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The Protectors® Podcast
Welcome to The Protectors® Podcast, where the valor meets the storyteller. Hosted by Jason Piccolo, a seasoned veteran and retired special agent, this series is a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the courage and tales of those who pledge to protect us. Beyond the front-line stories of bravery and dedication, this podcast goes a step further, weaving in the perspectives of those who bolster and narrate the protector's journey—featuring a remarkable lineup including New York Times Best Sellers and acclaimed Hollywood actors.
The Protectors® Podcast offers a diverse array of voices, from those who wear the uniform to the authors and entertainers who amplify their stories. It's a unique blend that highlights not only the raw realities faced by our protectors but also how their sacrifices inspire the narratives we cherish in literature and film. Each episode is a testament to the interconnected worlds of service and support, bringing listeners an unmatched depth of insight.
Dr. Jason Piccolo is a retired federal agent, former U.S. Army Infantry Captain (Iraq 2006), and author.
Past Guests Include:- Sean Patrick Flanery - Andrews & Wilson- Mark Greaney- Stephen Hunter- Remi Adeleke - Florent Groberg - Clint Emerson - Travis Mills
The Protectors® Podcast
535 | William Fraass
Bill Frost joins the podcast to discuss the crisis of toxic leadership in law enforcement and the importance of finding purpose after retirement.
• Morning walks as physical therapy and mental health practice after career-ending injury
• The increase in toxic leadership across law enforcement agencies in recent decades
• How rushing promotions and political influence create poor leadership
• The problem of promoting people who aren't ready for leadership positions
• Why mentorship is critically important for developing future leaders
• The connection between good leadership and agency recruitment/retention
• How police leaders can stay true to their mission while dealing with political pressures
• The importance of having a mission after retirement to avoid destructive behaviors
• How legacy matters and why authentic leadership is remembered positively
• Frost's book "Leadership in Law Enforcement" and its focus on 10 key leadership traits
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
hey, welcome back to the protectors podcast. Hey, we got bill frost. What's going on, brother? Oh, all good, just kind of enjoying the foggy northern california day and looking forward to a nice, proactive good friday you know exactly and we were talking a little bit before we hit the record button about taking the walk in the morning or just taking a walk oh yeah, no, it's the.
Speaker 2:I got hurt seriously years ago on the job, destroyed my back, and kept on working just because I was a stubborn cop and I wanted to keep, I wanted to fight. I could fight through the pain. Well, after 20 years of that injury, it all came up on me and blew my back out. I need to stay moving to be able to be flexible during the day so I could keep the pain away. So I mean I get up every morning 6 am which people laugh at me for waking up at 6 am as a retired guy but I wake up at 6 am and I start out on my walk. It's not a fast walk, it's a slow walk, but I get about nine and a half miles in every five to six days a week and it allows me to get my heart pumping, it allows me to get the body moving, my back loosened up, but also it allows me to clear my head, get out in this nice nature, enjoy and just kind of gets me in a wonderful, ready set mood to get the day going.
Speaker 1:I always tell people like, once you get past mile two in a walk, then your mind's like, ah, you know, let me think about something. Let me clear some things up. Yeah, it's, I think walking is one of the absolute best things ever. And I always tell people, mike, if you, if you haven't done it yet, just walk around the block. And then all of a sudden you're going to be like, hey, it's going to, it's going to catch on, you know.
Speaker 2:No, once. Once I started doing it and it was my wife that really encouraged me to do it, because once my back went out the last time, I was barely able to walk out and get out of the house. And then she told me, just walk to the street corner. Then the next day, just walk another a little bit further and a little bit further. So I kept on going a little bit further and then at a certain time I had to put that hard breakdown because you just, or before you know it, I'd be walking 30 miles a day and that's all I do all day.
Speaker 2:So I figured that nine and a half miles takes me about two and a half hours, two hours and 40 minutes, and I do it early in the morning. It gets me going so I can do the rest of the day and I see wonderful sights. I see people as they're waking up. I see sometimes I have to step over the homeless in some of the parks and that's not always an enjoyable feat. But also it allows me to relax, get going. I listen to some audio books, I listen to music and it just lets me clear my head and get the day going and it's just an enjoyable time to myself.
Speaker 1:You know there's just so much you can get through there and so much you can think about, and to me it's like I plan on my next day or I plan podcasts. But when we think about podcasts, you and I had something we were talking about right before this started too, was that podcasts, to me, are a way you can have a good conversation. And one thing you brought up right before we hit record was policing and scandals. Policing and scandals. Now I had a friend reach out to me the other day and sent me a link in South Carolina about just scandals in the police departments. And whenever you look, it's everywhere. There's always something going on somewhere. It's whether someone can't keep their whatchamacallit in their pants, or they're embezzling money or just toxic leadership. So let's get into the scandals. Man, if we're going to change how law enforcement is perceived, you really got to look at the PR campaign and get rid of these toxic leaders.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and it's kind of. I say that within the last 15 years, 20 years, the toxic leadership has exploded all over law enforcement. And why is that? Well, maybe it's because there's more media outlets, there's more people willing to talk, there's social media people are you give anybody ability to broadcast out there. But also, I also think why we're seeing more toxic leadership is we're rushing people into leadership positions that we never did before.
Speaker 2:If you go back throughout law enforcement history and I'm a huge history buff, as you can probably tell from the book spy meeting that there have been bad law enforcement leaders always. There's no getting away from that. But it just seems like there are more and more now. And why is that happening? It's because we're getting people, we're rushing people in that they show potential, so we immediately promote them to ranks before they're ready for those we're looking at. Just testing is difficult, so we're doing just book tests or we are just doing a verbal test. So a book test just somebody who's smart, with no street cred or no ability to interact with somebody could pass a written test. Somebody who's a good BSer could go through an oral board without a problem. But we need well-rounded selection processes. We need to be developing cops early on and we need leaders to be taking a step back, because as you progress and you start moving up the ranks too fast or you're continually being told, oh you're great, you start believing your own hype and you start believing you could do anything. But also also, we've all watched.
