5.3: Personal Courage and Organizational Courage

Innovation and creativity is the responsibility of tomorrow's organizational leadership and I subscribe to the theory that, “Without a past, you can have no future.” The problem with our traditional bureaucratic public safety organizations is the manner today’s leaders have a death grip on tradition and fail to see past the industrial era of management styles. The traditional leadership and management strategies are crushing creativity under their own weight, (Stage & Dean, 2000). My experience implies that innovation and creativity do not emerge from the ivory tower of police headquarters but rather from the rank and file members performing the daily tasks. Kouzes & Posner, (2007) maintain, “Innovation requires more listening and communications than doe’s routine work” (p.177).

The industrial era of leadership was designed for the purpose of getting the information flow in one direction; downward and required little if any response; and within the profession, very much like the Psychotherapy and Counseling arena the police have responded to a body of “expert knowledge” and qualification that were well guarded by the profession for the profession and not to be shared (Totten, 1999). Once a paradigm has been established, the scientist enhances her/his reputation by writing journal articles that are addressed only to colleagues within the profession (Kuhn, 1996). Furthermore, the powers to be had little time for any input outside the organization; fatal to contemporary demands for innovation and creativity. It is critical to stay in touch with internal and external fabricators of organizational cultures in order to be a change agent (Kouzes & Posner, 2007).

Change agents or change centered leadership requires courage on behalf of organizational members, leaders, and organizational buy-in. Change Agents are also referred to as risk takers and the processes subscribes to intuitive and creative juices of the membership and leadership in conjunction with power motivated for the right reasons. That is foreseeing the urgency for change and meeting those demands through swift and thoughtful decisions (Andersen, 2000). Critical to this style is the development of the organizations members and a strong relationship between leader and follower (Andersen, 2000).

Succession planning is a process in trouble and selecting the right members for executive education requires deeper attention to existing rosters of organizations and selection of future leaders in cooperation with new vision rather than those mired in the past. Equally important is the requirement to find members with the required transformational traits to move the organization forward rather than maintain a status-quo (Haskins & Shaffer, 2010). Additionally critical is the attempt to gain ethical people from an unethical society (discussed at greater length further on in the material). In a transforming society, the leadership must be ahead of the game.

According to a recent study by the American Society for Training and Development, (September, 2010) surveying 674 senior executives of large companies across the globe indicate that they plan to rebuild their workforces to prerecession levels by 2012. Most had grave concerns of workforce capabilities and management capabilities to meet the transforming times (Haskins & Shaffer, 2010).

In summary the successful innovative leader must be caring, sharing and open to all ideas as described in the preceding as well as possessing the ability to work in teams, be creative and have a keen ability to forecast and move without hesitation.