at a time, with the overarching outcome to develop others to carry on what you started. Before that man or women walked out the door on their shift, did you ask “could I have done more to prepare them for what they may encounter?”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Along the way after introductions to putting Boyd’s, Sun Tzu and Clausewitz (two other brilliant military (human conflict) thinkers) as well as other’s thoughts to practice, we begin introductions to actually implementing these ideas in the classroom along with examples of how they translated to the street. Over the course of the book, these real-world examples compile to actually form a real world Program of Instruction (POI) for a course that was implemented successful in a large police force just a couple of years ago.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Through this book we will introduce you to the works of COL John Boyd, USAF, whose brilliant work forms the basis of what we do.  Col. Boyd passed on in 1997, but his legacy continues to grow, particularly on how to develop leaders of character to out-perform their opponents. Fred and I have spent a good part of the last decade developing ways to teach people how to practice Boyd’s OODA loop (more on this in the book).”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“The rapidly changing world and evolving threatening challenges demand we become more self-aware and seek trade-offs.  This means between traditional methods of training and operating and the uncertainty of ongoing, experiential trial and error the future demands if we are to thrive while handling crisis and conflict. 2 This must be done with an understanding we collectively have a shared purpose, which focuses on winning conflict and crisis at low cost in the moral, mental and physical dimensions which often times takes us outside our comfort zones.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“If what we advocate in this handbook is so good and has such a significant impact on how officers perform on the street, then why is it not common across law enforcement agencies? Because, it’s the culture, stupid! Cultures are unique to each organization and/or profession. These cultures take shape over time, eventually becoming so entrenched that people resist any change, even change that is positive and valuable to the organization. Many organizations get stuck by the current way they do things, simply because it’s the way they have always done it. They resist mainly because they fear losing something such as traditional methods of training, or operating how they have learned and developed over their careers. They fear they will lose control of their influence, their authority or prestige within the organization, and potentially their positions or jobs. Much of this is ego and individually driven and entirely self-serving, just hiding behind a smokescreen of leadership.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Shift Debriefing System A debrief includes a careful examination of the tactics, techniques and procedures, decision and actions that took place on shift; and is focused on improving performance. While there are no rules for conducting debriefings, the focus of a shift debriefing is on fact-finding, not fault-finding.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Because lessons learned by police personnel play such important role, it is necessary that a system be in place to insure that such lessons are properly and correctly recorded. Experience is a powerful teacher, but experience by itself is not the most efficient way to learn. The process can often be painful and time-consuming. To learn as quickly as possible, we must be more deliberate, more disciplined, and more thorough in our approach in order to squeeze as much as possible from each experience. As with everything else about better execution there is no magic here.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“Police departments by their very nature are learning organizations and eventful or not, every shift yields fruit in the form of lessons learned. Hence, some effort needs to be made to “harvest” knowledge that can be used in bettering future shifts. While methods may vary, they usually take the form of a debriefing. A debriefing is a facilitated discussion focused on gaining understanding and insight regarding specific actions, taken on shift and involving those people who were personally involved.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security

“As cops we often cry loudly about the lack of training in our profession (I am guilty of it myself). However while we complain and whine about the seemingly lack of interest in ongoing training we also miss the opportunities to train and learn from the everyday lessons available to us. Those lessons that come from every call we respond to and every shift we work. The uses of training tools such as; tactical decision games and after action reviews still are rare occurrences in our profession and seemingly only used when some catastrophic or unconventional crisis has occurred i.e. a cop killed in the line of duty or a deadly force scenario that leaves the public calling for an explanation. We should be doing more to harness the wisdom of the street cop and what he learns from each and every day on each and every shift. The shift debriefing is a training tool we can and should utilize to develop full spectrum cops capable of making sound decisions and employing sound tactics to resolve crisis situations and record and report them accurately in the aftermath.”
― Fred Leland, Adaptive Leadership Handbook - Law Enforcement & Security