Speaker 2:In every department there are people that you look at. Go, how does he or how does she keep on getting promoted? I mean, the person's been ia'd five million times. Person can't keep his in his pants. She couldn't do this, he couldn't do this. And you're looking going, what's going on here? This person got caught embezzling. This person got caught cooking the books. Why are they getting promoted? This person got caught for DUI and, wow, we got promoted to lieutenant. And it's like because they're somebody's favorite, because they're meeting some kind of line that we need to promote certain percentage of certain people to certain ranks. It's because they make the photo look good or because they are good on the media, or it's because they're somebody's favorite.
Speaker 2:Just look at some of the scandals that are right now in San Mateo County in California. You have an extreme, toxic leader as the sheriff of the county who has not only chased some amazing people out of their organization. They're allowing somebody, basically, who's never been a true police officer to have carte blanche control over the entire agency, and the person's claimed a famous reserve deputy and now they're telling undersheriffs and deputy captains what to do and having the sheriff mandating political people that have said she's not a good leader and a dsa president standing up to this toxic leadership. They're having them arrested on trumped up charges that the da goes this isn't, this is bull.
Speaker 2:Then you fly all the way to the other coast and you have the former chief of department of New York PD who's technically suspended right now. That appears he was basically blackmailing a subordinate for sex by holding overtime over their head and forcing sexual advances, and also, as you dig, deeper going yeah, this isn't the first time this has popped up. He's had inappropriate relationships with other subordinates at lower ranks. They have been subject to IAs, they have gone through punishment for deceit and somehow they go from one star to two star to three stars and, wow, here are four stars Now. One of the biggest things is that and there's so many that pop up everywhere else there's a chief in New Jersey who's alleged to have defecated all over the building in front in the hallways by desks and purposely clogging up toilets, shaving themselves on subordinates' desks.
Speaker 1:You can't, really you can't. I mean, you can go down a list and we'll do a caveat that allegedly a lot of the stuff happened at the other.
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, how does this all start? It doesn't. There are signs in the past, but these are the issues we're dealing with now and we're dealing with it more and more. So we have to do something as a profession to stop this toxicity.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, that's the thing. It's like this is it? You know? I think the thing is that social media helps. It gets the message out there. More people are aware of what's going on, because before it would just be like within a town. You go to the council meeting, it may get a blurb in a newspaper or a blog or whatever, but now with social media we get to see all this stuff going on. But I remember back in leadership-wise, it's always been that way, it's always been like. I always called it the pat on the back. So leadership wise, it's always been that way, it's always been like the. I always called it the pat on the back.
Speaker 1:So if you're like the like in the military, you're, you're the young lieutenant or whatever, and someone pats you on the back at one time, says if you don't fuck up, you're going to move up, and then you become super risk adverse. And that's the same thing when you're at, when you're a cop is like you know, you make your sergeant, whatever. Someone pats you on the back and says, if you don't fuck up, you're going to move up. And but we found out later on that you can fuck up and move up by getting like the duis and everything but. But the reality is you start making all of your proactive people not being proactive. So then you have the the proactive.
Speaker 1:Like I was assigned in san diego we're in a proactive group and they would put supervisors they rotate supervisors through there just so they could kind of that rather than be out in the field. So that's the same way in all. The leadership is like they get. You get to a point where, like, you look at that star, you look at that whatever, and you're like I can make it all the way. I could be a, a chief someday, I could be a captain, I could be this, I could be that, and then you lose your authenticity, if you ever even had it.
Speaker 2:You start chasing rank, which is the worst thing. You want people that earn rank and decide to move up higher because they're developing their skills and they become the best person for that position. But they've earned it through their work and through they've earned it through their work and through they've demonstrated, they've been shown that they make the best decisions, they're the best cops, they do the best work, they're not risk adverse, they're willing to take things on. But it's not because of them. It's because they want to assume more authority, to influence more people, to push the department's mission out there further, to develop in my stars. I want my bars, I want this and you know what I've been told don't mess up and I'll be okay.
Speaker 2:So how can I make a wrong decision if I make no decision? And then you have people washing their hands and going oh, what am I going to do? I mean, one of my worst leaders I ever had used to have to have the term. I need a defensible position on everything, and sometimes your defensible position is it's the right thing and you can't appease everybody. But that's what happens is because of the political, a lot of politics getting back into the game.
Speaker 2:I mean you look, law enforcement was rife with political headaches and influence from 1900, if not even well before that, until about 1950, 1960.
Speaker 2:Law enforcement pushed a lot of the politics out, but over the last 10 years I mean ever since, even 2014 with Ferguson and everything like that that politics have pushed their way back into law enforcement like crazy.
Speaker 2:So you have police chiefs, you have sheriffs, you have commissioners you even have ranks below that, trying to appease politicians by playing the game, by saying the right phrase, by trying to parrot the company line and trying to look like they're everything for everybody or trying to make sure they mention the hot topic of the day. And they're not actually truly got that solid background to be law enforcement leaders, but they're moving up because of political outreach and we got to kind of separate ourselves from politicians again because it's the police leader's job to tell the political leaders I understand where you're coming from. That's not my role. My role is to enforce the law. My job is to ensure public safety. My job is not to play politics. They should divorce themselves. However, too often you're seeing the police leaders, or even command ranks, abetting themselves next to politicians or talking about political goals instead of policing goals, which is a disaster when it happens.
Speaker 1:Well, the other thing is politics are tied to the budget, so you know you have to kind of appease them in a way. You know there is and that really depends on your leadership style If you could play both worlds, and that's kind of where the whole key that comes into leadership is, understanding that. You know obviously the mission comes first, your people come first, like the that whole variable. But you have to, you have to play the game, but you have to really have morals when you do it and not your own goals. You know, I wrote this note.
Speaker 1:One of my friends was a cop and they used to tell me about their chief and I wrote this like back last January, I think, or January 2024. I was just taking notes how they were telling me about, like their um, how their chief acted. Now, this was someone who came in, they were, you know, a training sergeant and then all of a sudden they got promoted, the chief in a small town and it seemed like the whole time was like this inferiority complex. It was this like you know, they overcompensated, they were buying equipment when they should be focusing on training, they were doing this and everything other than policing because they didn't have. The experience brings us back to what you said before about promoting people before their time.
Speaker 1:Listen, I love people who have a great leadership potential and they've done the work and they know what they're doing and they're very for their people. But don't take someone because they're a good old boy and promote them into a chief job, even if you have a 13, 14, 15 person department. You really have to. You have to really groom true leaders and that's where the training comes in, that's where mentors come in mentors outside of your agency and that's where it comes into like stay divorced from the politics when it comes to leadership. So there's there's so many variables when it comes to, like, toxic leadership that it's all connected. The politics are connected, the yes men are connected, the pat on the back is connected and that self-preservation is one of the biggest things about. The legacy becomes more about them than the department, more about them than it becomes the people that they are supposed to be empowering.
Speaker 2:One of the things I hate hearing is from top command staff, be it chief captains, commanders, whatever that say I will not take a chief's job until I'm able to retire, because I don't want to be an at-will. I could lose my job at any time. Well, if you're not willing to lose your job for taking a stand for your department or for doing the right thing, well, you're not willing. You shouldn't be wearing those stars in the first place, because sometimes your job is to tell the politicians that's not right. You got to be that person, yes, and are the disaster of any organization, especially for law enforcement, and 98% of all police chiefs and sheriffs and top command staff are good cops. They're doing the job the best that they can. We're only talking about the 2%, but that 2% has been growing a little bit more each year. A little bit more each year because we've gotten away from teaching about leadership, we've gotten away from mentoring. We basically are we need to hire people. We need to hire people as many as we can. We need to make sure that certain demographics are hit. We have to make sure that we are representing the community. Well, what community are you representing? We have to be fair. Well, what is fairness?
Speaker 2:There's so many things that are impacting the job and leadership, but also the pad, like you were talking about, the pad on the back. When you promote somebody with potential but doesn't have that experience level yet, then you put them in positions where now they're trying to supervise or manage incidents that they never even handled as an officer. So they are trying to learn as they go while teaching and controlling others. And mentoring is such a huge event that we're losing out. For when I was writing my book years ago, I got a chance to interview Charles Ramsey, who was the commissioner of Philadelphia police at the time, and he told me the number one issue we have in law enforcement right now is mentorship. We don't mentor well, and he actually used an analysis with the military. He said look at the Army. There's reasons why people like Powell and Petraeus move up because they're recognized at an early age for their abilities and then they're given assignments and they're pushed and they're given different challenges.
Speaker 2:Well, how often are we actually truly looking at our leadership? How often are we truly looking at our departments, identifying the leaders young, and then not just patting them on the back and saying, if you don't mess up. You're going to move up, but you're giving them hard assignments. You're giving them challenging things so they can grow. You're giving them those assignments that nobody wants but need to get done. You're challenging them to the point where sometimes they feel like they're going to fail and you give them that rope to make them get that close to the edge. But then you're there to help them.
Speaker 2:We have to get back to looking at developing our people, taking care of our people, and when we do that and we remove the I from the job and when leaders start being selfless like they should be, we start developing better comps, we become better leaders and we start healing the organization. And once selflessness becomes a core trait and mentorship becomes a core trait of your organization and not just a pamphlet on your wall and not just a book and policies of mentorship policies or leadership policies, but it becomes part of your agency's DNA, then you're going to get that toxicity out of the job and once that happens in one department it spreads to a second department. Then you start teaching it in the academies. But we have to do a better job and part of that is law enforcement has to start looking at our past leaders and learning from them again, because in the last 10 years, everybody said everything in law enforcement since past 2014 or before 2014 was horrible. No, there have been bad cops or been evil cops. The majority of them have been good cops. So let's learn from those leaders who build up the profession that we're working in or worked in now. Learn from them. Take what they did, amend it so it works. Now for today.
Speaker 2:The cadets at West Point they know who Eisenhower is, they know who MacArthur is, they know who Patton is. You go to a New York PD kid just graduating from the police academy and you said, hey, tell me. They could barely tell you, probably about Bill Bratton. They probably wouldn't be able to tell you about Louis Valentine, who was the commissioner for second longest in Ray Kelly, and they wouldn't be able to tell you about the other magnificent leaders like John Timoney, max Schellenberger, people that go through their history where you're going, oh, or Gertrude Schimel, the first female chief of NYPD one star. But it's like, hey, why don't we know about that? Because you're not learning from those true icons and pushing it forward.
Speaker 1:You know, listen, history repeats itself, it says. You know, leadership is essentially the same leadership as it has been for thousands of years. You know, you watch out for your people, you lead them, you lead from the front and the key thing is, you make a decision. Hesitancy kills. We know that, especially in law enforcement and especially in combat operations, especially in anything like that. But you need leaders who can make decisions but have been, they've been tested. You know what happens is you get leaders, you promote them up and they have never been tested, they've never had to do that work. So that's the big thing is like. Really, you have to, you have to understand your history. And it's easier for the military because there's a million different books, a million different things. But nowadays people want the job, they want the, they want the badge and a gun and it's, believe me, it's been like that forever. But now it's like they're not doing the research.
Speaker 2:Some, some of them, don't really have a clue what they're getting themselves into if john timoney once said that, um, anybody who knows anything knows that leadership repeats, that history repeats itself and that we need to that lessons get learned. But anybody who knows about law enforcement knows we don't study our history and that is bad because nothing's going to be exactly the same. But if you've learned from what other people have done, when you encounter a situation that's similar, you have a game plan of what to do. So you could follow that game plan. You could also learn from hey, we are facing a scandal now. Well, in the past this is what this agency did or this is what this person did when they had that scandal. So let's see how that works. But also, you can learn those traits of hey. This person was a horrible leader, and now I'm seeing this new person and they're distributed. They have the same traits and that's past individual. So let's make sure we fix this here or we get rid of it. And we've got to realize that we're not in a bubble. Everything that has will be again and we need to continue to well, push forward. Remember our past, learn from it.
Speaker 2:But everybody wants to rebuild the profession every 10, 20 years. Well, every time we do that, we forget what we know and we're starting from ground zero. We're never getting ahead in that way. So let's embrace the greatness, let's acknowledge the failures and let's just push forward. And when we're teaching this stuff, it can't be just at a department level. It has to be at the basic academy level. It has to be during your in-service training, it has to be on the department level and the organization. So you know the profession and you know your department's history. But when they send you off to the national academy, the southern police institute, the senior police management class that perf puts on, they should be teaching history and organized in the history of profession or policing in these, not just the hot topics of the day, because we're facing the same thing over and over again. You just change the name and you change the department.
