Hugo Scott-Gall: Today, I am thrilled to welcome Kristen Ziman, a trailblazing leader and transformational speaker. Kristen served as Chief of Police in Aurora, the second largest city in Illinois where she led one of the states largest police departments through a period of profound change. Now a keynote speaker and author of “Reimagining Blue” Kristen is dedicated to helping others break barriers, spark innovation, and lead with purpose. Kristen, welcome to the show.
Kristen Ziman: Thank you so much for having me, I am delighted to be here, Hugo.
Hugo Scott-Gall: Can we go back in time, can we go to what first attracted you, what first drew you to law enforcement?
Kristen Ziman: Yes, of course. Well, I come from a father who was a former Marine in the military and a former police officer. And so, growing up, I remember being in our family station wagon in the ‘80s and just riding around with my dad when he was off duty. And I remember two distinct moments that forged my path into the policing profession.
The first one was a car accident on the side of the road and in my dad’s station wagon, me in the back seat he said “Don’t move” and he pulled over, and he started taking these individuals out of a car and tending to their injuries. And what I noted specifically about that moment was all of the other cars that just kept driving by, and I thought “That is so crazy that my dad stopped to help.”
And the second time was we were just about to go through a toll booth and my dad threw the car in park and I knew the drill, don’t move, and he ran out of the car and he started wrestling with the driver of a vehicle who had just hit the toll booth, and it was a drunk driver. And the same thing I noted was that all of the other cars were driving by and I recognized – and I was about maybe 10, eight at the first time, 10 the second time – and I remember in that moment having this epiphany that first responders run towards things that other people run away from.
And those two moments made me want to be a police officer that young. I have never wanted to be anything else.
Hugo Scott-Gall: That’s incredible. And you’ve never doubted it because it’s not the easiest path and it definitely versus other careers, I think it likely has more challenges on the way. And you are dealing with things that a lot of people don’t have to deal with.
Kristen Ziman: Absolutely, and of course, I didn’t know that then. I just wanted to run towards the action. I am a person of action, and when I thought of myself sitting in an office or a cubicle, it just didn’t resonate with me. I loved the idea of being outside.
I love the idea of going to 911 calls that are different every day, every moment so no two days are exactly the same. And you’re right, I didn’t realize the challenges of law enforcement until I was immersed in the middle of it. But for that beginning is what led me, the universe that led me there was this idea of helping people and action-oriented. And later, of course, I would learn – especially as I moved up the ranks – I would learn not only the challenges as a police officer, but then the challenges as a leader in law enforcement.
Hugo Scott-Gall: Yeah, I want to ask you about leadership because there’s no doubt that the police are leaders in the community.
They have powers that others don’t, and therefore they are expected to act as leaders, but that’s not the same thing as becoming a leader of the police, other officers, and personnel. When did you – A. Did you like and relish the role of leadership in the community and broader society, and secondarily, when did you think “Actually, I would quite like to have people reporting to me who I can work with, who I can shape, who I can develop,” when did that part come?
Kristen Ziman: Yeah, that’s a great question and I really appreciate the differentiation between that leadership role or let’s call it what it is, it’s a power structure. So, as a young cop, as I’m walking onto the scene, I have command presence, and I have quote “power” and I’m doing air quotes here because as we know, power can be either good or bad.
But I have a situational power, a command presence where I walk on the scene, and I remember having this ah-ha moment in my mid-20s where I’m walking on the scene and people are looking to me to solve problems. Because I am the one who is demonstrating – first of all, they’re calling us, or we’re stumbling upon an incident. People don’t typically call 911 when things are going well in their lives. So, I’m showing up for domestic disturbances, for neighborhood disputes, you name it, we are showing up.
And I remember being in my mid-20s thinking they are looking to me to solve a problem, perhaps in a domestic situation, that has taken of course perhaps 20 years for them to get to you. And now, I am on the scene and in five minutes I have to separate the individuals and figure out exactly what the best outcome is. Is there an arrest to be made? Was a law violated? Is this a mediation?
