INTRODUCTION Much has been written about leadership, with numerous theories and academia exploring what effective leadership is. Most people have an everyday understanding of the word ‘leadership’, however, understanding what it means and how it is delivered is key to exploring the impact of different leadership styles. The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development described leadership as “the ability to understand people’s motivations and leverage them to achieve a shared goal.” (CIPD, 2023) Whereas management has been described as “the art of getting things done through others” (Monarch Business School, 2023) leadership is a more strategic skill which harnesses the power of people and their individual motivations to lead them towards a common purpose. Leaders don’t just manage individual tasks but communicate, gain acceptance of ideas and motivate teams (Munna, 2021). My own leadership style lends itself to a participatory style, where I try to inspire teams towards a common organisational objective by encouraging collective thought and decision making. My own motivation to lead comes from a number of different experiences and sources: I have a young family with two young children and I have spent significant periods of time working in public protection/child safeguarding. The motivation to safeguard the vulnerable is an intrinsic one and one which I can best influence through leading large teams, working towards a wider purpose and to standards that I expect. I am equally motivated by my previous experiences of leadership – I have worked with both good leaders and ineffective leaders. Inevitably, I have been motivated to a higher degree by the impact of poor leadership which has left me frustrated and driven me on to be a better leader – this is described as behaviourism learning whereby I learned by observing the behaviour of others (National University , 2024). In this reflective review I will explore a particular set of circumstances that challenged me and others as leaders. BACKGROUND - REFLECTION I was a Detective Inspector in South Wales Police in 2020 when I transferred to Devon and Cornwall Police for family reasons. This was a transfer that caused some level of personal and professional apprehension; Devon and Cornwall were not accepting transfers at the Inspector rank and I therefore had to take a reduction to the rank of Sergeant to enable this move. This involved a substantive change in roles and responsibilities, as well as a change in organisational hierarchy; culture; partnership landscape; local policies and contacts. I was posted in Devon and Cornwall to a Public Protection Unit, responsible for the criminal investigation and safeguarding into offences against children - this was an area of work I was familiar with. The difference, however, was that I had gone from leading the entire office and setting the strategic direction to being responsible for a much smaller team of three, focussing on tactical delivery. I had been keen to increase my leadership responsibility by seeking promotion in my previous organisation but needed to relocate for family reasons and therefore had to take a reduction in responsibility – I was professional disappointed by this change in responsibility and there was a real risk that this could demotivate me as I would not receive recognition at a leadership level I felt I was adept at i.e. an Inspector. To counter this, I set myself a challenge of seeking re-promotion as soon as possible and to do this by proving my worth to my new team and organisation. This change in strategic perspective was a challenge - my own natural personal leadership style lends itself to participative leadership, initially identified by Likert but described by Wang et al as a style “in which leaders ask employees for their opinions before making decisions, delegate decision-making authority to subordinates in practice, and encourage active participation by employees to make decisions together (Wang, Hou, & Li, 2022).” I found this collaborative approach easier and more natural with a large team and strategic focus but more difficult with a tactical small team which worked more closely to rigorous guidance and policy. My leadership changed from focussing on multiple teams and office direction to tactical delivery In essence, my leadership style had to veer into that of being more task-oriented: defined as being “a strong task focus and consequently, [to] structure followers’ tasks in terms of what needs to be done and when it needs to be finished (Breevaart & de Vries, 2021).” Further difficulties arose from the fact that my line manager, a Detective Inspector at my previous rank, was an extreme laissez faire leader. This was incredibly frustrating for me – it clashed with my own leadership style and it went against my core values of taking personal responsibility for work. Much has been written about the laissez faire style of leadership, with the Oxford dictionary describing it simply as: “the policy of leaving things to take their own course, without interfering” (Oxford English Dictionary [OED], 2024). My own interpretation was that this style of leadership was not effective in the office which had issues in terms of resourcing, personality clashes and high demand - the lack of effective leadership demotivated the team and allowed issues to develop. My line manager also heavily relied on me and my experience to fill the void of – although this was flattering to an extent it also was incredibly frustrating as I was taking on a leadership role above my responsibility grade whilst also having to deliver tactically at the Sergeant level. This has the potential to cause me additional stress and impact on my capacity. I was able to fil this void on minor issues within