In life everyone needs a good leader. Whether it be in sports growing up or even in the classroom a leader is very important in society. Leadership is a skill that is hard to teach maybe even impossible to teach. A leader is someone who shows the rest how to do things the right way. Leadership is important because without it there would be no way to do things. Without a leader in criminal justice there would be no one to look to for help. Leadership is one of the most important things when it comes to criminal justice.
Leadership is important in criminal justice because without it communication, teamwork, and collaboration would not be a thing. According to an article from LSUA, “Ethics is an important aspect of leadership in any field, but perhaps even more so in criminal justice. Criminal justice deals with many different people and situations, and the notion of right and wrong as it pertains to society is a crucial component. Ethical leadership in criminal justice is extremely important, and it is the responsibility of everyone in the field. Leaders in the field, however, hold a higher responsibility to demonstrate and teach ethics while seeking out ethical employees to ensure the most positive work environment possible.”
Also According to an article by Nicole Cain, there are two types of leadership when it comes to criminal justice. The two types are situational leadership and transformational leadership. Situational leadership “requires leaders to quickly assess a situation and recognize the appropriate personnel and resources needed for a specific mission. Because the nature of police work is both high-risk and dynamic, it is important for a leader to navigate through evolving and often dangerous circumstances. Possessing the ability to digest information quickly and make decisions under pressure is paramount. Situational leadership is often reactive and should not be the primary style of law enforcement leaders.”
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The transformational leadership style “focuses on encouraging the success of others. A transformational leader develops a vision of the future intended to excite and inspire followers. Ideally, transformation leaders create valuable and positive change in their followers with the end goal of teaching them to become leaders. Transformational leaders can foster a positive change in their agencies and communities by addressing the low morale of officers who are policing in an anti-police society. The animosity, mistrust, and criticism of law enforcement is present on the news, social media, and in our streets. A transformational leader must foster collaboration by mending wounds both internally and externally. Leaders can inspire officers by highlighting their achievements, recognizing their strengths, providing opportunities for growth, and honing their skills.”
According to an article by The Florida Department of Corrections there are 10 attributes that a good leader should have. These 10 attributes are integrity, trustworthiness, competence, decision making, follower, courage, visionary, self confidence, formal communication, and grapevine communication. They go into detail to every attribute and explain why it is important for a leader to have all of those attributes. The three that I think are very important are self confidence, integrity, and communication. For self confidence they wrote “Leaders with strong self-confidence take risks. This self-confidence allows the leaders to make decisions especially the tough decisions that people do not want to make. Leaders gain this self-confidence with experience and learning from mistakes. To be effective they must absorb this information and learn from it.”
For integrity they wrote “Our integrity is how we are characterized as a leader. A high level of integrity is respected by almost all of the staff a leader supervises, or leads. A person of integrity is committed to the mission of the organization and believes in its goals and objectives. Leaders are looked at both on the job and off. They must have integrity in both worlds to be an effective leader. Having integrity in one area and not the other will have employees thinking the leader is a fake and lacks the true ability to lead.”