So, I became very, very young I had that epiphany of wow, I have this leadership role in other people’s lives. And even in something as simple as an accident, they’re looking to me to solve the problem, to take charge of the incident. So, that in itself is a kind of leadership. And then, there is a different kind of leadership in leading others and I think, and the reason that I attempted to move up in my organization was not on my own volition.
It was because other leaders looked at me and said – and this is such a gift, and I wanna underscore this for your listeners to this pod – is that think about how many times in your life that someone has recognized something in you that you didn’t see in yourself. And that’s exactly what happened to me was these male mentors said “Hey, you’ve got quite a leadership ability that we’ve witnessed on the street.” What a gift that was, because I wouldn’t have been able to see it in myself.
I just thought I was kind of a bossy-pants just taking charge of the situation when they said this could perhaps be a quality if we cultivate it. And so, it was with them witnessing it and them pushing me that I pursued leadership to a higher degree. And that is where the shift becomes and the differentiation, as you mentioned, is that now as I move up in an organization, particularly as I move up to middle management. So, when I got promoted to sergeant, I’m still on the street and I’m still acting as a police officer, but once you make the lieutenant’s rank, well, then that becomes more administration.
And now, it pivots, leadership is now getting work done through others. And that is through giving them the inspiration, the aspiration, the training, and the mastery that they need so they can do their job. And as I moved up and eventually became the first female chief in my organization, that is what became my focus, was making sure that the mission is carried out but through others, not necessarily me.
Hugo Scott-Gall: When you look back at the training you had, I’m sure the police gives very good training, but I think my view is that no one is ever a 100% product of their training. There’s more to it than that, we have innate capabilities, we all have strengths and weaknesses. How much did you kind of learn by watching, learn by observing, learn by absorbing others versus the training you were given?
Kristen Ziman: Yeah. Also a great differentiation just because someone moves into a leadership position of course does not make them a leader. So, I would say quite candidly that I had so much training to become a police officer. When we go through the academy, and we have months of field training and then we’re on probation for whatever amount of time that is, 15 months. The training that is instilled in us so we can handle calls on the street is very different, and I would say probably more robust than the training to become a leader.
And here’s what I mean by that. So many people are promoted to a leadership, a formal leadership rank, and they don’t have leadership training. And so, I will say that a lot of the leadership training that I got was – and this is a really sad statement to say – I watched leaders during my tenure as a patrol officer – and that was for about almost 10 years before I got promoted – and I took lessons of what not to do.
That was, like I said that’s very sad to say, but I remember having those moments – and we can all relate to this – where we think “If I ever move into a leadership position, I will not treat my people like that. I won’t just check the box and take the rank or the title because of power, but I will genuinely care about my people. I will become the boss that I wished I had.” So, I had a lot of that.
Just do the opposite of that person, and then there is some formal leadership training, but it’s really scarce. So, what I did with the help of a commander is that I went on my own independently and started really taking in leadership lessons, even outside of law enforcement. And I remember the first training class I went to was after reading the book by Stephen Covey, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” He happened to be going to Chicago to speak on that book.
And I went on my own time, on my off time, and sat in that audience at the persuasion of one of my captains, and I absorbed every word. And it was that moment that I think lit a fire in me of becoming a consummate student of leadership with the understanding that I will never attain that “Level 5 Leadership” as we call it, but I dedicated my life to becoming a student.
And a lot of the lessons as I said I’ve learned have been what not to do, have been through training that I’ve put through myself, and my own failures. Where I have had to look in the mirror and say “That was not the best decision that I made.” Or perhaps, I made that decision that was serving me and not the organization, and I’ve had to recalibrate and pivot. So, I think leadership is an ongoing journey and I don’t think anybody ever reaches that highest pinnacle of leadership, but I think we’re all kind of on the mountain trying to get to the summit.
Hugo Scott-Gall: So, when you were Chief of Police, how many people were there underneath you?
Kristen Ziman: My agency was a mid-sized agency, and so we had about 310 sworn, and about 90 civilians. So, about roughly 400, 450 people.
Hugo Scott-Gall: Which is a lot.
Kristen Ziman: It is. We’re not looking at your Chicago-sized, NYPD, but it’s a robust mid-sized agency.
