Sgt.Campbell
03-03-2009, 01:34 PM
In our profession, there appears to be a startling lack of something that most professions hold near and dear – leadership.
When we hear about leadership in the security field, it usually is in regard to somebody messing up, such as with five Blackwater officers committing manslaughter, or supervisors raping their subordinates (Inter-Con). Obviously, these are two rather extreme examples that highlight negative publicity that poor leadership is prone to produce.
In my own company, there are two “watch commanders” for two separate four-day rotations. I am one of them. It seems as though every time I come back on shift, I hear yet another horror story concerning my compatriot and his leadership style. He and I practice two methods of the same ideal – he comes from a Marine background and I come from a bottom-up, customer service-oriented background. Those two differing backgrounds have helped us develop two different leadership strategies.
The other watch commander uses blunt, in-your-face tactics much as a noncom (non-commissioned officer) in the USMC would do while dressing down a subordinate. I use a methodology developed over years of abuse by supervisors and managers in positions of perceived authority which we’ll call “managerial humanism.”
There are obvious distinctions between military leadership and managerial humanism. Whereas one is only concerned with immediate results, the latter is concerned with both immediate and lasting results.
The other watch commander, bless his heart, has the interests of the company in mind when he directs a subordinate to shape up or complete a task, but he is only concerned with the task or issue at hand and does not require much critical thinking from our officers. I, on the other hand, offer my officers advice on how to complete the task assigned, make sure that they understand the directive, and then compliment them on what they’ve done right before critiquing what they’ve done wrong or haven’t completed at all. Military leadership in the civilian arena allows for immediate results, but doesn’t allow the officer to grow. Managerial humanism encourages the officer to complete the task, compartmentalize the goals and objectives they used to complete the task, and then allows them to use these same goals and objectives as a basis for completing other tasks assigned to them in the course of their employment.
While contract security is generally a profit-making enterprise, it shouldn’t preclude the company from encouraging their officers to perform to the best of their abilities. As a general rule, security is low-paying work, and clients place high demands on the security officer for such a low rate of pay (of course, most clients look at what they’re being charged per hour and somehow believe that figure is what the officer is getting paid).
The long and short of this post, I suppose, is that managers and supervisors need to take into account that, without the security officer, our business dies. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule – those officers who simply want to collect a paycheck to perpetuate their meager existence or meaningless lifestyles – but the majority of officers out there want to do well. A true leader should ask how their officer is doing, ask them if they have any questions, share an anecdote, make sure they understand the scope of their duties; anything to help the officer along. Simply saying “fix this, do that, don’t do that, do as I say” will not produce anything but negativity and a high turnover rate.
When we hear about leadership in the security field, it usually is in regard to somebody messing up, such as with five Blackwater officers committing manslaughter, or supervisors raping their subordinates (Inter-Con). Obviously, these are two rather extreme examples that highlight negative publicity that poor leadership is prone to produce.
In my own company, there are two “watch commanders” for two separate four-day rotations. I am one of them. It seems as though every time I come back on shift, I hear yet another horror story concerning my compatriot and his leadership style. He and I practice two methods of the same ideal – he comes from a Marine background and I come from a bottom-up, customer service-oriented background. Those two differing backgrounds have helped us develop two different leadership strategies.
The other watch commander uses blunt, in-your-face tactics much as a noncom (non-commissioned officer) in the USMC would do while dressing down a subordinate. I use a methodology developed over years of abuse by supervisors and managers in positions of perceived authority which we’ll call “managerial humanism.”
There are obvious distinctions between military leadership and managerial humanism. Whereas one is only concerned with immediate results, the latter is concerned with both immediate and lasting results.
The other watch commander, bless his heart, has the interests of the company in mind when he directs a subordinate to shape up or complete a task, but he is only concerned with the task or issue at hand and does not require much critical thinking from our officers. I, on the other hand, offer my officers advice on how to complete the task assigned, make sure that they understand the directive, and then compliment them on what they’ve done right before critiquing what they’ve done wrong or haven’t completed at all. Military leadership in the civilian arena allows for immediate results, but doesn’t allow the officer to grow. Managerial humanism encourages the officer to complete the task, compartmentalize the goals and objectives they used to complete the task, and then allows them to use these same goals and objectives as a basis for completing other tasks assigned to them in the course of their employment.
While contract security is generally a profit-making enterprise, it shouldn’t preclude the company from encouraging their officers to perform to the best of their abilities. As a general rule, security is low-paying work, and clients place high demands on the security officer for such a low rate of pay (of course, most clients look at what they’re being charged per hour and somehow believe that figure is what the officer is getting paid).
The long and short of this post, I suppose, is that managers and supervisors need to take into account that, without the security officer, our business dies. Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule – those officers who simply want to collect a paycheck to perpetuate their meager existence or meaningless lifestyles – but the majority of officers out there want to do well. A true leader should ask how their officer is doing, ask them if they have any questions, share an anecdote, make sure they understand the scope of their duties; anything to help the officer along. Simply saying “fix this, do that, don’t do that, do as I say” will not produce anything but negativity and a high turnover rate.