Heart-Focused Leadership: A Shifting Police Leadership Paradigm

At the IACP Annual Conferences in San Diego, California (2016), and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2017), noted leadership speaker and author Simon Sinek challenged law enforcement executives to amplify the talent and capabilities of the uncommon men and women who make up the landscape of the law enforcement profession by leading with more courage, care, love, and heart. Sinek highlights the many definitions of leadership that exist; however, he argues, there is one anthropological definition of leadership that has existed from the beginning of recorded time—one that espouses the notion that leaders take care of those in their charge and that leaders have the sacred duty to protect their people from both internal and external dangers.