Hugo Scott-Gall: So, did you feel lonely? And you just talked about decisions, you’re dealing with a lot of people, you’re dealing with I imagine some people in the police are maybe a bit world-weary and maybe a little cynical. I think it would be very hard not to be when you’re dealing with some of the things that people do in life, but did you – were you a quick decision taker? You sort of alluded to it, did you walk back decisions that were wrong, and who did you have around you?
When you have a lot of people like that looking up to you, I imagine it could feel lonely, it could feel kind of isolated and I hesitate to ask this, but I think I should.
Kristen Ziman: Sure.
Hugo Scott-Gall: You were probably in the minority in terms of being female.
Kristen Ziman: Absolutely, yeah, I was the first female lieutenants to ever attain that rank, and then I went on to become the first female commander, and the first female chief in the history of my department. Now, I will say that I ad an advantage because I came up in my organization. I started in that organization when I was 17 years old as an intern.
And then, I became a sworn officer, but I’m gonna kinda go in a roundabout way to answer your question. And the reason that I think that I didn’t have the struggle as maybe other women and even men walking into it was because I didn’t walk into a new organization. I had spent 20 years in my organization underscore hopefully gaining the respect of my peers, of my colleagues, of my leaders, and then soon to be those that I led. And so, when I attained that level as chief, there was an immense support.
And I’ll never forget that, all of the officers that showed up for my swearing in and even reached out to the mayor and told them “This is who we want as our chief.” So, I was welcomed and the gratitude that I feel for that is immense because I have talked to people who have walked a very different path.
Now, that does not change the fact that there were still some people that were upset. Those who wanted the position themselves, and those who I will call my “active saboteurs.” I talk a lot about the mentors, I’ve already talked about the mentors that we have in our life, but we also have tormentors. And I was very astute to the tormentors and the saboteurs that were trying to derail some of the things I was trying to do.
So, that was a challenge, but I tried to face that head-on with really hard conversations with them. And I’ll never forget one of the hard conversations that I had to have was someone who didn’t get the job and I did and he was checked out and he was attempting sabotage. And that conversation was really difficult because basically I had to tell him – and then I used the Jim Collins metaphor about the bus in his book “Good to Great” is that I want you on my bus because you’re really smart. Obviously, you were a finalist for this position, you’re really smart.
And you’re capable, and so I’m gonna need you to get on the bus instead of trying to slash the tires on the bus. But I need you on the bus, but if you don’t get on the bus then I’m gonna have to run you over. And maybe I’m gonna put it in reverse and I may have to run you over again.
And it was this metaphor that I used and it turned out to be a little comical, but he understood what I was saying is that “Listen, you didn’t get the job, I did, all right, let’s move forward. I need you as an ally now.” So, I had a lot of conversations like that. But to answer your question, and I love this question that you asked, “Was it lonely?”
And I hear so many people at the top of an organization that tell me “It is so lonely at the top” and it wasn’t for me. And here is why, because – and this goes back to what I studied and who I studied – I studied former chiefs that I answered to, that I served, and I remember that they cut people out.
They kept some of their power and control and information in siloes and I noted that that didn’t serve them, it put them on an island. And so, when I became chief, I was able to bring up some pretty progressive-minded people on to the command staff, just by virtue of retirements and we ended up making a new position. All that to say is I got to choose people to serve on my command staff. And once I got them in place, I looked at them and I did the absolutely unthinkable thing that a leader probably never does.
I said “Hey, guys, this is new for me. I’ve never been a police chief before, obviously, you know me, I’ve worked in this department for this amount of time, but I don’t know exactly what I’m doing here, and I’m gonna need you to be my blind spot. Tell me what I’m missing. When I have an idea, throw spears, figure out what are the weak parts in my argument.”
And we built a team of truth tellers and dissenters and for that reason I have to tell you, Hugo, I never, ever felt alone. Because I wasn’t afraid to say “I don’t know what I’m doing.” COVID was a great example. I was called to serve during a time that I had never lived through.
I’ve never lived through a pandemic, I didn’t know what to expect like most of us. And so, I looked to my command staff and to my people and said “Hey, I don’t know the right answer here, and I don’t know exactly how to succeed through this storm that has fallen upon us, so I’m gonna need everyone’s help.” And you know what crazy thing happens when you ask your people for help, and you tell them “Gosh, maybe I don’t know, don’t let me fail, don’t let us fail.” A crazy and wonderful thing happens, and people rush to help.
And that’s exactly what they did. So, I can honestly tell you that the team that I had surrounding me challenged me, we had a lot of arguments in that room, but I never felt alone.
Hugo Scott-Gall: That’s great, that’s impressive that you’re asking for help, looking for people to start with “yes” rather than “no” either or I think things might be hardest to do in the moment, but are actually much better to do. But before we talk a bit more about leadership and what you’re doing now, could we just ask a few more questions around law enforcement and policing? And I think I know the answer to this, and I hope it’s not too obvious of a question, but if you look back at your time in the police, it must be a lot harder to be in the police now than it was a decade ago, or maybe even five years ago. Is that right?
Is my assumption correct?
Kristen Ziman: Oh, without a doubt. I often say that I’ve lived two careers in law enforcement and the first of which – again, I started in the early ‘90s.
And in the early ‘90s for context, we didn’t have body cameras, we didn’t have any cameras in squad cars, and we also didn’t have very formal internal investigations, Internal Affairs to hold officers accountable. And what I mean by that is in the ‘90s, the way that the police supervisors held you accountable was basically just giving you an ass chewing There was no formal Internal Affairs investigation so then what I saw in my career was us become more professional. That is, the profession of law enforcement where Internal Affairs was instituted into law enforcement organizations truly because the community started to demand it.
And then the introduction of video, of body cameras, of now capturing police interactions with humans and cell phone cameras. So now, everyone has that accessible in their hands.
So, I believe what that did was uncover a lot of corruption in my profession because now it was being captured. Now we couldn’t just write a report, and that was just our vantagepoint. There were other vantagepoints that were being brought in. And so, to say that it became more challenging is not so much a statement I would make.
It became more accountable. We became more accountable because people were capturing our inner actions. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. And as I moved through the police department, and as I moved up into leadership roles, and as we brought body cams onto our police officers where everything was captured, there wasn’t backlash by police officers in doing that. Because it also protected them.
So, I think it’s a very different environment. Now, fast forward to as you mentioned, I’m gonna just call it what it is, and that’s the post George Floyd era.
George Floyd was killed in broad daylight by a police officer and that sent a reconning across the nation, and including in my city. And I will say that in some cases, some instances that reconning was well-needed. There were many progressive police departments including my own that I’m proud to say that we’re holding our officers accountable. Holding one another accountable.
The community was holding us accountable and we were open to it. And so many police departments didn’t do anything wrong. So many police officers didn’t do anything wrong, but there were many that were and we saw them making the headlines over, and over again. So, now post George Floyd era, that reconning I think we’ve seen the pendulum shift a little, because right after he was killed, you saw people denouncing police, you saw people calling for the police to be completely eradicated.
And then we saw some people try and do that, some cities, and that didn’t work. So, what we’ve come to is another pendulum shift that we’ve had by the way, in the Civil Rights movement brought the same thing. So, here we are now, but now we have political divisiveness. So, now we have a whole other storm that’s coming in but you’re not seeing police officers make headlines so much of improprieties because I think that we’ve got our house straightened up quite a bit as far as police misconduct.
But then you enter an era now of the political division and now you have federal agencies coming into cities. I mean, I could go on, so to answer your question quite succinctly, is it more challenging to be a police officer now? Absolutely, but I also want to acknowledge that having that accountability for our profession was not necessarily a bad thing.
Hugo Scott-Gall: Got it, got it, got it. Right, let’s talk about what you’re doing now.
You’re a leadership consultant and you’re clearly eminently qualified to do that. When you walk into an organization for the first time that is engaged with you, do you get a pretty quick feel for – the fact that they’re reaching out to you suggest maybe they’ve got something to fix, something to look at. But do you get a feel pretty quickly when something’s not right? When something’s potentially a bit rotten?
Kristen Ziman: Absolutely. And to your point, typically just like I mentioned earlier, when someone calls 911 it’s not usually a good thing and same when someone calls you into their organization to give a culture assessment. There’s typically something wrong. I will stop right there and I want to pull on that thread for just a moment because I give such credit to those leaders.
