Leading Relentlessly

In addition to weekly articles here, I also have a podcast where I discuss current events and introduce leadership experts to you. My discussion with Stan Partlow, the author of Leading Relentlessly, was so encouraging I wanted to bring it directly to you.

Partlow, who has decades of management experience both in law enforcement and the private sector, has a very unique and dynamic approach to leadership in law enforcement. It’s an approach he calls “relentless.”

Listen To The Episode Here

Listen To The Episode Here

This episode is an invaluable resource for current and aspiring leaders in law enforcement. It peels back the curtain on the complexities of command and serves as a rousing call to act. The following quotes were taken from the episode.

Fundamentals of Leadership

One of the fundamental missions of a leader Is to create the vision for their organization. No matter where they are in the food chain, whether they're the chief or they're a sergeant running a shift, their job is to create a vision for that organization. They also are responsible for ensuring that the right culture is in place and the right organization and the right and the culture includes, in my view, a strategy to achieve that vision. And then, thirdly, they're responsible for holding people accountable to make sure that vision occurs. So to sit there and let someone else create a vision for your department, I feel like that that's you giving up. You create that vision and there are agencies in this country that are out there doing that work and I think that's one of your messages that you know as you talk about.

Biggest Leadership Mistake

In my mind, the biggest mistake that law enforcement leaders make is they think that command and control takes the place of relationships, and it does not.

The New Years Eve Problem

I had a friend of mine share a little trick with me that I'll share with your Listers that I absolutely love. If you think about a complex message, the best way to approach it is to break it down, need the three words and then build your, your message, around the three words. So for me, when I look at that book, make three words come to my mind. The first one is self, the second one is others and the third one is arena, and we've talked about the arena already, that you got to get in there and do the work. The others are the people that you're leading and how you have to care for them. But the first one is self, and I am a firm believer that you cannot lead anyone unless you can figure out how to lead yourself. So for me, leadership is one lifelong self-help journey, because I have to figure out who I want to be before I can even worry about leading someone else. And so what I recognize is that I have to figure out who I want to be as a human being, first and foremost, and that may cause me to change, to have to change the way I think about things or the way I do things, and if I want to be the kind of leader that I hope to be, I might I honestly have to change myself.

Legacy

Yeah, well, that's exactly right. And you have to decide what kind of legacy you wanna leave as a leader. Right, you are you gonna be that guy or gal that just collected the paycheck, or are you gonna be somebody that makes a legitimate change, not only in your organization but in people's lives?

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Dr. Travis Yates retired as a commander with a large municipal police department after 30 years of service. He is the author of “The Courageous Police Leader: A Survival Guide for Combating Cowards, Chaos & Lies.” His risk management and leadership seminars have been taught to thousands of professionals across the world. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy with a Doctorate Degree in Strategic Leadership and the CEO of the Courageous Police Leadership Alliance.