Indian Police force plays a very important role in the nation and with increasing complexities in public life, this role is becoming more critical. This also brings the current police force under much scrutiny and criticism. The traditions and practices followed by the police force are old like many other organizations in India (Valecha & Venkataraman, 1982). The personnel employed are not suitable for the purpose and are working with little imagination. Indian police officers have long and demanding working hours, most of them work 10 hours a day and have to report if the need arises. The top police administrators have a higher pay as per the average earnings in India, on the other hand, the lower official earns really less which challenges their motivation and worth (Qureshi, Lambert, Hogan, Klahm, Smith & Frank, 2015). A multitude of issues plague the current police force, few of them are corruption, lack of concern for public, brutal behavior and inefficiency. Today, the fundamental question is how to lead the police force to work as an efficient and unbiased law enforcement organization that is completely motivated and guided by the motto of serving the public without compromising with the ethos of constitutional rights of the people (National Police Commission, 1977).
The environment of police work does not only include building and physical provisions, but it also contains psychological and social components, which sometimes are ignored (Qureshi et al., 2015). An organizational structure is used which is very important to monitor employee, guide and control them. To maintain a good, working and effective structure, the administrators need to know how to handle the employees, manage them, manage the work and take care of themselves. The elements that seem to be missing are lack of innovation, job autonomy, effective communication, employee management, proper workload division, the need for proper training and effective supervision (Valecha & Venkataraman, 1982), and all this can be possible if a good, strong, capable leadership base is embedded in higher officials.
Kelloway, Sivanathan, Francis, and Barling in 2004 described poor leadership as amongst the most common yet potential stressors in any workplace. Other stressors are usually specific to a particular workplace but leadership is a factor that is present across. A given bad leader may simply lack required leadership skills, or he/she can be aggressive, punitive, etc., but as per Kelloway et al. they all lead to increasing in the employee stress, which in turn causes organization’s loss. Factors that seem to influence the work attitudes of among police officers are job involvement and satisfaction, and organizational commitment (Johnson, 2012a, 2012b). Ford, Weissbein, and Plamondon, 2003 and Haarr, 1997 wrote that few researches done in other nations suggest that such improvements in work attitude result in better community relations, functioning and communications, and lesser corruption rates in the police force. Positive work attitudes have the ability to advantageous for both the agency and the officers in the Police. In India a vicious circle of, lack of motivation, dissatisfaction, and lower efficiency is evident and all this brings in low motivation in turn.
Work attitude and low motivation have emerged as important aspects that can improve the current functioning of the police department. It has been seen that the police agency has a very formal organization, with a chain of command that is authoritarian in nature. Creativity and innovation get no place to breathe in such an atmosphere, also the encouragement of free expression is inhibited (Valecha & Venkataraman, 1982). If a new trend of leadership were encouraged, if a new democratic line of communication is formed, it would give the police officer in lower level police officers a feeling of being listened, respected and valued; especially for such police officers, it would increase their professionalism. This is needed, as a professional police officer would have the ability to cope with problems and pressures that are common in their line of work full of violence and crime. A purposeful role in the society and more amounts of responsibilities with better recognition needs to be provided to the officers at the medium and lower levels by the supervisors to increase their esteem and autonomy.
Recognition of merit is considered yet another important aspect that pulls the police officers back; a more relevant appraisal system is needed. In a study done on 22 senior and top officials (ranks of Inspector Generals and Deputy Inspector Generals) from across the country by Valecha and Venkataraman in 1982, 50% of them believed that the promotions are not given impartially and the show have a communal bias in the process and the majority of them were dissatisfied. In India, it is seen that at lower levels of police service the careers of constable stagnate, even at the time of retirement many of them are constables. The leaders need to be trained to emphasize a sound appraisal system to support the ambitions of the subordinates. Valecha and Venkataraman also talked of ‘oneness. It is very important for any organization to function properly, in Indian polices services this feeling of oneness comes into play only in the event of an outside attack but lacks in a day to day functioning. A good leader has the skills to bind the people under the same umbrella of duties in an organization. With respect to police force, good supervisors and administrators can increase the feeling of empathy, unity, and camaraderie in and across different sub-divisions.
Moving above in the line, when administrators and supervisors who work hard to manage the day to day critical requirement of the job with a high degree of commitment and in return when they are rewarded with hostility and rejection from the public, skepticism may set in. Therefore, even for the leaders, there is a need to be healthy psychologically, an inefficient leader would not be able to do it, their commitment, and motivation may deter (Valecha & Venkataraman, 1982). In a study on Haryana Police by Qureshi, Lambert, and Frank in 2016, the work-family conflict was discussed, which showed that how work environment affects work-family conflict, among police officers across a variety of nations. Yet another component that affects officers, it happens when work burden (emotional, psychological or physical) spills over their home life and this can cause frustration and psychological stress. Inefficiency in supervision or leadership can result in this in many ways for the leaders and the people under him/her. Poor leadership skills would result in failure to provide necessary equipment or resources to deal with all situations, which one might get on the job for self (leaders) and others (subordinates).
