Intent Doesn't Land. Impact Does.
A few years back, an officer came back to work after several weeks out following the birth of their baby. Before I saw him, I pulled up the birth announcement that had gone out by email and found the baby's name. When I ran into him in the hallway, I stopped, welcomed him back, and asked how the baby was doing by name. It took thirty seconds. More than five years later, he still tells that story to other officers. What it meant to him wasn't the thirty seconds. It was that his chief had taken the time to know his baby's name before he ever said a word about it.
I bring that up because the version of me before coaching would have walked past him with a nod and kept moving toward whatever was next on the list. I intended to lead a department where people felt known. For a long time, what people actually experienced from me was someone too focused on the operation to stop. That gap between intent and impact is uncomfortable to sit with, but it's where almost all of the real growth happens once you're willing to look at it honestly.
I've watched that same gap show up in a different form, in supervisors I respect and have worked alongside for years, and I bear as much responsibility for it as they do. Highly capable people who worked hard to encourage their staff to grow, to put themselves in position to test for promotion. Sometimes that encouragement landed on someone who hadn't yet proven they could lead at a higher level, and the focus went toward pushing them to assess rather than preparing them first. I approved those promotions. I signed off on the readiness of people I hadn't done enough to actually prepare, and I let a supervisor's confidence in someone stand in for my own responsibility to look closer. I've watched those same staff members step into the new role and struggle to exercise the autonomy that came with it, not because they lacked potential, but because nobody, myself included, built the foundation under them before handing them the responsibility. The supervisor's intention was real. Their people wanted to see others succeed. So did I. But the impact was far short of what any of us had hoped for.
In moments like that, the question I keep coming back to, for myself and for the leaders serving alongside me, is: how did I contribute to this? Not what's lacking in the person who hasn't risen to the challenge yet. Peter Drucker wrote about this decades ago, arguing that when a good people decision doesn't produce the results a leader expected, the honest conclusion usually isn't that the person failed. It's that the leader made a mistake somewhere in the process. Jim Collins found something similar studying the best leaders he researched for Good to Great: they look outward to give credit when things go well, and inward to take responsibility when they don't.
That kind of self examination gets harder, not easier, the more different someone's background is from your own. Daniel Goleman's research found that the most effective leaders don't lead with one fixed style. They read the person in front of them and adjust, rather than expecting everyone to adjust to them. David Livermore's work on cultural intelligence takes that a step further, showing that the ability to read and adapt to people who don't share your values or background is a trainable skill, not something you either have or don't. And Stephen M.R. Covey put words to why that adaptability matters so much: trust isn't built through shared background or personality. It's built through consistent behavior over time, especially with the people least like you.
That's the harder version of leadership. It's easier to adjust your style for someone who reminds you of yourself. It takes real emotional intelligence to regulate yourself for someone who doesn't, and to build enough trust that they'll follow you anyway.
Here's what I'd ask you to do this week. Think of one person on your team you lead differently than you'd naturally lead yourself. Ask them, honestly, how it's landing. Not how you meant it. How it actually feels from where they're standing.
Where has there been a gap between how you meant something and how it landed?
#Leadership #EmotionalIntelligence #PoliceLeadership #LawEnforcementLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment
