There were many opportunities within the Gonzaga Organizational Leadership graduate curriculum to apply the academic learning to real-life reflections. We were asked to digest the material through personal learning and make it our own. Included in this page are the artifacts of the program that helped me grow the most and discover leadership applications presented in our courses.
Servant Leadership and Policing at UIPD
In 2015, my organization moved towards a servant leadership management style when it promoted servant leaders in-training to higher level management positions. I wrote this presentation for the Servant Leadership course to help guide the furtherance of the philosophy within the department.
Servant Leadership and Policing at UIPD
CPTED Community Engagement Tool
In order to see-and-see again, as well as improve listening, I took the Leadership and Imagination project and applied a creative twist to the usual Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design questionnaire that we complete with units. The goal was to create a tool that would require managers of a space to listen to their people. It also was designed to help us better serve our clients in understanding their fears and concerns.
To Serve and Respect – understanding whom we serve
In Leadership and Diversity, I was challenged to form a deeper understanding of my personal and professional impact on crime control – not from a standpoint of lowering crime rates – but one where I impact those who are not involved in the criminal acts. In policing, we often use the same type of tool to deal with a myriad of issues. This project helped me better understand that other tools are available to help those whom we help or hurt the most. It also helped me understand the imperative need to examine programmatic approaches that negatively affect entire groups of people and the individuals within those groups.
Communications Audit
The audit for Leadership and Communication helped me to understand communication as a leadership tool. It also provided insight into how people work together and communicate through an organization. The audit provided me with information on how to structure interviews and surveys. In my original audit, I left in the data that survey participants provided. However, to honor their wishes and that of the original survey instructions, I only left in the aggregate data in the appendix.
Blog entries – and a little fiddling – in Ireland
We learned the value of story-telling as a communication tool for peace- building while we were in the first Gonzaga in Derry course. This blog remains a touchstone for me as I think about rifts between the police and the community. The course was one of the best experiences of my life. It was enlightening and fun. I even got to play my fiddle in a couple of pubs, one of them being a pub called “The Rocking Chair.”
Serving For Police 