the office, reverting to my more participative leadership style which I had developed through previous roles and although I lacked natural authority in the hierarchical structure of the police, I compensated for this by demonstrating my former experience at a higher rank. CHALLENGE I came across a significant leadership several months after joining the department. The structure of the office saw three Sergeants oversaw an office of twelve. Each Sergeant had a team of four to lead, however, operationally each Sergeant would, at times, lead others. A peer of mine, a Sergeant on different team in the same office, was very self-focused on their own individual tasks and development. They had a very transactional leadership style which meant that the officers that they supervised did not feel valued or listened to and, as will delve into when discussing motivation theory, had a negative impact on their motivation and ultimately, performance. This left me feeling disheartened as I could see they were collectively enthusiastic and were intrinsically motivated to protect vulnerable persons. When I arrived and the Sergeant establishment became fully filled the team started to lose faith in this particular Sergeant’s leadership approach –they had been making allowances but once Sergeant numbers in the office reached full strength this good will evaporated. The Sergeant failed to pick up on this change in atmosphere and their inability to change their leadership style eventually led to a breakdown in office function. Officer’s investigations were not being reviewed by this Sergeant and workload was therefore backing up. This particular Sergeant was unable to prioritise or multi-task and as such, a large number of files were backed up, meaning that investigations were not being cleared off detective’s workloads at the same time as new cases were being allocated. There was also a perception that the supervisor avoided making decisions and return files for further work which was unnecessary as way of avoiding having to make a decision. This impacted on detectives ability to investigate new cases or to seek timely justice for victims and this had a moral impact on the team and office who felt demoralised, demotivated and were unfairly identified as and were performing poorly when compared to other similar offices teams. In essence, the Sergeant was not doing a core component of their role and at a much slower rate than other Sergeants in the office. When I reflect back on the reasons for this, taking into account motivation theories, I believe that this Sergeant suffered from a lack of external motivation factors. A number of well studied theories, such as Herzberg or Alderfer’s theory of motivation, point to the fact that there are a number of different factors which cause individuals and teams to be motivated to produce work – some of these are intrinsically driven and others are based on external factors. John Adair theorises that “50% of motivation comes from within a person, and 50% from his or her environment, especially from the leadership encountered therein”. (Adair, Effective Motivation, 2010). In this particular case, although the Sergeant was intrinsically motivated to ‘do the right thing’ and protect the vulnerable they didn’t receive the motivation, direction, praise, leadership or direction from her line manager. To exacerbate matters, the affected individuals had given personal feedback to this Sergeant on many occasions but it had not been well received – the Sergeant blamed the team and did not recognise any personal failings. The feedback had also been given to the Sergeant’s first line supervisor, an Inspector who had ignored the strength of feeling and issues within their department. His normal laissez faire approach, in essence, meant that he did not solve the issue or even acknowledge it existed - this has been previously assessed by some as a non-leadership style (Lynch, 2013) and I think this is a good description of their approach. This can have some benefits if there is a team of high motivated experts who require minimal input, however, the lack of action, and poor ineffective leadership styles of this Sergeant and their Inspector, who were both displaying laissez-faire styles, had been building for some time. The entire office felt they did not have any organisational justice, a concept whereby employees perceive workplace procedures, interactions and outcomes to be fair in nature (Baldwin, 2006). Quite simply, the office were raising issues that were being ignored. As such, the entire office was very demoralised and this reached a tipping point. They waited until I was the only supervisor in the office and then held a collective group meeting whereby they vented their frustrations with me, which was unexpected and caught me by surprise. Every single detective in the department spoke to me en-mass and collectively gave me an overview of the failings of the Sergeant (and to a lesser extent, the Inspector)– their collective view was that this issue could have been dealt with before it had reached this point and this was also my independent assessment. I felt disappointed as it was affecting the motivation of my team and also reflected badly on us as Sergeant group and therefore, to an extent, me. They further explained the personal effect this was having on them as individuals, such as causing lack of sleep and additional stress and anxiety, affecting their physical and mental health. Emotions were high and people were getting visibly upset, with some threatening to quit the department. They further stated that they reported this to me as they had faith that I would deal with the issues of poor performance and office health and wellbeing, I believe because of my previous experience as an