Whether they be mayors, whether they be city managers or whether they be the head of an organization, a police chief themselves to say “We need an outsider to come in with a fresh set of eyes.”
That takes a lot of courage because what they’re asking me to do is to uncover what’s wrong in the organization. And the first thing that I do, because especially you can’t talk to everyone, so the first thing I do is I send out a cultural survey. And it asks all kinds of questions about their training, about the leadership, about interaction with management, about even their own mental health and wellness. So, there are different pillars that I look at when I come into an organization.
And people, when they get over their initial distrust of “Will anyone know that I’m taking this survey?” Because it’s all anonymous and once I convince them that their name will not be attached to it. I have no magic powers of knowing who is telling me what they’re telling me, people tell the truth. And it is that first survey that I send out to everyone and I usually get upwards of almost 90% participation and that is where I really get a great snapshot of the culture of an organization.
And in the freefall comments where people can just write whatever they want, I definitely, that’s where people start to vent and I get a sense of what issues we have to tackle. And then I move into the one-on-one conversations either with teams or with individuals. And that’s where I really learn, and then I come out with a diagnosis and basically what areas that are needed for improvement. So, it’s really interesting because every organization has a different personality, and has different challenges.
Hugo Scott-Gall: How often is it all rooted in performance, whatever that organization’s trying to do, however it’s measured? And it’s very hard to separate, the chicken and egg, isn’t it, the culture goes wrong and that damages performance, or performance goes wrong and then that damages the culture. How often is it that people just can’t get along even though they’re doing actually just about okay, or maybe better? And how often is it that an improvement in whatever the business is trying to achieve, if that can happen, then the culture will follow?
Kristen Ziman: So, great question and I don’t know the answer. A lot of times, we look at our leadership as the person, the top of the org chart. That person is responsible for setting the culture and the tone of an organization. And while that is true, and my career, I can give you examples, succinct examples of when I checked out.
When I became apathetic, when I stopped producing, it was because I was working for a leader that was terrible. Again, back to what not to do. So, people check out. Now, here is the mistake that people make about culture though is they put all of the onus on that individual at the top of the org chart.
And while that is important and if you have a bad leader at the top of the org chart, your organization is going to suffer, productivity is going to suffer because people become disenfranchised and disengaged when they don’t respect or when their leadership is incompetent.
But what people fail to recognize is the power that they hold in their own corner of the world. And here’s what I mean by that is we can effect culture. We can disrupt the culture of a team, of perhaps three people, of a unit, of a division, of an entity, depending on what your organization is. And we can contribute positively to the culture.
It takes courage, it takes speaking out, it takes disruption. And if you hate the word “disruption,” because some people do, because we get the vison of burning everything down, then let’s call it “interruption.’ Either way, we have to rupture something in order to build it back better. And too often, we all throw up our hands and say “Listen, the leader is terrible, therefore everything is circling the drain.” And we don’t realize that we have that power to change the culture in the spot that we occupy.
And then, our job is to continue the work at hand. That’s number one, and two, not to become that toxic leader and that’s what we have to protect ourselves and our people from.
Hugo Scott-Gall: I think you said that optimism is a strategic tool for leadership. How did you create optimism, and do you think that people are waiting to be given reasons to believe? They just need someone else to nudge them and get them rolling.
Kristen Ziman: Yes, but also there’s some personal responsibility and here’s what I mean by that. It’s almost – it’s the same as morale and the way that I’ve just described culture is that we look to someone else. It’s like morale is in the gutter, therefore you, leader, must fix the morale. So, I think there are a few things, no. 1 is that we have to take personal responsibility for optimizing our performance.
The reason that I use the word “optimism” versus “positivity,” I don’t want people to get confused.
Optimism is a choice. It’s not a feeling. Positivity is very different. If I look at you and I’m your leader and we’re really going through it.
We’re having a crisis of magnitude and I look at my people, I look at you, Hugo, and I say “I get it, this is terrible, but if you just stay positive, everything will be okay.” That’s not very helpful. Not very helpful at all. Just focus on that silver lining.
