Check out this post from Todd Henry at The Accidental Creative. There is an important lesson here for would-be leaders. You may be able to control small groups, but police organizations are complex endeavors and it is impossible to control everyone all the time. I’ve said it hundreds of times in my own organization when talking to supervisors- mindset drives behavior, behavior drives outcomes. When you try to control behavior, it is short-lived and difficult to get change. Influence is about changing mindset and, if you can accomplish that, you will be driving the behavior of your people. Influence scales, control doesn’t.

Aim For Influence, Not Control – Accidental Creative

You may have a goal that you are trying to accomplish and that goal has associated needs and challenges. The outward mindset is about understanding that the other people involved in the situation also have goals, needs, and challenges. There are two short reads by The Arbinger Institute that explain this very well and are worth a look. They are “Leadership and Self-Deception” and “The Outward Mindset.” The link is an article about having an outward mindset from Lexipol.

Cultivating an Outward Mindset in Law Enforcement – Lexipol

Leaders in the organization should be thinking about the vision.  Too many times police organizations engage in a process of ‘strategic planning’ with no real understanding of strategy.  It ends up being a business plan with boxes to check with no progress toward a strategic end.  Strategy is a set of coordinated activities that move the organization in a favorable in the environment.  If you are busy concerning yourself with the day-to-day business of the organization then you might be missing the bigger picture and preventing your department from making significant progress.

 Are you a police chief or a firefighter? (police1.com)