Inspector. Taking into account the strength of impact on individual team members and the collective unanimous view I had no option but to immediately deal with this – if I didn’t I felt it would lead to poor organisational performance; people having to leave the department; becoming unwell or becoming further demotivated. This was based on their feedback to me and is backed up by theories of motivation – returning again to the aforementioned 50:50 principle, a lack of external leadership acted as a demotivation factor. Our collective Inspector refused to deal with the issue, despite directly line managing the Sergeant, and instead “delegated” the task to me. I was disappointed and upset by the lack of interest from the Inspector but I had to put this aside. Although I felt professionally embarrassed and uncomfortable in addressing a performance issue for a peer who I did not directly line manage, I also felt like the officers had received a poor level of service from the organisation and I was motivated to show a different positive leadership approach. Situational leadership has been described as changing one’s approach based on the circumstances, context and task (Gentry, 2022) and I had to change my leadership style when dealing with this scenario. ADRESSING THE ISSUE My previous leadership experience led me to believe that the best way was to have a one-to-one conversation with the Sergeant. Prior to speaking to the person I considered what their perspective was likely to be – in essence they had lost the support and backing of the office, who questioned their ability to lead and deliver. I knew that the individual was likely to take criticism personally and therefore I carefully planned my approach. Herzberg’s motivation suggests that there are certain factors in a workplace which act as motivation, such as achievement and recognition, and other factors which lead to dissatisfaction, known as hygiene factors. Whereas traditional and other motivation theories refer to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction being interdependent and linked, Herzberg’s theory views motivation and hygiene factors as being on separate spectrums (Nickerson, 2023) – motivation factors must be supported whilst hygiene factors managed. There is some criticism of this model in that there is an assumed link between satisfaction and productivity but this continues to influence modern day leadership theory. And what this meant, in this particular example, was that I understood this would be a negative ‘hygiene’ factor for the Seregant who was particularly sensitive to work relationships and how they were perceived by the wider team – highlighting this was likely to further demotivate them. I spoke to them in person and outside the office to try and diffuse some of the association with those responsible for the feedback. I advised them that the office had collectively expressed concerns around their performance and specifically, around their timeliness and ability to file check the quality of investigations. They took this information very badly and were clearly emotionally affected by this feedback, using emotive works like ‘mutiny’ and initially blaming others rather than self-reflecting. They also expressed initial surprised that I was addressing this but, quite tellingly, understood very quickly that our Inspector had decided not to have this difficult conversation with them – I believe that this was evidence of the fact that they had worked for some time for a laissez-faire leader and was demotivated by this. I defused some of their animosity by agreeing that I shouldn’t be dealing with this with her and also offering some personal and emotional support – I also rationalised that it was better for them to have this message delivered than not have it at all. I also offered constructive help by offering to assist with re-establishing their relationship with the teams – this would build and improve relations and ultimately lead to increased motivation for both the Sergeant and the teams, by addressing some of Herzberg’s hygiene factors whereby poor relations are a demotivator. Finally, I also pointed out some of the positive personal feedback that the team had offered around their ‘heart being in the right place’ and similar comments, to offer a balanced feedback perspective and act as a motivator. I also, crucially, explained that addressing this issue and relationship with the office would be positive for all parties and would also improve the performance of the department. At the time, I did consider reporting this issue to the Inspector’s line manager (the Sergeant’s second line manager) but was mindful I was new to the organisation; did not want to be disrespectful by going against the normal chain of command and also, I did not have confidence in this achieving a desired outcome as the Inspector would be involved in the solution to this and would again take a laissez-faire approach. The result was that the Sergeant had no option but to take on board some feedback – they were aware that they had lost the confidence of the office, even if they did not agree. A large body of research exists around the way in which individuals learn and all learning theories identify the fact that learning styles are unique to individuals. Cognitive learning theory describes how an individual learns and thinks based on internal factors, such as focus, and also external factors, such as receiving praise whilst learning (Wichita State University, 2024). Although I wasn’t aware at the time, the Sergeant would have found it difficult to learning with the background of criticism from peers and that is why I balanced them with some positive comments. I suggested some amendments to the way in which the office worked to ensure that this