In 2022, Avon and Somerset Police (1), like many police forces, were facing leadership challenges, with the force manging a rapidly expanding cohort of new recruits as a result of the national recruitment drive for the Police Uplift Programme.
The Challenge
The chief officer group were quick to recognise that harnessing the talent of these new recruits requires excellent leadership from sergeant and staff first line leaders, many of whom were newly promoted and just coming to grips with what it means to lead teams. They initiated changes to ensure this cohort of leaders would be well equipped to practise and inspire an outstanding quality of leadership, with a particularly focus on building the professional, inclusive culture that is central to Avon and Somerset’s vision.
Having already launched their ‘Leadership Academy’, a small learning school offering a suite of optional leadership training unique to each rank, the initial project scope was to expand and improve the school’s delivery of training for sergeants and staff first line leaders.
Our Approach
Leapwise worked with Avon and Somerset across three major streams of development; the first being the identification and alignment on a singular vision for team leadership at Avon and Somerset Police (a ‘Team Leadership Model’), aligned to College of Policing standards, the second was the creation of a curriculum that supported the content of the model, and the third was to identify enabling systems that would address low uptake of optional content.
- Team Leadership Model: The vision for team leadership needed to reinforce the messaging of ASP’s closely held values, reflect senior leadership’s appetite for significant cultural change, and resonate with leaders across a large and diverse organisation. The resulting model was co-designed using a combination of formal training feedback and the input of more than 50 interviewees from chief officers down to new recruits, all of whom contributed their view of what great leadership should look like at Avon and Somerset Police. This model outlined the required and desired leadership behaviours across bronze, silver, and gold tiering, explicitly highlighting behavioural expectations.
- Curriculum Design: The model was used to directly inform the content of seven new Leadership Academy modules focussed on team leadership at an acting and substantive level. In line with feedback from the organisation, the curriculum was designed to balance the theoretical against highly practical on-the-job applications.
- Engagement: Using a behavioural change framework (COM-B) to inform the approach, data was collected from 3 user-groups, identified based on the level of their interaction with the Leadership Academy. The groups were engaged using focus groups, further interviews and an organisation wide survey, each contributing their perspective on barriers or enablers to uptake of leadership training.
Based on these three strands of work, Leapwise developed a business case setting out the required approach and additional training resources required to significant strengthen team leadership for the force.
Results
The business case was approved and the learning team at Avon and Somerset have successfully implemented the new training content to great effect. The decision was made by the Chief Officer group to roll out five of the seven courses as mandatory for leaders at all levels, striving for organisation-wide buy-in to the qualities set out in the new team leadership model. The leadership team has been expanded to keep pace with this increased demand, and there is potential for future expansion of content to cover more advanced senior leadership skills. This significant investment of time and resource is testament to the absolute commitment of senior leadership to delivering quality service to the public, and their thorough understanding of the role leadership plays in shaping culture and productivity within their organisation.
The challenges faced by Avon and Somerset Police’s will be familiar to many police forces across England. In 2023, 38% of the police workforce had less than five years of experience on the job. Leadership training often risks de-prioritisation in the face of increasing front-line demand, ongoing mandated operational training and stretched resources. This has the highest impact at the front line, where acting and substantive roles will be filled by individuals with little, and often no formal team leadership training. Early intervention can help change the culture of an organisation, improve productivity and increase retention by providing new recruits with avenues for progression. The scale of the challenge can often seem overwhelming, however, in order to see better outcomes, policing leaders need to be equipped with the knowledge to demonstrate and inspire the high quality of leadership expected of by the public and their team.
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