Optimism on the other hand is a choice, it’s not a feeling, and that choice is a deliberate mindset that we can make tomorrow better than it is today. This is what we’re dealing with right now, and instead of saying “Just choke it down” is let’s be strategic. Let’s look at the opportunities we have.
Let’s call out the threats that we have and let’s call out our weaknesses and our challenges. Let’s work together, back to best idea wins. Throw spears, what problem are we trying to tackle? Is it culture, is it morale, is it a project that is becoming stagnant? Is it a project that needs to pause, pivot, and maybe go in another direction? All of that, no matter what your issue of the day is, people have more control over their environment than they think.
So, I will not allow people to just say the problem is up there, over there, in my CEO’s office or in my boss’s office, because that’s part of the problem. And that is what I call “learned helplessness.” Is that you’re in this jailcell and the door is wide open. You can make your team better around you, notwithstanding having a toxic leader.
Hugo Scott-Gall: And how long do you typically give it for a mindset, a collective mindset to shift? How long do you kind of need to see the start of a change, if not a complete change?
Kristen Ziman: Well, there first has to be a question, and the question is actually just a mirror being held up.
In fact, in my surveys one of the questions that I ask is “How do you believe the culture is in your organization?” And because I’m there, it’s usually pretty poor. And the next question I ask is “How do you believe that you contribute to the culture in your organization, positively or negatively?” And as you can imagine, 100 out of 100 people say “I contribute positively.”
In fact, I could follow around these same people all day and they would be contributing negatively to the culture. They would be complaining instead of problem solving. They would be adding to the whining and the discontent and not doing anything to solve a problem, and that’s where my optimism piece comes in is that you have a choice to change the space you occupy. How long does it take?
That’s a great question, I don’t know. If I had that formula then I would sell that as a magic potion to say “Hey, drink this and it will take you seven days.” It’s a process, but here is where a process begins, it begins with a movement.
And how does a movement start? With one person. With two. It’s the Law of Diffusion of Innovation, if you’ve ever studied that in sales is that if you have your early adopters, or those who are optimistic enough that believe that they can make a difference. And it’s those people who have the courage to stand up and to lead or to question their peers and say “Hey, what are we so mad about, things aren’t that bad.”
Or “Hey, I’ve got a solution to this problem.” It takes one person, and then that leader, that one person is overrated. It is actually the first follower that comes in and that’s where you begin your tipping point. So, how long does it take?
I don’t know, but it takes one person to start changing the mindset and to make a choice that we can fix this organization and then it’s the people that they bring with them. And that is how you start a movement, because once then a tipping point happens, and you’re gonna see results.
Hugo Scott-Gall: How many times have you gone into an organization and said “Oh, my God, this cannot be fixed. This is terrible, this is just beyond.”
Kristen Ziman: Never. Never, and here’s why, if that is the outcome, then the leader – then it’s typically a leadership problem or it’s typically where someone just refuses to implement any of the things. Remember, I don’t come at this as an expert. I don’t come at this from the mountaintop, I come at these problems from the messy middle because I have been there, I have seen it.
And it’s amazing what can happen when you send a person in that has a fresh set of eyes that can see things so clearly. We’re all emotional beings and we tend do make emotional decisions and of course, when human beings are involved, emotion is involved. Relationships are involved. I can come in so very quickly and I can even tell you who the problems are, the cancers in the organization.
And there have been times where I come out of an organization and I say “Your leader is the cancer, and that is going to permeate through the rest of the troops want to – they are craving great leadership, but your leader is going to continue to be divisive for whatever reason.” I can pinpoint who the problems are, and those cancers have to be removed. But an organization is never a lost cause if you make some changes in strategic leadership. And even some systems and processes.
Hugo Scott-Gall: You talked about cancers, have you ever seen them I guess go into remission, or is it just that you’ve got to cut them out? You’ve always got to cut them out?
Kristen Ziman: Actually, no. I have seen them go into remission and that also – I say this phrase all the time, but it’s the courageous conversations. This is where I think we fail in our organizations, is we see who the weakest links are. We recognize who the cancers are in the organizations, and everyone can point them out.