situation did not arise again and allowed all partis to air their frustrations and to be aware of the view of others– for example, structured one-to-one meetings; regular teams meetings and every fortnight an entire office meeting (these had not been in place beforehand). This meant that teams had the opportunity to voice concerns before they reached a critical level and the Sergeant had some direct scrutiny and pressure to do what they were supposed to be doing, rather than making excuses This drastically improved relations almost immediately within the office as the motivation of the team and both the Sergeant was improved by this feedback opportunity and ultimately made it a far better place to work. It did not solve all of the issues, however, as some were inherent with the Sergeant’s leadership style: they were still not as efficient as could be and in the absence of any performance management or support from their line manager, they did not do any self-reflection and therefore only served the immediate issues as opposed to dealing with underlying leadership style deficiencies. I am pleased that I managed to handle this episode delicately and ultimately my relationship with the Sergeant was not affected and if anything, improved as they sought me my advice on a number of occasions in the future. PERSONAL REFLECTION Several months later I had been temporarily promoted into a ‘sister office’ which allowed me the time, space and opportunity to reflect on this situation. The most obvious thing that struck me was how easy it would have been for the Inspector to have addressed the matter, as opposed to me. The Inspector had natural power by way of the hierarchical structure within the police and would have been able to deal with the individual’s performance and improve service delivery and the health, wellbeing and culture of the office. Power has been widely described as the ability to influence others (Lunenburg, 2012), and is used to attain group goals through wielding of this power. My natural views, and colloquially that of others I have spoken to, is that power can be inappropriately used to the detriment of an organisation by those interested in their own self-promotion, however, I would argue that it was inappropriately not used in this scenario. Instead, I had to wield power to influence others, namely the Sergeant not performing and the wider office dynamics between individuals. Although I did not realise it at the time, I had to employ referent power to try and achieve the outcomes require – this type of power was based on trust and respect of my colleagues and must be earned (Perry, 2022). I utilised the respect I had from the office and my peers, which, in hindsight, was somewhat surprising given the fact that I had not long started in the office. This was, in part I believe, as a result of my previous experience at a higher rank; my communication ability; the fact that I delivered on promises and could offer a fresh perspective, which was from outside the organisation. My motivation at the time was clear – I needed to take action to ensure the better function of the office, both for the protection of vulnerable persons and ultimately for the enjoyment of those working in it. Thinking back to Herzberg’s theory, my motivation stemmed from wishing to address hygiene factors in the office that I worked by improving my relations with others and those within themselves. My motivation to help others ultimately would cause them to be more motivated (thinking back to Adair’s 50:50 principle) and that would help, me the office, the Sergeant and the organisation as a whole. Even with motivation and power my emotional state was of relevance to the impact I could have – if I did not harness this appropriately I could risk coming across as being annoyed by the situation I was placed in and deviate from my goal. I have seen, as a leader, all too often people become invoiced in the personal politicise or clashes of personality rather than focus on the collective goal ahead. I was unimpressed and disappointed by the approach my line manager had taken but I learned, as I have in many other scenarios, that I needed to put aside my personal feelings which would lead to wasted time, emotion and effort and ultimately possible loss of respect (if I were seen to not act in a professional manner to the wider team). My natural style is not to act out of emotion and this played to my advantage as I had to focus on the end goal to ensure that this was the case. Ultimately, the experience put me in a difficult position and one which I was fortunate with - I could have lost power and credibility if I handled this differently and it was much harder to achieve the desired result than my actual line manager, given the lack of natural power that I had. To that extent, and on reflection, I am resolute that in future I should have escalated this to the second line manager for the Sergeant, upon the inaction of the first line manager. My unique circumstances in the organisation, being new and taking a reduction in rank, meant that I did not want to garner a reputation for subverting authority, however, I have reflected on this and could have been achieved this tactfully. I failed in one aspect of leadership which is to challenge and highlight poor practice, where appropriate. Taking this type of action, away from the natural rank and power structure within the organisation, is inherent with risks: there could be a perception of not following a chain of command or, if I did not listen to the entire office’s concerns, a lack of willingness to deal with a particular issue. But it is one I have resolved to do in future. REFLECTION – SERGEANT CONSIDERATIONS Having reflected on the Sergeant and their situation it is clear that their