Women and Policing Conference
Speech by Chief Police Officer for the ACT Audrey Fagan, APM
December 2005
Darwin
Official guests, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to be with you today at the 2005 Women and Policing Conference. Many of us watched with interest the recent progress of the NASA space shuttle, Discovery, as it commenced and completed its mission. I was inspired to note that this mission was commanded by Commander Eileen Collins. Commander Collins, the first ever female space shuttle Commander and her Mission Specialist, Wendy Lawrence demonstrate the enormous steps forward women have taken in embracing leadership roles in an increasingly dynamic and complex time.
Eileen Collins was selected to join NASA in January 1990 and became an astronaut just one year later. Prior to this latest mission, Commander Collins had been in space three times and logged over 530 hours in space.
We can only imagine the unique challenges facing Commander Collins in leading the Discovery mission. She, along with her crew, was launched into and beyond earth's atmosphere in a shuttle which has been in service for more than 30 years (longer than many of you in the audience have been on this earth). Travelling at speeds difficult to comprehend, the shuttle endured incredible heat and pressure. The ground crew watched in awe as millions of dollars of preparation and training hurtled in the depths of space. On earth, we held our breath as a piece of the shuttle appeared to break off. Inside, there was no going back. The mission had begun and the physical tie with the earth had been broken.
If we stop to think for a moment about the nature of leadership and the methods we use to ensure our strategies and directions are understood, we can make some interesting observations about the challenges faced by Commander Collins.
Within her small, highly skilled team, she was the ultimate decision maker. Inside the shuttle, away from the gravitational pull of the earth, the crew relied on her skill and direction for their very survival.
Generally a leader must have a clear picture of their operating environment, know their mission, and know what is within their control and influence, what resources they have at their disposal and above all, the strengths and weaknesses of their team.
Leadership is not about self-confidence, it is about having confidence in those your work with, and about how the leader builds that confidence.
In this case the mission had been clear from the outset: the crew were to test and evaluate new procedures for flight safety and shuttle inspection and repair techniques. But, as with many well laid plans, this mission turned from theory to practice at the very moment that the piece broke away on takeoff. The crew had no room for error. A training mission had become a test of skill and team confidence which, if not successful, would potentially result in catastrophic consequences such as that of their space shuttle Columbia colleagues.
Many years of intensive training precede these missions. Only the best and brightest astronauts are chosen. Yet, we can imagine, in spite of the hours of technical and psychological training, that the reality of the unexpected damage to the shuttle's exterior must have resulted in an escalation of tension on board.
The operating environment for Commander Collins and her colleagues was very different to that of the NASA ground control crew. Safe in their buildings behind banks of computer screens and electronic equipment, the ground crew monitored the progress of the mission, receiving and sending critical data to the mission commander. Essentially though, the Discovery crew were on their own and beyond the reach of their support crew, their colleagues and of course their families. This was a case of situational leadership at its best and would have required adjustments to Eileen Collins' leadership style as events unfolded.
As you would all know, leaders cannot work effectively in isolation. The leader is at the helm of a team, guiding, mentoring, encouraging and developing those people who work around them to achieve the common goal. In this case, the common goal was to return to earth safely, having satisfied the directions of mission control and successfully prepared the damaged craft for landing.
In order for a modern leader to survive the complex challenges of the dynamic environment in which so many of us work, we must trust our people. There are many dangers in assuming that you know best. Increasingly the modern leader's strategic outlook must be very broad. The opportunity to develop detailed operational knowledge of all of the things under our control is slim. We cannot and do not know it all. Like Commander Collins, we must surround ourselves with skilled, competent and trustworthy people and motivate them to achieve their potential.
Another example of the complexity of modern leadership challenges which is very pertinent to me, is the extreme challenge faced by police forward commanders in responding to the January 2003 bushfires in the Australian Capital Territory. This was an unprecedented and unexpected natural disaster, the scale of which shocked even the most expert in the fields of fire prevention and response.
It was an event for which police had received no specific training and which required decisions to be made and directions to be given in the context of extreme environmental and managerial conditions. All personnel called on their basic policing training in the responsibilities inherent to the office of constable - built on the obligation to preserve life and the AFP's core values of:
- Integrity;
- Commitment;
- Excellence;
- Accountability;
- Fairness; and
- Trust.
While tensions surrounding command and control in this situation are still the subject of some debate, decisions were facilitated by independent, yet connected thinking.
Forward Command was responsible for the immediate police response to the incident, the logistics of evacuating residents from their homes, closing off streets and ensuring public safety. The pace of the fire and its intensity was such that the Forward Command was required to make critical decisions in the absence of direct endorsement from operational command. With Lines of communication literally broken, lives were at stake and police and emergency personnel on the ground needed to have faith in their own ability to get the job done.
I heard a speech by former Chief of the Defence Force, General Peter Cosgrove who said that one of the three key attributes of a good military leader is the willingness to cheerfully endure common hardship and trials with their soldiers. Commander Collins and the police and emergency service leaders responding to the bushfire crisis both embraced this concept.
General Cosgrove identifies common sense and sustained and consistent direction, as opposed to micromanagement as his other two key components of effective leadership. This is a factually based, logical and possibly quite masculine approach to leadership.
