The concepts of leadership and management in policing are often misunderstood. According to Kingshott (2006), “the role of the modern police management is to impart on the individual officer the management and leadership skills necessary to exercise their discretion responsibly” (p. 121). Nowadays, “police aim at problem-solving instead of crime elucidation and are more concerned with citizens’ specific problems and concerns” (Dussault et al., 2018, p. 67). A criminal justice manager can be an organization’s owner, an employee, or a person working under an outsourcing contract. Competent managers should be thoroughly acquainted with the fundamentals of the functions and facilities they command, maintaining future success, how the office handles the commercial mixture, and how society perceives these (Azad et al., 2017). The roles of the criminal justice office leader are limited to performing duties related to influencing and motivating employees. While the manager plays monitoring, controlling, and planning roles, the leadership function is narrowed to counseling and offering subordinate training.
Differences in Leadership and Management
There is a significant difference between leadership and management. The first distinction is that leaders set the vision while managers follow it. Leaders provide ideas that a team can execute to help them reach the company’s goals and development. On the contrary, managers interpret the dreams the leaders have to make them a reality. They look at what the leaders might have meant and figure out ways to make these goals come to life (Liphadzi et al., 2017). Leaders are more concerned with new ideas, while managers are concerned with the execution of these ideas.
Leaders tend to praise their followers for their small achievements, while managers operate by finding subordinates’ faults and correcting or punishing them. In policing, supportive supervisors represent this type of leader (Ashcroft et al., 2003). Leaders work by developing power in people using non-coercive influence to engage workers in turning visions into reality. At the same time, managers exercise power over people by giving them assignments and strict directions. A perfect example of such leaders is innovative supervisors (Cronin et al., 2017). Leaders, especially sergeants who adhere to the transformational model, promote fluidity and change in their departments by showing integrity and legitimacy in their actions (Dussault et al., 2018). Contrarily, managers establish order and security in the organization by telling subordinates what they should do in their respective assignments.
Another example of the leadership and management difference is that leaders use their role and social influence to set up a vision of change. Police officers applying strategic leadership are an illustrative example of it (Gharama et al., 2020). In contrast, managers fulfill the set organizational processes and goals (Liphadzi et al., 2017). Lastly, leaders, especially transformational that were mentioned above, employ a motivational style by thinking beyond what subordinates can do and encouraging them to self-develop and be part of the broader goal (Yulinasril et al., 2018). Managers, on the contrary, use an authoritarian style to get people to listen and do what they ask.
How Leadership and Management Affect the Criminal Justice Department
Understanding why leadership and management are helpful in the judiciary and law enforcement will go a long way to streamlining the criminal offices. First, it ensures order because there are so many bodies in the criminal justice department. Outstanding leadership and management will ensure that all these departments work together in synchrony (Torfing, 2019). The judiciary and the correctional facilities will corresponding to each other. Without exemplary leadership, the various departments involved might not have a way they integrate with the rest of the criminal justice body.
Secondly, the vision will be sustained throughout the department’s justice hierarchy. At the top of the probation charts are the circuit judge and those working with them, such as the community service coordinators. If there are reforms required in the department, the circuit judge will lead it. The people who will need to implement these are the community service coordinators. The judge requires both these skills to ensure that the people working with them can understand what the task is and how to work on it. Leadership and management also ensure organizations working with the system keep the peace and that the different departments do not collide (Kapucu & Ustun, 2018). Leaders in these organizations should come together with the judiciary and develop ways they can work together. In doing this, the entire order of things will be kept without any issue.
Inter-relationship between Leadership and Management
Leading and managing are two concepts that form the framework for abilities and skills needed to drive team success. In reality, they are transposable, particularly when describing performance effectiveness within organizations (Liphadzi et al., 2017). The functions of both positions flow in an inseparable continuum because these roles are used to describe both leaders and managers, making the definitions and tasks of leadership and management merge into a single concept. For instance, the circuit judge in the section mentioned above needs to have both leadership and management skills to ensure that the people working with them can understand what the task is and how to work on it.
Conclusion
Although the terms leadership and management have been used synonymously in some situations, they imply different criminal justice organizations’ roles. Effective leadership bases its principles on ideas that can inspire people to make a change. Management is founded on the execution of ideas that will lead to the realization of a vision. A manager is concerned with setting plans in motion since they have set goals and ways to quantify and measure them. Both concepts are necessary for the successful workflow of the criminal justice organization.
References
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Azad, N., Anderson, G., Brooks, A., Garza, O., O’Neil, C., Stutz, M. M., & Sobotka, L. (2017). Leadership and management are one and the same. American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, 81(6), 1-5. Web.
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Dussault, M., Deschênes, A. A., & Frenette, É. (2018). Police officer transformational leadership: development and validation of a self-reported scale. American Journal of Applied Psychology, 7(6), 67-72.
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Torfing, J. (2019). Collaborative innovation in the public sector: The argument. Public Management Review, 21(1), 1-11. Web.
Yulinasril, Y., Wardi, Y., & Masdupi, E. (Eds.) (2019, April). Proceedings of the 2nd Padang international conference on education, economics, business and accounting (PICEEBA-2 2018). Atlantis Press.