Speaker 1:You know, you hit that nail on the head right there. It's the same scandals. You've always had dirty cops, you've always had bad cops, you've always had bad people. There's always criminals and there's always criminal element that rise in the ranks. There's always criminal element that's in the ranks. It's so. It's just if you know history and that's why I think when you're, when there are critical incidents or just anything let's say you're in a small department and you have something that happens you should have an after action. You should be like, okay, this is how we responded, because leadership changes but staff changes as well. You know, you look at some of these departments and you're rotating so many different people out that that continuity operations, that the people who know what's going on are moving on. And especially now, you have a lot of young leaders, young people put in management, because I know a lot more leaders, young people put in management who really have no clue and they're reinventing the wheel day by day.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and that's where the mentorship comes in. True training programs come in and also a department's philosophy, installed early on and then enhanced by it being pushed in every rank you go to, and ensuring that we're not rushing people with talent, or with perceived talent, to the next rank just because we think they can be there. Next rank, just because we think they can be there. They have to put in their work. You have to have a talent but you have to have ability. You have to have both.
Speaker 2:Somebody used to say that you should never take a job unless you're capable of doing that job at that moment. Well, you never know if you're capable of doing the next level until you're in there. But you can show traits that you are ready and that's when you get pushed. You're given better, harder assignments, you're put in assignments that push you through your comfort zone and that you're given the opportunity to fail, because sometimes you'll learn more from your failure. But you have to realize and you look at the people.
Speaker 2:But it also goes to are they principled? Do they do the right thing for the right reason at the right time? If somebody's, as an officer, is doing the right thing for the right reason at the right time. If somebody's, as an officer, is doing the right thing for the right reason at the right time and you look at that philosophy, that person will probably do those three things the right thing for the right reason at the right time, at any rank they're in, up until chief or sheriff. When you look at people that start kind of I'll color out the lines here or you know what, I will step away and maybe this isn't the best thing or maybe I'll do it later. When you start making forgivenesses to those the three-pronged test they're going to make forgivenesses at any rank. So that's where we have to identify early groom and prepare.
Speaker 2:And like I've always told people I don't care what race you are, I don't care what sex you are, I don't care what religion you follow, I don't care what your national origin is or your orientation is. I just want the best people for these positions. You give them the best opportunities, you work them hard, you give them challenges and you allow them to fail and you teach them while they fail. But you're there helping them and you're developing and you're giving them the hard truths and you're having those hard conversations with them. Those are going to be the leaders of the future. Not just because somebody goes hey, you know what? You look good in a uniform. You look great in the department photo. You handled this one call pretty decently. Let's pop you over here. I hate, I always call the hero promotions. You do one thing that's spectacular and before you know it, they're throwing rank on you and you go yeah, you did great in that. Just because you handled yourself in that tactical situation wonderful. Does that mean you're going to be able to lead 10, 15, 100, 1500 people? No, but maybe you can. Let's develop you, though.
Speaker 2:We rush people too fast in this job now because we want the next leader. For some reason departments feel like they get bonus points if they have a young leadership staff. Well, usually young sometimes means inexperienced, sometimes it doesn't. You can have a 22-year-old with more life experience than a 40-year-old. However, having time on the job actually has a major benefit, because the fellow officers are going to look at them with more respect. They're going to have more stuff in their file. They're going to have more stuff in their memory banks. They're going to be able to know how to do the job better. So it's a balancing act, but you've got to look and go. Let's not rush good people, because if we rush them because I've seen it in my own organization we rush people with potential and then they had a horrible time and they had made mistakes and they had issues because we put them in positions they weren't ready for.
Speaker 1:You know that's the Fed world too.
Speaker 1:It's like if you have one big case you know, one of my classmates from years ago had really just one big case and I can't even tell you how high he rose off of that one case that got handed down to him and you know it's just one big case can make a career and that's why a lot of them are always looking for these big cases.
Speaker 1:But then you have the street-level agents who are out there all the time working, working, working. They know the ins and outs of everything but they'll never make it past you know a regular agent Because they don't for one. They see they don't want to drink the Kool-Aid and they don't want to compromise their moral compass. So it's an interesting field that trying to groom leaders is tough, because I think a lot of the officers and agents and sheriff's, deputies and everything they look at it as like, okay, well, I'm not going to drink the Kool-Aid, I can't be one of the guys or girls and it's not worth it. That little pay bump is not worth it because the next thing you know you're off the street, you're doing admin stuff all the time. There's got to be a compromise somewhere.
Speaker 2:Being on the street is the fun thing. Being that street agent, being that street, the officer working the beat, being the sheriff's deputy out in the far out in the urban or suburban area, working on those areas those are the fun things. Going to the calls are the fun things. However, there comes a time. If you want to see change in your organization, you have to stop bitching about leadership and you have to become leadership.
Speaker 2:And that is the. That's where leaders, the managers of the department and the people with rank have to start having these conversations with the good senior officers and those sergeants and saying, hey, you want to see a change in this agency. It's time for you to step up, get out of the fun job and taking the people to jail all the time working the cases. Get out of this fun job and go to the next step where you could get fulfillment and you could also have more of an influence. You want to bring good leadership in, bring the stuff that you have on the street into supervision, into the sergeant's ranks, into the lieutenant's positions, to the captains, to the chiefs. Let's get those people on. But that is for leaders and for people that have been on the job to actually tell these officers, I know where you're coming from, because I was there at one time and the reason why I promoted is because I never wanted that person to be my boss.
Speaker 2:You need to look into yourself and have that feeling. Do you want that person to be your boss? Do you want that person that you can't trust as your beat partner to be your chief? So that's where the good street leaders, those good detectives, good beat officers, good street agents, have to go. You know what? It's time to go into the non-fun positions and step up, because those people will be better leaders than those that go. I want to be a chief. You go into any job going. I want to be a chief. You don't want to do any job going. I want to be the chief, I want to be the director. It's the same as if you're in the military and you talk to a first lieutenant and they go hey, what's your goal? I want to be the. I want to be the CENTCOM general. What are you talking about? You're a lieutenant.
Speaker 1:You have to learn a little bit before you do anything.
Speaker 2:You never want those people that are so power hungry because they're going to do things for themselves. You want the people that I want to be the best I could be, and then I want to be the best at this position. I want to be the best of this position and at a time they'll have that aha moment in which they go. You know what I could have? A I could have a little bit more of a bigger impact in my this position. Let me go for that.