Leadership is perhaps more obvious in times of crisis. The valiant efforts following the September 11 terrorist attacks, the bombing in Bali, Jakarta, Spain and Riyadh and of course most recently in London were characterised by determined, clear and decisive leadership responses.
It is also important to study and understand the qualities required to lead an organisation in influencing its culture and reshaping its focus. This is a point I will come back to in some detail later.
But key to me as a leader, I cannot underestimate the importance of emotional intelligence (and emergent thinking around spiritual leadership…). Researchers generally agree that IQ accounts for between 4 and 20 percent of results, and that the critical factor in sustained achievement is not only skill but emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is about a person's ability to understand and manage their own emotions and behaviours as well as those of others; it's a person's ability to cope with frustrations, control emotions and get along with others.
Emotional intelligence has proven to be twice as important as any other competency in any role. The tougher and more challenging the role the more emotional intelligence becomes a factor in success.
Emotional intelligence is about being SMART.
Self awareness (the ability to understand and recognise an emotion as you experience it)
Mastering negative emotions (maintaining self control and managing emotions such as fear, anger and sadness)
Attitude of optimism (which influences our ability to stay motivated, depersonalise problems or setbacks and be resilient with the capacity to bounce back)
Reading the emotions of others (the ability to read a situation, empathise and feel compassion for others)
Teaming up with others to maximise results ( the ability to get along with and work with others and maintaining an ability to influence their thinking, feeling and behaviours).
Unlike your IQ your emotional intelligence can be improved with well designed development programs, feedback and coaching. Ask yourself these questions:
- Do you have a coach/mentor?
- Who do you look to for inspiration in your leadership style?
- Who could you be learning from and how will you foster that relationship?
I mentioned earlier that I would come back to the importance of leadership in shaping and influencing organisational culture and success.
Let me illustrate this point by sharing with you some of the challenges the AFP faced in re-integrating with the Australian Protective Service. (you could insert the marriage, separation/divorce, re-discovery analogy here if you think its appropriate).
Origins of Project Meridia
One of the things that quickly became apparent with the dawn of the new security environment post- September 11, 2001, was that the communication and collaboration between law enforcement agencies was going to be crucial in maintaining effective security.
Not only was inter-state cooperation imperative but there was a clear requirement for the AFP to liaise more closely with our overseas colleagues. In the interests of greater cooperation, and in the context of a post- September 11 review, a decision was made for the AFP and the APS to integrate. Clearly in undertaking this integration there was a large number of logistical, legislative and practical considerations to be addressed, particularly given the short implementation time available. I could spend several hours talking to you about how the AFP managed these. However, I think that in the context of exploring the notion of emotional leadership I would like to take some time to talk to you about the emotional impact of this change.
The integration took part in stages, and in the interests of motivating staff to see the vision for the future of the APS and embrace the change, considerable effort was invested in understanding and influencing the existing culture within the organisation.
In stage one
- Surveyed all APS staff
Views on integration, motivation, career and job satisfaction and
Feedback from line managers- Directed feedback to tailor communications, baseline agency and understand the culture.
- Common failing of change management is a lack of measures.
- Re-surveying important data to track pre- and post- integration
- Informs future management, development and communication strategies.
- Over time this will be a vital tool.
Another tool was due diligence review by external consultants:
- Novel approach but the project management approach taught us to identify business risks.
- I have emphasised earlier a priority in the new security environment was continuing the excellent work for both agencies.
- Review identified strengths and weaknesses in business process and also focussed our efforts and priorities.
But for my mind, the greatest driver of change was tapping into the operational work that both agencies so ably do - we needed to understand the culture we sought to influence. Only months after the first stage of the integration we identified change champions and blockers and undertook an active travel program with a view to getting to know key personnel. We needed to reinforce and solidify the change. We used a number of techniques to achieve this:
- Project planning and methodology
- Implementation plans owned by those responsible
- Ongoing monitoring and control
- Ongoing review
Enduring leadership can occur only where leaders truly understand their mission, the motivation of those who support them, and where the leaders have the strength to direct the progress of the organisation through the obstacles which will inevitably appear along the path to success.
One example of an incredibly enduring leader is Aung San Suu Kyi. Currently living under house arrest in Burma, she is an example of a person who has achieved an enduring leadership presence in spite of obvious obstacles. In fact Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy became a political prisoner in 1988 without charge or trial due to her outspoken criticism of the Burmese military regime. Suu Kyi won a landslide victory in the subsequent elections in spite of her incarceration which continued for a further 10 years. Finally released from detention to house arrest in 2001, Suu Kyi epitomises the perseverance, self-knowledge, and inspirational qualities which define great leadership.
In joining with you at this conference today I am humbled to see the contribution so many of you make to the future of leadership in the police and emergency services field. Just as we have pioneers in space, we have regional pioneers from across the world.
As the space shuttle Discovery safely touched down in California earlier this month, we should all feel some pride in the fact that it did so in the skilled hands of an inspirational, emotionally intelligent leader, who happens to be a woman, supported by a team of skilled people who literally trusted their lives to her care.