And maybe they’re not at the top of the organization. So, let’s say they’re middle management, but it’s affecting everyone beneath them, is that people are looking to the leaders in the organization to cull out, to remove those cancers, or to diagnose, or to apply whatever remedy we can here. Whatever it may be. And so, I have seen leaders absolutely – or I would say not necessarily leaders, but those in leadership positions that have done a complete about-face because they were provided – and many times with some of the survey results.
And I’ve had to have very hard conversations with leaders to say “This is how people view you, this is how you communicate, and it is poor and here’s the best part is that you don’t have to stay there. There are things that you can do if you are open enough to take the feedback.”
Criticism is a dirty word, we feel as though we’re being attacked. But instead criticism when it comes from a sincere place of caring and wanting someone to get better, what a gift. And I have absolutely seen leaders say “You know, I hear myself, but I did not realize how that was being received by my people, and I’ve got a lot of work to do.” And then we talk about accountability and who’s gonna hold them accountable.
And then, I leave. As a consultant in organizations, or as a keynote speaker, this is what I go around and talk about. I leave the organization hopefully with a plan to execute, action items. I leave the stage, and it’s then that people have to do the work.
It’s the action, because knowledge without follow-up is futile, it’s nothing. So, it’s a lot of leaders I have seen that have said “I’m going to do the work.” I have also seen some leaders that refuse to do the work and there is no choice but their removal.
Hugo Scott-Gall: I guess in your career, the two parts of your career, the common threads to me seem to be leadership and trust. The tremendous trust placed in the police, and I suspect the organizations you come into now to help have got trust issues.
Kristen Ziman: They don’t trust each other, yeah.
Hugo Scott-Gall: With good leadership comes trust.
Kristen Ziman: Without a doubt.
Hugo Scott-Gall: And I think good leadership involves having trust and distributing trust as well, would you agree with that?
Kristen Ziman: Without a doubt, but trust is a complicated animal. Those words are so trite. Let’s just look at law enforcement, that’s my wheelhouse. Without trust of our community, we have no legitimacy.
And we saw that, post George Floyd. Our legitimacy, it was like a light switch, it was flipped off. We have to have trust from our community, or we cannot effectively do the job that we have been called to do.
Leadership is the same way, is that if our people don’t trust us and that trust can be failures of many things. That’s why I said trust is a very complicated word. Maybe I don’t trust your competency. Maybe you’re a great person, but you’re a weak leader and you really don’t understand the job at hand, and you don’t understand what we do.
That’s a failure. I’m not gonna trust you if I don’t think that you’re competent. I’m also not gonna trust you if you are not trustworthy, and that is when we get into virtues. When perhaps you’re an autocratic leader and perhaps you rule through fear and not respect and so there are so many different moving parts to trust.
But what I have learned, not to oversimplify it, is that trust is this thing that we have to practice every single day. And we are going to fail and fall short. If you trust me to make the decisions for our organization, my responsibility is to make those decisions, but then tell you here is why.
Here are the three reasons that this new policy came into effect. Here are the reasons. You begin to trust me. Now, you may not agree with the decision that I’ve made, but you begin to trust and respect.
And I think trust and respect go hand-in-hand. You begin to trust that I’m gonna make a decision not on what’s best for me and my cronies, but what is best for the organization because I’m giving you the reasons behind the do. That’s where a lot of leaders fail and they could gain more trust if they were more transparent and more communicative. I have never met anyone in an organization that says “Gosh, my leader just communicates way too much.”
It is not a thing; it is not a thing. Overcommunication is fine, it’s under communication and that’s where we fail. So, the onus is on all of us to build trust and a lot of it is through communication and transparency.
Hugo Scott-Gall: Well, you’ve been very transparent in this interview. I want to say Kristen, thank you very much for coming on the show, coming on the pod. It’s been a privilege and a treat to have you on, so thank you for taking the time.
Kristen Ziman: Thank you very much, you’re a great podcast host. Maybe it is because we Americans love the British accent, but you’re great.
Hugo Scott-Gall: Well, I think the English accent gets you out of trouble in America. But yeah, thank you very much that was really good, I really enjoyed it.
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