Speaker 1:You want, want. Those are the people you want. Well, you also want people that are going to be like hey, you know what? Uh, I'm not just going to take this job because it's a bump in my pay and I can retire with my high, whatever three or five. Because, you know, and at the end of the day, you're going to find a lot of people towards the end of their career and they're like I got to jump into leadership, I got to be management, and then all they want to do is just sit there and retire in place and get that high, that high pay.
Speaker 2:And I. That's one thing, me and a buddy of mine. He was a Lieutenant in my organization. He always says well, the department should have promoted this person for one last year so he could have had one high. He could have walked out with butterfly wings, kerfulls, stripes, and the guy wasn't. The guy wasn't worth it. The guy wasn't worth it. The guy wasn't a leader. He should have never been promoted. You don't just give somebody a gift of a promotion for that last year and if you're looking to get into leadership ranks just because you want to bump up the last couple of years of your career, you're going to be risk adverse because you're not going to want to endanger your pension or you're going to be hey, you, I'm just.
Speaker 1:I'm retired on active duty and we've all worked for those people that where is the person?
Speaker 2:well, they can't be wrong if they're not on scene. It's like okay. Well, why am I, as a junior officer, making a call that a sergeant should be making? Because they haven't shown up to the scene yet and it's been 20 minutes. So it's that balancing act. That's where having a department that puts leadership ability into their people. So when those people move up and they're that management core and they're looking down who's our next people to promote, they could look and go. I understand why this person's putting in for the position and it's not for the right reason. So that person's not a candidate.
Speaker 1:You know, it also comes down to recruiting too. So if you have a great moral morale I should say not moral, but a good morale the reputation is going to get out there. Your social media is going to be like hey, you know what these people they? They look like they're really bonding together, they do a lot of work together, they're training good together, and then you're going to have more people that are going to want to join your organization. So that's, you know. Get rid of the toxic leadership training. Get real training in, or don't focus so much on you know what the next cool toy is for your department, but get your people training as well.
Speaker 2:Exactly, if you talk to people in agencies, the biggest thing that keeps people at an organization is the organization's leadership. Do they trust the leadership? Do they have a feeling that the leadership trusts them? And that also helps. If you have good retention, you'll have good recruiting, because those officers who stay want to talk about that agency. They want good people to come in. Look, we're having agencies now that are giving insane hiring bonuses to people a hundred thousand dollars work for this agency and that's multiple agencies now and it's because.
Speaker 2:Why are they doing that? Because good people don't want to work for those agencies. Because of leadership issues, because people are continuing to leave. They also you're seeing, uh, incentives for people to stay huge numbers and they're trying to keep these people to stay, but people aren't. They're continually leaving. Why bad department culture, bad leadership? If you actually have good department leadership, you're going to have good retention, You're going to have good recruitment. And there we go, hand in hand just trying to buy people. Those people are going to go. Hey, you know what? I'll get a hundred thousand from this agency. I'll work there three years. I'll jump to this agency, get another hundred thousand bonus. I'll keep on doing this.
Speaker 2:Seattle is a perfect example. You look at how hard they've been the last few years trying to keep cops. They've raised pay, They've offered great incentives and they're still losing officers and nobody's joining their agency. Why Bad city leadership? Horrible city leadership. I mean they were the ones pushing the. Our policy is going to be defund the police. Now they're moving away from that, but then until recently they had horrible department leadership. You had another bad chief that made bad decisions but also was doing stupid things with his own staff Going. Hey, you know what? That's? Sending love poetry to subordinates and stupid things like that. Well, that's bad department culture right there. What do you think is going to happen from that? I mean, you got to look at this. If we want good cops, we have to be that good cop, and too often we lose that. And once we lose that, that's where the leadership and the culture of agencies go down. There are so many good agencies and good leaders that you don't hear about, because they're doing the right thing for the right reason at the right time and they're supporting and taking care of their people.
Speaker 2:I used to tell my captain, when I was a brand new sergeant, my two goals. I have two goals every shift and if I get those goals done, I have been successful. Did we accomplish our mission and did I take care of our people? If I'm able to say both of those, no matter what happens, it's a good day. That stayed my philosophy as I worked my way up through the ranks. But we need that philosophy of selflessness and mission and too often we get blinded by so many other things the coffee with the cops, the national night outs all these different things.
Speaker 2:Communities really don't care about those events. Truly, the only people that show up at those events are people that love cops, the people that are on the borderline and the people that have the hat. You know, maybe, maybe not. They don't really care about those. What people care on all level is are cops solving cases? Are cops getting the bad guys off the streets? Or do I feel safe walking down my neighborhood If people, if you're able to say yes, yes, yes to those those are the marginal people that maybe don't like cops, maybe do like cops. They move over to the we like cops. That's where the people that go F the police we don't like that they start moving towards the marginal people going. Well, I kind of don't believe in a full law enforcement state, but I really don't like the guy slinging dope on my corner, so I'm kind of glad that guy's gone. So we got to get back to the basics and stop the buzzwords. We got to stop buzzword policing.
Speaker 1:You know, I agree, buzzword policing is a thing and, like you know, I love those accounts like cops of TikTok and all the other stuff because you're just like it's self-promotion. A lot of it is self-promotion and the people who jump at a lot of those categories are self-promotion. They want the follows, they want the likes, they want to be the influencer they want to set up whatever their next, their, their next side hustle is going to be the ones who are truly authentic. You could see them, you could tell what they're doing they're. They're not just out there self-promoting and taking the selfies with the look at me I'm helping this person out, but they're actually helping the people and that reputation works Getting out there and actually being and not being an asshole and doing your job and being professional about it and knowing your job, knowing case law, knowing your statutes, knowing what you can enforce and what you should kind of be like. Hey, you know what. I'll let this person slide because I have the authority to do it.
