Recently, I stood in front of a room full of newly graduated law enforcement officers to speak about standards—what they are, why they matter, and how they quietly define the profession long before policy manuals ever do. These were men and women at the beginning of their careers, still carrying the optimism and urgency that come with choosing a calling rather than a job.
During the discussion, a familiar refrain surfaced. The kind that echoes through locker rooms and briefing rooms across generations.
“Slow down. This is a marathon, not a sprint.”
“You’re making the rest of us look bad.”
I have heard these phrases for more than twenty years. What startled me wasn’t their content, but their persistence. Decades later, the same tired warnings are still being handed down to our newest professionals as if they were wisdom rather than warning signs.
If we want more from our profession—more trust, more legitimacy, more pride—we must be willing to confront an uncomfortable truth: some of our inherited thinking deserves to be retired.
It would be naïve to ignore the powerful human desire for acceptance. Policing, like any close-knit profession, runs on peer approval as much as it does on procedure. New officers quickly learn what earns praise and what invites isolation. Too often, they are taught—subtly or overtly—that excellence is disruptive, that effort should be throttled, that standing out is a liability.
What makes this especially dangerous is not malice, but normalization. Advice given by peers carries weight even when it steers people away from what is right. Over time, the desire to belong can quietly outrank the duty to serve.
So what message should we give our people?
It does not need to be aggressive. It does not need to be defiant. It needs to be honest.
Not everyone can work at my pace—and that’s okay.
That sentence does important work. It is non-confrontational. It grants dignity without surrender. It allows others an exit without demanding an apology from those who choose to do the job fully and well. Most importantly, it frees our hardest-working officers from the corrosive belief that doing the right thing requires justification.
There is an old line attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Go toward what is right, and leave the rest to Providence.” It is a reminder that integrity is not a consensus project. The pursuit of what is right has never depended on universal approval, and it never will.
Making a difference in the society we live in is always the right choice. It has never been the easy one.
So here is my message to our people:
Never apologize for your personal standards. You are not responsible for validating someone else’s comfort, effort level, or lack of ambition. If others choose to reduce their workload or narrow their commitment, that is their decision—but it does not require your participation.
You are not obligated to make mediocrity feel normal.
You are not required to dim your light to soften someone else’s reflection.
And you are certainly not responsible for easing the conscience of those who have chosen less.
Each of us must sleep in the bed we make. The only question that matters is whether we can do so peacefully.
Standards are not burdens. They are anchors. And the profession will only rise when we stop asking our best people to carry the weight of everyone else’s excuses.