Blog

After a hard call, “you good?” gets “yeah, I’m good” every time. One small change gets you a real answer.

It's a Tuesday, and the request has been sitting in your box since the first of the month. Four days in March. His daughter turns ten, his wife found a cabin down in Hocking Hills, and his in-laws want to fly in from Arizona if it's actually happening. You've looked...

There is a particular kind of embarrassment in having a wide open net in front of you and not being able to score. I know it well. I started playing hockey at 43. I never played growing up. I rollerbladed in the nineties, but never hockey, so when I finally stepped on...

Everyone bracing for a young department to fail is watching the wrong place. They are watching the street, and the street is fine. The failure, when it comes, shows up in a case file somebody else opens about nine days later. Chuck Wexler sent PERF's members their...

Watch the room the next time you roll out a decision. If every head is nodding, you have a problem. People who believe in an idea do not nod at it. They speak up, they add to it, they start solving for it before you finish the sentence. Nodding is what a room does...

The number everyone quotes is one in ten. American policing is running at about 91 percent of authorized staffing, and almost every conversation about that number turns into a recruiting conversation. The conversation nobody schedules is about what the shortage is...

In most departments, the worst news in policing is not delivered by the chief. It is delivered by a shift sergeant walking toward an officer who has already worked a full tour, to tell them they are not going home. Ask front line supervisors to name the hardest part...

In the early months of the pandemic, law enforcement officers around this country were told, in everything but writing, to stop being cops. The order did not come from their chiefs. It came from the politics above their chiefs, and the crime rates that followed told...

Just after the pandemic, my agency put up a five thousand dollar hiring bonus. The veterans read that flyer the way veterans read everything, carefully and personally. By the end of the week the hallway question was the same everywhere: where is ours? Nobody was...

I once took over a unit that was slipping, and I tightened everything. More check-ins, more reporting, more eyes on the numbers, a standard I could measure against, and a way to track it daily. I called it accountability, and for a few weeks it looked like it was...

You don't earn a veteran's respect by proving you belong. You earn it by proving you don't need to.   The week I was promoted to sergeant, I had seven years in the division. The senior trooper at my post had almost thirty. They had almost as much time on the job...

The text came in at 6:40 on a Tuesday. A deputy one hundred miles away wanted to know if there was still a seat on the June trip, and the answer lived in exactly one place. My own head. Not a shared calendar. Not a second person who could have handled it in ten...

In 1991, a journalist named John Byrne gave a phenomenon a name: CEO-Disease. This phenomenon is exactly why it feels lonely at the top. It describes the information vacuum that forms around a leader when subordinates learn, through experience or observation, that...

Anne Frank wrote, "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." She wrote that hiding in an attic. Thirteen years old. Surrounded by genocide. Her instinct wasn't to wait for rescue or permission. It was to start....

There's a quote attributed to Alvin Toffler — the futurist, not a general or a CEO — that landed on me years ago and never left: "The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."...

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...

“If you keep working that hard, you’re making us look bad.” I’ve heard that line too many times. And recently, I was stunned to hear it again—from a group of brand-new law enforcement graduates. Two decades later, the same tired mindset is still making the rounds:...

Leadership is not measured by titles or tenure. It’s measured by movement. And when that movement stops—so does relevance. Companies don’t die overnight. They rot slowly, from the inside out. Not because of one bad decision, but because of no decision at all. Not...

Leadership is not a milestone you reach and rest on. It’s a standard you uphold every day. And in public safety, where decisions carry weight and consequences, that standard must be relentlessly sharpened. The problem is, too many leaders quietly stop growing. Not...

Every championship team shares one thing in common: they live and die by the fundamentals. No flashy tactic ever replaces flawless footwork, clean execution, and relentless discipline. In law enforcement, it’s no different. Success on the street starts with discipline...

We’ve been getting accountability wrong. In too many workplaces, “holding someone accountable” is code for punishing them. That’s not accountability — that’s discipline. And they’re not the same thing. What Accountability Really Means Real accountability is proactive,...

In law enforcement, we tend to treat “culture” like it’s something abstract. A concept we assign to HR, address in an annual training, or delegate down the chain of command. Throw in a few laminated value cards, a mission statement on the wall, and check the box....

I’ve seen multiple organizations unintentionally hinder their own growth. A high-performance culture pushes some to succeed—while pushing others straight to burnout. In the race to rise to the top, there’s a hidden danger lurking behind success: the ‘go-to’ person....

Every job seeker knows the frustration: you find an entry-level job posting that sounds perfect—until you see those dreaded words: “1–2 years of experience required.” We’ve all been there. Whether as a recent grad or someone new to an industry, you hit a wall that...

We wear many hats throughout our lives. Some of these hats are roles we choose, while others are roles that choose us. I see myself as a husband and father—a guardian; a hiker and non-profit founder—a healer; a trooper—a protector; and a writer and musician—a creator....

Leadership is about creating environments where people can thrive—not just as employees but as individuals. Yet, in today’s always-on work culture, we often forget the most straightforward truth: people need space to breathe, connect, and grow. That’s why I believe...

In leadership circles, high performers often share a common hesitation: the fear of delegation. To these driven individuals, handing over a task may feel like relinquishing control or compromising quality. But what if we shifted this mindset to see delegation not as a...

Ever notice how life's lessons sometimes come from the most ordinary places? Recently, I read Seth Godin's blog about his take on car dents. You know the scenario - you get a massive dent in your car, and there's no question about what to do. You're at the body shop...

Have you ever thought about why your organization exists? It may seem like an odd question, but it’s a vital one. Just ask Satya Nedella, CEO of Microsoft. The moment he took charge, he posed this question to his team not just for introspection but as a fascinating...