Speaker 2:You don't always have to be the guy or girl with the tinted glasses on and I'm holier than that because I have a badge and gun. Yeah, you got to know how to interact with everybody. You got to be able to, and that's where I learned really quickly, because the agency I worked for we were right next to San Francisco. We were a very high affluent city and we were a small city, but we had San Francisco a mile away from us. So we would be dealing with the millionaire 95 year old grandmother and then two seconds later, dealing with a hardcore gang member out of San Francisco. But there's two different ways to treat those people. You have to. You can't treat a gang member like you're doing that little old lady and you can't treat the little old lady like you're doing the MS-13 dude. So you got to be able to transfer and you got to be able to realize each situation calls for something different. You can't be the hammer all the time. You can't also be officer friendly all the time. But you got to know how to work each situation and you can't know how to work each situation until you're authentic with yourself. This is my strengths, this is my weaknesses, this is what I'm really good at, this is how I communicate and this is how I do my job. This is the type of cop I'm at. You never learn what kind of cop you are until you're actually a proactive cop. You have to get yourself into different things. You have to get yourself. You have to be the guy making the traffic stop so you do pull over that little old lady who doesn't understand what's going on and may have dementia, so you have to help her out. Or when you make that traffic stop with a pimp and a hooker in the car who's been in three gunfights with law enforcement, you know that you treat them a little bit differently and it's the. It's kind of like being a detective. You're chasing down different cases. Well, depending on what department you're in and what your workload is, you're going to be given this case, which is a political headache case, or you're going to be given this case, which is a political headache case. Are you going to be given this case, which is more of a felony, but it's not a dangerous felony. So which one are you going to work on? You're going to get heat to do the political case, but you've got to realize this political case is just to make somebody happy. No suspect information, no, nothing. So you let that one die and you work that felony case, knowing that once a felon's a felon, they go on to do different things.
Speaker 2:But you have to be know that within yourself and you have to balance that workload. And also that's where I come from is you're going to be a good cop when you're going out there, being proactive and learning how to deal and talk to different people. You have to put yourself into different assignments and you have to be in different assignments so you learn different parts of the job and you learn how to deal with different people. Never be a check the box person, because those people only take assignments to check the box so they can move to the next position.
Speaker 2:But take positions to make yourself, grow and learn, because when you're doing that, you look at things differently from the patrol level as from the detective level. You look at things different from working street patrol to maritime enforcement. You look at things different working different types of investigations. So you need to make yourself a better cop, which will then make yourself a more respected leader because you actually know how to do the job by getting yourself into different assignments, being in them for long enough, where you actually know what you're talking about and you're not the 90 day wonders. Or I read a wonderful book by uh called the generals, by thomas rex, and he was talking about how vietnam, everybody lost faith in the officer ranks because they did their six months and they were out. However, the enlisted guys were there for a year. It's like whoa this.
Speaker 2:The guy finally learns how to tie his shoes in combat. And now he's gone and now somebody else comes in. Why? Because they're funneling people in so everybody gets their chance. You got to get away from that. You got to get back to. Let's get somebody two, three, four years of experience, then put him in another assignment and then another assignment. So that's where being that proactive cop and having a department that understands that and getting those experiences makes you a better, well-rounded officer in dealing with the community as well as doing cop work.
Speaker 1:Well, you hit the nail on the head with that one too. It's like you really do need a well-rounded experience. And you know, because a lot of people are like I want to be SWAT, I want to do this, I want to be specialized units, but hey, you know what you got. You got to learn how to do patrol. You have to learn how to actually talk to people, like really talk to people and not just be like authoritative, like, hey, you know what you can elicit information from people if you have a certain demeanor about you. So, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:That's a big thing yeah, because you'll look at it. And if you look at a cop who knows how to talk to people on the street and are able to get people to do what they want do what the officer says, not through hey, I'm a cop, you're not do it you look at that person. Then later on you go as a sergeant. When they're talking to their subordinates, will they be hey, joe, can you do me a favor, do this, or is it? Hey, officer, I'm your sergeant, I'm ordering you to do that? Well, hold on for a second. Neither one's going to work, but you're going to see. The person who's more authoritative as an officer will be more authoritative as a sergeant. So you'll learn those people early on and you go okay, I know what I'm dealing with. And will that guy really or girl be a really good leader? Will they continue to move up? I mean, you show the same traits, no matter who you're dealing with.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, man. Well, you know, the other thing I want to talk to you today about is, you know, pivoting, you know starting a new mission when you get done with this job. Because you know, you and I probably come from the same adage of, like you know, when it's your career, it's your career, that's the thing you did your whole life with. And then, when you're when you're done, you're like oh shit, I need a mission, I need something else to do. So how was your, your transition, getting out?
Speaker 2:You know what? It was sudden because I wasn't expecting it to happen. When I did, I suffered an injury back in 2002 that I ignored for many years and I learned to live with the pain and it only got worse and worse. And 2022, when I was the acting chief of police, my back completely exploded on me and probably within six months I knew I probably would not be able to come back, but I was getting that treatment so I had some leeway of thinking before I actually was officially retired because of medical leave and stuff like that. What am I going to do? And it was hard for me thinking I'm not going to be an active cop anymore. And I was telling my chief, who had to retire because of his own medical issue, that it's hard for us because we've been cops for so long. I started as a reserve when I was 19 years old. He started as a reserve from when he was like 20. He had 45 years in or something. When he retired I had 27. And I was talking to him and I said you know what? I'm always going to be a cop. I may not be an active duty cop anymore, but I'm still a cop. But it's hard transitioning.
Speaker 2:When I grew up in a law enforcement family, my father was a chief of police, my uncle was a sergeant. My wife did 36 and a half years in dispatch, retired there as a dispatch supervisor and now she's a records and evidence supervisor for a different law enforcement agency. So police work is in my vein, in my blood. So I knew I wanted to get out and I wanted to still have a purpose. So I started looking at what else I could do to help the profession. What else could I do to continue to keep my hands in? And I thought you know what my next mission is to be? To talk about the profession, to tell the hard truths that need to be told, because I can. Now I want to offer my abilities to talk to groups. I want to provide consulting services and investigative services and I want to be of an assistance to agencies because they're so short staffed right now. I want to be of an assistance to agencies because they're so short-staffed right now.
