The basic responsibility of an operational police manager is to direct the behavior of subordinate personnel toward efficient and effective accomplishment of the department s overall goals and operations. Coleman believes that leadership qualities can be learned. He also states that the traits and characteristics of persuasiveness, intelligence, flexibility and good judgment are all necessary to be a good leader. Though he writes that these are achieved through heredity, they can be learned or developed. One point in the book that is also mentioned with increasing frequency in other management texts is the perceived change in those entering today s work force.
Police work is no different.
Coleman recognizes that an organization s principal and most costly resource is the employee. Yet the operational manager must contend with a different type of worker than the ones who entered the work force years ago, perhaps even when the manager entered policing. Coleman states that today s employees seem less committed to an organization s ultimate goal than in past years. The do as I say and not as I do adage is no longer effective in the management of people, he notes. Motivation, according to Coleman, is a self-generated concept.