In the 1990s, when the concept of community policing was continuing to gain a considerable amount of traction in many areas of law enforcement, there was a growing recognition that police supervisors could be pivotal agents of change. These so-called "middle managers" could help ensure that this new approach to the policing enterprise was taken seriously, or, they could easily undermine the initiatives brought forward in pursuit of community policing and shrug when senior executive officers looked for explanations for why these great ideas were not getting support at the front-line.
In 1995, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), published a useful monograph under the sponsorship of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). Managing innovation in policing: the untapped potential of the middle manager was an important treatment of this much-neglected (and often maligned) component in the hierarchy of police organizations. Written by William A. Geller (an associate director at PERF) and Guy Swanger, a sergeant with the San Diego Police Department, this publication offers some great ideas about how to engage middle managers in the change agenda for police departments.
Recently, an article in the scholarly literature has been published in a Special Issue of the Review of Public Personnel Administration 34(2) that offers some contemporary views on the role of police supervisors. "Leadership behavior in public organizations: a study of supervisory support by police and medical center middle managers" is written by Eva Knies and Peter Leisink. Its focus is on supervisors the national police and an academic medical centre in the Netherlands. What makes it valuable is the continuing tension that exists involving the intended human resource practices formulated and promulgated at the executive (or corporate) level, the applied rules and policies actually enacted by police supervisors, and the perception (or reception) of those rules by front-line personnel. The gaps are often substantial and significant. One effective way of examining these gaps is to study the role, function, and feelings of middle managers. These individuals are the bridge between the executive and the operational and administrative front-line.
Of course, leadeship behaviour constitutes part of the human resource management (HRM) performance chain. Knies & Leisink rightly note that there are always constraints on the discretionary supports that may be offered by supervisors. Accordingly, they see personal motivation as the most important reason for managers to engage in supportive supervisory behaviour. This study looks at these two sets of middle managers to consider the things that lead them support personnel, as well as, the main antecedents to supportive activity, namely, supportive ability and discretionary 'room' for this support.
The authors begin with a consideration of something referred to in the literature as 'perceived organizational support' (POS). This is an employee's general sense, or belief, that their organization values their individual contribution and cares about their well-being. POS obviously will vary from individual to individual as it resides in a person's own assessment of their organization's valuing behaviour.
By looking at the police in the Netherlands the authors offer an insight into an organization that North American readers rarely find based largely on the language gap. So, it's useful to learn about how supervision in this jurisdiction parallels experience in other police departments.
By considering the work of real managers, Knies & Leisink reveal actual practice in a police organization. The authors remind the reader that competent employees may not make good supervisors. In order to conduct their work, they apply elements of social exchange theory, which deals with the reciprocal arrangements between the organization and employees. This often results in feelings of obligation on the part of the employee which may have significant impacts upon employee behaviour. Furthermore, Knies & Leisink were concerned about looking at a supervisor's voluntary actions rather than those which derive from external obligations (e.g., collective agreements, etc.).
Another dimension of this work that is useful to highlight relates to their AMO framework, which takes into account the following elements:
- A -- Ability
- M -- Motivation
- O -- Opportunity (to perform)
The research conducted within the Netherlands police organization revealed an imbalance between the importance placed upon supervisory support in HR policy generated by the organization and issued through senior police management and the necessary discretionary scope for providing such support through middle managers. Essentially, Knies & Leisink found that while supervisory support is lauded in policy documents (i.e., on paper) there are real constraints on managers when it comes to delivering the kind of supevisory support required in the field (i.e., in action). Of course, this is not a remarkably surprising finding. It does, however, serve to remind all senior police executives that HR rhetoric is not sufficient to produce an effective workplace.
Making it easier for police supervisors to develop and provide support to their personnel is a key management development challenge. Policing in the Netherlands, as elsewhere, must observe the layers of accountability that include ministers and a range of stakeholders. This requires significant and structured internal control mechanisms. However, there remains a pressing practical need for line managers to be able to employ the full range of their capability aimed at supporting the front-line officers they supervise. No police organization could ever generate policies, procedures, protocols, or practices to cover every contingency that may occur in the world of modern policing. Accordingly, having competent supervisors who know they have "discretionary room" to provide suitable support for their officers is an avenue for tapping into their potential for the improvement of the organization.
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