Speaker 2:I want to be able to help officers learn from my experiences and command staffs learn from my experiences, and not because I was so successful or because I always did the right thing. I want them to learn from my screw-ups, from the mistakes I made, from the mistakes my department made. So they learn from that. So look at going into that training aspect. Going into the consulting has helped me transition because it allows me to still have just enough of my teeth in the game. But I now have the freedom that somebody comes with a big pile of stinky poo poo and say, hey, you know what we're working on, that I can look at it and go. You know what this officer is being railroaded. I really don't want my hands in that. Or that is a mess that took your department 60 years to fix or get to and now you want to put a window dressing on it. You guys can deal with that. But also I wanted to get my word out there a little bit.
Speaker 2:So I republished a book I wrote and I also have written some articles about leadership, law enforcement and being able to transition that way and have my hands in a couple other ways has in uniform almost every day. I read all about law enforcement. I was cop to the. I was cop centric, I was, and guys looked at me and told me you know what? You're never going to retire and I always knew that at age 50, I was going to retire. Because of my back. I didn't expect to retire at 47, but it happens. But now I have them coming to me going.
Speaker 2:I never expected that you'd handle retirement so well. We always thought that you'd be begging and you'd have such a hard time getting out of the job. You're handling it wonderful. How did you do it?
Speaker 2:Because early on, when I knew I couldn't come back, I identified what my next mission was. I said I want to do this. I said I want to do this and I don't want to do it because I want to make a million dollars. I want to do this, I want to do this. I want to do it because I still enjoy law enforcement. I want to do it because I could be of help and I want to do it because there are a lot of people like me and you that see what's happened to the job right now and we love the job so much.
Speaker 2:We want to fix the issues that are going on. That often when you're still in the job, you're handcuffed to be able to do so. Let's have these hard conversations, and I figured I could get these hard conversations going more as being the outside elder statesman talking and saying, hey, these are the issues where I screwed up on. I don't want you to screw up on, let's talk about it. So that has helped quite a bit. Also, I just made sure I've taken time for myself with the walks to clear my head, that I spend time gardening, I I do things that I didn't have time to do before, to give myself purpose and to give myself that leeway. So what it's time, let me get my head out of the game a little bit and do things I didn't have a chance to do before, and that helps help dramatically as I transitioned into my after-comp life.
Speaker 1:You know, if, without a mission, that's when we see people start self-destruct, that's when we're like, okay, you know, let's numb this loss, the loss of brotherhood, sisterhood, and then you know you start the drinking, the drugs, the self-destruction, and a lot of people go down that path. That's one thing I always try to bring up in these conversations is that pivot into the next thing is to start thinking about your next mission. Now, you knew you were injured. You know you might have to go out at a certain time, but then, unexpected, moving out, you know you really have to accelerate that mission.
Speaker 1:But I tell everybody out there, if you were in for two, three, five, 10, a hundred years or whatever, not a hundred years but you know that you have to. You have to have an out. You have to have something else lined up, not necessarily like a. I mean, we're not talking jobs or you're. We're talking about just something that's going to give you a sense of purpose, because if you don't, you're going to get to certain dark areas and we know in this job and we know just in life in general, that you can get down into a dark spiral area pretty quick.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, you can. I mean with the things we've seen in our lives and the things that we've seen then on the job. We've seen the worst of the worst, we've dealt with the worst of the worst, and then always, though, when you're on the job, you have people that you could talk to. You have people, you have your B partner you've gone through the situation with. You have your fellow agents, officers at another agency that were on the scene with you. You have those people that you're built in support. Well, then you walk out the door one day and you don't see the same guys four times a week. You're not spending 12 hours a day with these people. You're not having breakfast and lunch with these people every day. You're not sitting down and talking to the same people at the desks BSing every day. All of a sudden, you sit there going well, you know what. My wife's at work and I'm sitting at home and it's me and the cat and I'm staring at a wall. What am I going to do? You have to start thinking about this and you have to start identifying things early. I used to tell one of the sergeants who was under my supervision when I was a lieutenant and a captain. When you're in your position now, look at the people around you and one day, when you, if you decide to move up, try to pick the people you want to be on your staff, be on your team. Well, I also would say, now, when you're doing the job, take a look and see if the job ended tomorrow, what would you want to do? And then also think when this career does end, at 50, 55, whatever age, what do I want to do? And start segueing you in your mind that way, because that will give you a mission to continue on. Because, unfortunately, we all know those cops, we all know those soldiers, and once you get out, you sit in a room and you drink all day. You don't do anything, you start living on memories and your mind starts going numb. And that's where the drinking happens. Like you said, that's where the drugs happen, but that's also where the mental facilities start breaking down. I mean I've known people that retired after being cops for long periods of time, that within four years had dementia because they were no longer mentally stimulated. And I mean I learned that a long time ago that you have to start. Keep your mind going for what the next challenge is.
Speaker 2:I remember talking to my dad when he told me during his career he always figured what am I going to do next? And then he was lucky that he was able. When he retired he wanted to work at a golf course and he did that for a long time and he enjoyed that and him and my mom did a whole lot of traveling and now he's going to be. He's been retired 30 years. He was a cop for 32. He's been retired for 30s. I've been loving every moment of it.
Speaker 2:And then also I remember talking to my uncle who was uh with the, was in the army. World war ii, 80, 82nd infantry division saw combat in saipan and okinawa, or actually 83rd infantry division, and he told me what got him through the war was thinking what am I going to do after the army? What am I going to do next? What am I going to do? I'm going to play baseball for a while. I'm going to go back to school. I'm going to get in construction. He goes. That made the firefights go away a lot quicker. That made the terrors of sitting in a foxhole in the middle of the jungle somewhere hearing people, hearing the japanese and broken english scream things about what they're going to do to us. That takes things that made things break go away a little bit easier and he goes. When I left, it was hard. It was not as hard to look down and go. Well, my e6 stripes are gone, but guess what? I'm just going on to the next mission.
Speaker 2:So it's learning that at an early age and then telling people about it. And that's where it's very important that podcasts like yours exist, because you're generating those discussions, you're making people think about that and I know when I started in 1996, we weren't having these conversations, we were not talking about it. I mean, and even prior to that we weren't talking about it. We need to address these issues early on and tell people early on to have these game plans so they can develop them as they go through the career. So when that door crashes and the door closes for everyone, the job ends for everyone and the hard truth is, once you walk out the door a day later, somebody's going to be in that position you were in. That's just nature of the beast. That has to happen. It's not a personal thing, but be ready for that and we need to prepare people for that at the beginning of the career, not at the end of the career yeah, you're, you really are just a number and it doesn't matter if you were the, the best leader in the world.