own internal needs were not being met from the wider team or their line manager. This, in turn, led to their indifferent leadership approach with the office and with not completing their core file responsibilities. The oft-quoted Malow’s Hierarchy of needs is very much still relevant today. It is widely understood and is of benefit in that it resonates with large sections of the workforce, however, it is subject to some criticism in the way in which it was developed, without widespread data to validate the theory. This psychological model, however, can be transitioned to the workplace and articulates the fact that a person’s inner needs must be met, such as psychological needs (salary and rewards); safety (job security); belonging (culture); self-esteem (recognition) and self actualisation (good performance). This is summarised in the picture below (Conley, 2007): I knew very little of the Sergeant at the time but grew to know them more closely after this incident. It became clear to me that this person needed regular praise and encouragement from their peers and line manager. They also needed to feel that their team recognised their worth and value to be motivated to perform their role to a good standard. Perversely, because they did not feel that they belonged within the office and did not get recognition for the work that they did do, they were not able to lead or motivate others – they were unable to motivate others as they weren’t motivated themselves. Their basic Maslow’s needs of self-esteem and self-actualisation were not being met and as a result they were not able to perform to a high standard. I believe this, on reflection, came as a result of the laissez-faire leadership style of our collective online manager. John Adiar argues that some of the key factors for the ability to lead and motivate others rely not only on self-motivation but also the fact that fair rewards and recognition are important for other to be motivated, along with recognition of progress (Adair, Develop Your Leadership Skills: Fast Efdfective Ways to Become a Leader People Want to Follow, 2022). This individual was not having their own motivation needs being met and as a result, their personal lack of motivation meant that they also did not motivate those under their command. The theory of motivation is varied and complex and there are many different models of why people are motivated. There are some that are obvious and have seeped into public consciousness – Pavlov and the motivation of individuals by classical conditioning, as an example. In this theory of motivation a repeated and unconnected stimulus leads to a response – in dogs a bell chimed before the dog received food meant that the dogs would automatically associate the bell with food and begin salivating (Mcleod, 2023). This basic concept of classic condition is known by most workers in an organisation – the idea of carrot and stick is well understood by most and is utilised by many leaders to varying degrees of success as a basic style of leadership. There are other conditioning approaches, however, that apply themselves to modern workplaces more accurately and with better results, such as operant conditioning. BF Skinner has been much quoted in this field and his views on behaviourism, the concept that a persons behaviours change as a result of stimulus and then response, have been used in in fields as diverse as business and also in sports coaching. Put simply, operant conditioning suggests that if behaviours have consequences that are reinforced they are more like to occur again (Leeder, 2002). This can be both positive and negative, as evidenced by personal development reviews in work. In this particular example, it could be argued that the lack of operant conditioning of the Sergeant’s inability to address file reviews meant that the issue remained and did not change. They did not do the work because there was no consequence for not doing it and they lack the motivation to do it of their own accord. If the Inspector had used positive stimulus on receipt of evidence of good work, or negative feedback when the issue was first raised, this issue may have been addressed relatively quickly. My own views, based on leadership theory and motivation theory, however, are that motivation is more nuanced and multi-faceted. To be a good leader and to be able to motivate and inspire others I believe that you need to understand their own personal motivation and drivers. Leaders then need to act to drive the intrinsic motivators of their teams, as well as recognising the external motivators such as praise and rewards. Returning to the conversation that I had with the individual, I can now recognise that the longer-term solution to their lack of ability and motivation was their line manager ensuring that their needs were met and addressing the performance issues, by externally motivating them and by operant conditioning. What had built up was poor practice with no real feedback or consequence. As a result the behaviour was likely and did indeed occur again. I was able to explain to this individual the impact this was having on them, the team and ultimately the public – I knew this individual was very self-motivated to protect children and the most vulnerable in the community. This was their intrinsic motivation and I reminded them of this fact, which, had some impact in the immediate and short term. What they refused to do, however, was actually address or speak about the issue directly with the wider office, possibly because of embarrassment. Ultimately, what would have been most of benefit to this individual and the department was an understanding of what led to this and how to avoid a repeat. I believe that the Sergeant did some reflection and came to an understanding