Qureshi et al., 2016 talked of poor supervision is a stressor and this leads to conflicts that officers take home with them. Experience of poor supervision is frustrating and hampers the capability of an officer is that hinders him/her to be successful at the job. Qureshi went on to talk of the perceived degree of control people feel their jobs, called job autonomy. This autonomy makes them feel capable, valued and trusted, and provides a sense of control. It provides flexibility to the officers to deal with various stresses and job demands. An administrator or supervisor who wishes to rule would not provide autonomy to the subordinates and this would build frustration, mistrust, lack of motivation and low self-worth in the job, but a good leader would not only provide them with opportunities to prove themselves but also training for making them better at the job. Not only this, there would be a system to get feedback on training so that it can be improved.
Need for a Coach and Counsellor
Counselling. Such issues spread across the Police department are causing inefficiency of the police and loss of the vision that the department should follow. All this might make one ask of the weaknesses and strengths of our Police force. Our responsibility is to think of how to remedy the weakness and reinforce the strengths. Counselling is a service that can help people learn to manage themselves and those under them (Navare, 2008). The job of the police is a really demanding with constant exposure to crime and negativity and professional counsellors can guide the officers through personal growth and address issues that are likable to cause emotional stress like anxiety, depression, substance abuse, violence, feeling of purposelessness at work, relationship issues (at work and home), building up motivation, dealing with workload and constant rejection etc.
Coaching. Professional coaching aims at helping clients achieve their goals, goals of the organization, their full potential and then constantly assessing the progress. The need of Leadership skills in the Indian police force is established through the arguments above, now what is needed is a coach who can work with the supervisors and administrators to first realize what hinders them to attain the real form of leadership and then through various effective psychological models work on to achieve it. Poor leadership is not only harming the lower level employees but also the higher ones, and it is causing constant loss to the agency, the nation, and the employees. Fig 1.
Fig 1, illustrates how poor leadership along with intrinsic and extrinsic factors causes many personal, organization issues and how coaching and counselling can help.
Approach. Supervisors and Administrators play a very important role in the running of the police agency but even though they have enough power and control there are few limitations to them as well. The first job would be to understand the supervisors and administrators, their personality, their life and their point of view. After a good rapport is formed, there would be a need to understand their strengths, their constraints, their situations through effective questioning, and then using empirically proven efficient model their leadership skills would be nurtured using the concepts of psychology. If there is a need to resolve some personal need, the officers would be referred for personal counselling. In short, the keeping the aim of the department in mind, there would be an effort to work with employees (officers) in a supportive environment towards the welfare of the organization and well as the officers (higher and lower) and achieve the desired goals.
To summarize, the nation needs our police force to be productive and efficient but each police officer is important as well, leadership skills would aid forming an environment in the police force where the ethos of the constitution would be followed and each life would be valued, and coaching/counselling can help achieve that.
References
Haarr, R. (1997). They’re making a bad name for the department: Exploring the link between organizational commitment and police occupational deviance in a police patrol bureau. Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, 20, 286–812.
Johnson, R. R. (2012a). Police officer job satisfaction: A multidimensional analysis. Police Quarterly, 15, 157–176.
Johnson, R. R. (2012b). Police organizational commitment: The influence of supervisor feedback and support. Crime and Delinquency. Retrieved from: https://cad.sagepub.com/content/early/recent
Kelloway, K.,Sivanathan, N., Francis, L. & Barling, J. (2004). Poor Leadership. 10.4135/9781412975995.n5.
Navare, S. (2008). Counselling at work place: A proactive human resource initiative. Indian J Occup Environ Med, 12(1), 1-2. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019-5278.40807
Observations and Recommendations of the National Police Commission, 1977.
Qureshi, H, Lambert, E. G., Frank, J. (2016). Spilling over : An exploratory study of the correlates of strain-based work-family conflict among police officers in India, 18(2), 87–103. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461355716641972
Qureshi, H., Lambert, E. G., Hogan, N. L., Klahm, C., Smith, B., & Frank, J. (2015). The Association of Job Variables With Job Involvement , Job Satisfaction, and Organizational Commitment Among Indian Police Officers, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/1057567715580985
Venkataraman, S., Valecha, G. K. (1982). Improving Efficiency and Ensuring Impartiality of the Police Force.