Speaker 1:Uh, people are going to remember the really really good leaders, everybody, always. They remember the really shitty ones even more now. They always remember that. So, at the end of the day, you know, to recap, like what we talked about today, it was like we did bitch a lot about leadership and about toxic leadership, but the thing is, at the end of the day, those toxic leaders, their legacy is going to be shit.
Speaker 1:So you could think you're the best thing since sliced bread, but at the end of the day, when you retire and you move on to whatever your next career is, and if maybe that doesn't work out, everybody always going to remember you as a shit leader. So that's just a word of caution. That, if you see, if you ever look in the mirror and you go huh, yeah, well, and that's the other thing too is like the shit leaders never have self-reflection, never, it's, they're narcissists. So it's just, it's one of those things. But remember like legacy is the thing, and if you are a proactive leader, if you are a solid leader, people are going to remember your legacy as being wow, that dude was pretty solid, yeah, and that that's one thing you want to leave.
Speaker 2:Yes, you want to have that mindset, because when you're a solid leader, they're going to remember that person's solid, but also you're going to have the reach outs later on.
Speaker 2:Hey, just checking in on you how you doing. Thank you for this. I remember when somebody was promoted to sergeant I got a message from them hey, thank you very much for all the time you spent with me. That meant everything to me because the guy was a good cop. I worked with him a lot on a lot of different things and he was a good man too and he got the job. And it's just, I don't know how often I lay to bed at night thinking about my mistakes or I could have done better here, and I was upset about that, and then I talked to other people go oh, no I never lose sleep because I think I'm always right.
Speaker 2:You're like what? I mean? I made calls that I back up to this day that I know hurt people because they didn't like it, or people got punished because they needed to get punished and I like the person but it had to be done. But it's like then you have people that go. I know, you know, I have no problems with any of that stuff.
Speaker 1:I never had an issue making a decision.
Speaker 2:Well, guess what? Then you weren't making the hard decisions, then you weren't looking going. You know what? Does this person continue to get employed here, or does this person not? Did I make the right call in that tactical situation, or could we have done better? Did I put my people at risk? Well, you know what you have to think about, but if you do things for the right reason at the right time, you're always going to have oh my God. But you'll have the people later on reaching out to you, talking to you, chatting with you. I mean, I'm in a little chat group of two active cops and myself and another retired cop and we're constantly talking and they still accept us because we were authentic. We never claimed to be the greatest. We made our fair mistakes, we screwed up, and I take great pride in seeing the success these other two have had since I've gone and it's like, yeah, that's what I like. And they still acknowledge they wouldn't be giving us crap if they didn't like us and the bad leaders just disappear.
Speaker 1:If somebody's not busting you and you know having jokes with you, because I do the same thing we have I have like two or three different group chats going on at one time with people I work with throughout the years and it's like if you're not busting each other every day, or just here and there, then there's something wrong.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you the last question, and I've started doing this a while ago what is the best piece of advice that you have ever gotten? You have ever gotten, and why?
Speaker 2:Best piece of advice I ever gotten was be careful who you associate yourself with, and why. Because I was told that early on in my career and it was told to me by a captain who I had great respect for, and he told me that because a lot of cops get segued with hanging out with just the fun guys and be spending time with a lot of the people that look like they're they the outgoing, the laughing, they, they're moving around, they're doing all these things, but then, as you like, later look on, you go oh they were kind of doing things a little shady, or they were. They were cutting corners here or their reputations were not all that good amongst their peers, let alone anybody else, and they were constantly pushing the limits, but pushing the limits of seeing what they could get away with to do the least amount of work as possible. So I took that and I learned from that and I said you know what? I always want to be approachable to everyone, I want to have good relations with everybody.
Speaker 2:But I got to make sure I realize I pick and choose. I pick very carefully the people I really wanted to have as trusted advisors and trusted friends in the job and I've taken that as part of my own life core. I'm very selective of who my friends are, because I've seen people go and I think they're one thing and they turn out to be something else. So I learned that a long time ago from a wise captain and it stayed with me forever because it has helped me get out of jams before I was ever in them, because I avoided putting my foot into the water.
Speaker 1:That's actually great advice. Hey, you know I forgot to ask what is your book and how can people find it.
Speaker 2:My book is Leadership in Law Enforcement 10 Key Traits of what Law Enforcement Agencies Could Do to Develop these in the Future Leaders. You can find it on Amazon and you can find it on my website, wwwcode3consultingcom. There's a section that says order book. It basically takes 10 core key traits of leadership from selflessness, mentorship, decision-making, education, presence, fairness, embracing change, having the strength to challenge, communication, team building, interpersonal skills, and it uses the experiences of 31 notable law enforcement leaders from departments across the country, big and small, to nail home the importance of each trait. And then it also gives words of advice how, as a leader, you can develop them better in yourself but could also then enhance and develop your future leaders.
Speaker 2:I's been. I got very lucky. I have a lot of people have told me they like it. Thankfully, I never.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to write something that nobody would like, and some agencies are using it as part of their leadership development programs. It has been used as the concept of talks I've given to the FBI Command College. I've presented this information to the International Chiefs of Police and the book has also been endorsed by leaders such as General Petraeus, former Chief Stephen Sund of the US Capitol Police, from Matt Eversman of the I believe it was Third Rangers, most famous for Battle of Montevichu has been endorsed also by Sergeant First Class Sammy Davis, a Medal of Honor recipient from Vietnam, as well as notable police leaders Randy Sutton from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, jim Dudley, who was a Deputy Chief of San Francisco PD, and several others that have found the leadership concepts in there solid and clean and important. So I tell people you know what? I'm not an expert on the job.
Speaker 2:I want people to learn from the mistakes I did, but let's take the lessons of the great leaders, put it forward and learn from them, learn from our history and just truly embrace our leadership and embrace the job so we do better and we encourage the next generation to do better than what we were. And it's about 240 pages and it's written by a cop for regular people. It's not written in some high too academia or anything like that. It's written for people to go. Let's pick up the book and let's bring it out in the field and let's make it work. And here it is. It's a good book and I encourage anybody to check it out.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, I appreciate you, Bill. Thanks for coming on.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. It was a pleasure and an honor to be on the show.
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