that they could not work for the Inspector or their laissez-faire style of leadership – this was not productive to their own motivation and as such, they left the department shortly afterwards, confiding in me that they were looking for a fresh direction and challenge. The Sergeant, in essence, needed external motivation (Adair’s 50:50 principle) and this department and leader did not offer this to them. There are numerous different styles of learning and theories as to how different people learn. Ambrose defines learning as “a process that leads to change, which occurs as a result of experience and increases the potential for improved performance and future learning” (Ambrose, 2010). One form of learning theory which accords with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs states that the learner needs to self-actualise to learn and it is dependent on a hierarchy of needs, whereby the learning should be referenced (ELN, 2018). Again, turning to this example the Sergeant not having their needs met meant they were not able to self-actualise and they they could not address the deep rooted issues of their leadership style or learn from their mistakes. Theis could have been addressed by the Inspector addressing the poor performance, by way of operant conditioning, and providing external motivation, The individual did listen to the criticism and feedback but only to a limited extent. I am pleased to say that performance did improve, but not to an extent it would if their line manager had actually directed this change or allowed for self-reflection and learning. The Sergeant improved their own performance in terms of timeliness and also participated in group meetings but this was driven out internal motivators of the desire to be liked and to protect their community, as opposed to becoming a more self-aware leader. An abnormal power structure effected this change – the line manager did not manage but instead it was collective power within the office and then with me, a peer. REFLECTION - TEAM I have reflected and considered the impact that this situation had on the office and individual team members. Ultimately, and although the immediate situation was improved - which resulted in better office dynamics and more timely investigation/results for victims - the matter was not completely resolved for the long term. The issue arose and was sustained, in my view, as a result of the ineffectiveness of the Inspector in charge of the entire office. None of the work that I did, or indeed the Sergeant did, addressed any of the leadership faults of the Inspector. On hindsight, this absolutely was a matter that should have been brought to the attention of the Inspector’s line manager as the issue is likely to perpetuate itself regardless of where this Inspector works. On reflection, I now realise that the Inspector was equally, if not more so, to blame for this situation than the Sergeant. To delve into the reason behind the Inspector’s ineffective leadership, it was their natural laissez-faire attitude mixed with incompetence in a specialist department of which they had no prior experience - Walsh describes the incompetence leader lacks the will or skill to deliver effective leadership and that their failings are not as a result to practical or emotional intelligence but rather, are as a result to person failings such as being distracted or undone by uncertainty or stress. The impact of this is that their incompetent leadership results in a lack of directions and clear effectiveness in the teams that they supervise (Walsh, 2018). Turning back to the immediate impact on the team, it was, on the surface positive. Regular meeting structures meant that they could voice their concerns and prevent a build-up of tension. It also provided a vehicle to effective practise work, again before operational matters built up. In the short term, it resulted in more motivated individuals and teams who were able to secure better progression of cases and results for vulnerable victims and ultimately, the organisational policing response improved. But because the Sergeant felt that they had lost the trust of the office, the team remained sceptical and worried that the situation would fall back to the way it was before. The Sergeant did not have the openness to transform their leadership style and this meant that their issues persists - they later left the department, taking a speciality role where they had no direct line manager supervision responsibility. The Inspector at no point recognised the error of their leadership – they were self-absorbed in their own interests as opposed to that of the team and it is to my regret and failure of leadership, that I did not point this out to them. The team were ultimately incredibly thankful for my intervention and felt I had improved their working conditions drastically. I noticed increased effectiveness and power on my own leadership as I had more respect from the team in general, and not just those that were in my immediate command. I was seen as an effective problem solve, although I am disappointed I did not do enough to bring about effective, long lasting change. I learned the importance of doing what you promise you will do, to build the power and motivation that your leadership can utilise in future. But I also have reflected and learned that I should take a more long-term approach to solving leadership failings and should use the natural power and hierarchical structures in the police to help me achieve this. On reflection, I now recognise that I went through a behaviour learning process whereby the behaviour of others and the effect this had on individuals and organisational performance led me to understand the importance of showing strong leadership when dealing with crisis in teams.