The CopDoc Podcast: Aiming for Excellence in Leadership

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 9 - Episode 168
What does it take to go from a dirt road in Northeast Texas to leading one of the most progressive police departments in the country?
In this episode of The CopDoc Podcast, Dr. Steve Morreale sits down with Dr. Lance Arnold, Chief of Police in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Lance calls his journey "dirt road to doctorate," and that phrase captures something essential about who he is: a leader who never lost sight of where he came from, even as his thinking about leadership grew more sophisticated, more deliberate, and more people-centered with every passing year.
Lance spent 20 years at the Norman, Oklahoma Police Department before taking his first chief's job in Weatherford, Texas, and then moving to Broken Arrow. Along the way, he earned an Ed.D. in organizational leadership and built systems for developing leaders from the inside out. He arrived at a deceptively simple conviction: the job of a leader is to create conditions for people to flourish. Not just survive. Not just get to retirement unbroken. Flourish.
This conversation is one of the most substantive explorations of police leadership development you will find anywhere. Lance and Steve dig into why leadership training rarely sticks when the culture does not change around it, why most supervisors manage fires instead of preventing them, and why "we tried that in 1995, and it didn't work" may be the most dangerous sentence in policing. Lance is direct about his own early failures, honest about what it took to grow, and clear-eyed about the gap between what most agencies say they value and what they actually build systems to support.
If you are a leader at any level who has ever felt like you were swimming against the tide, this one is for you.
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Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at [email protected]

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 9 - Episode 167
What does it take to walk into four different agencies, each with its own culture and expectations, and lead effectively in all of them? Gina Hawkins has done exactly that — from the Atlanta Police Department where she came of age as a young officer, to Sandy Springs, Clayton County, Fayetteville, North Carolina, and now Cobb County's Sheriff's Office. Along the way she has learned that culture doesn't start inside the building. It starts with the community that either demands excellence or tolerates mediocrity.
In this conversation, Gina shares the hard lessons she picked up at each stop — managing stress that nearly broke her health, losing custody of her daughter the weekend the moving truck arrived as she headed to take command in Fayetteville, and still walking into that organization and pouring herself into the work. She talks about what it means to develop leaders, why women belong in policing at every level, and why the absence of universal standards for 18,000 law enforcement agencies is one of the most pressing problems in the profession.
This episode is candid, personal, and practical. Gina Hawkins doesn't give you theory — she gives you earned wisdom.
KEY TOPICS DISCUSSED:
How culture is shaped by the community before it is ever shaped by the chief
Leading through personal crisis while commanding a new organization
What it's like to be the outsider hired over the heads of internal candidates
The importance of women in policing and Cobb County's annual Women's Summit
Her experience on the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and why the lack of universal standards remains a critical gap
The role of transparency, accountability, and body cameras in rebuilding public trust
What retirement looks like when you can't stop serving
Hey there! Send us a message. Who else should we be talking to? What topics are important? Use FanMail to connect! Let us know!
Contact us: [email protected] 

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at [email protected]

Season 9 - Episode 166 - The CopDoc Podcast
Hey there! Send us a message. Who else should we be talking to? What topics are important? Use FanMail to connect! Let us know!
Contact us: [email protected] 

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at [email protected]

Season 9 - Episode 166 - The CopDoc Podcast
What does it take to lead a police department through tragedy, transformation, and tremendous change? Chief Jeremy Story of the Las Cruces Police Department in New Mexico knows firsthand.
A Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq, Jeremy joined policing in 2007 after choosing family over a military career. He rose through the ranks touching nearly every division—SWAT commander, K-9 handler, gang unit sergeant, training director, and deputy chief—before becoming chief at a younger age than he expected.
In this powerful conversation, Chief Story talks about:
Leadership That Teaches: How he runs a command staff book club (yes, really) and why teaching is a critical part of being a chief
The Toughest Year: Losing the department's first officer in the line of duty in 96 years, then losing their first officer to suicide two months later—and what they learned about officer wellness
Evidence-Based Policing: Implementing stratified policing to make proactive work as normal as answering 911 calls
Training Investment: Why he sent a patrol officer to a three-week leadership course and how the department nearly doubled the state's required academy hours
Telling the Story: Speaking to hostile crowds, correcting false narratives, and why chiefs must educate the public
Humility & Vulnerability: Sharing his biggest mistake with academy recruits and why admitting failures builds trust
Preparing the Next Generation: How Las Cruces PD rotates officers through specialized units for a month to prepare them for promotion
Civilianization Done Right: Using civilians for everything that doesn't require a badge—and why their legal advisor and former news anchor PIO are game-changers
Chief Story is direct, thoughtful, and unafraid to challenge the status quo. He's a thought leader who believes the majority is rational—if you give them the right information. He's building something special in the New Mexico desert.
Whether you're a new supervisor, a seasoned chief, or someone considering a career in law enforcement, this episode offers invaluable lessons on leadership, resilience, and what it really takes to be a police chief in 2026.
Hey there! Send us a message. Who else should we be talking to? What topics are important? Use FanMail to connect! Let us know!
Contact us: [email protected] 

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at [email protected]

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 9 - Episode 165
There's a consistent problem in American law enforcement that rarely makes headlines but shapes everything: what we do with people when they get promoted to lieutenant. Traditionally, they get a rank, a schedule, sometimes a handshake, and they're told to run the night shift. Nobody teaches them they've fundamentally changed jobs. They still think like a sergeant, which makes sense. They were excellent sergeants. So they become, as researcher Steve Morreale puts it, "a super-sergeant, not a lieutenant."
Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester identifies this gap as one of the most important leverage points for changing police culture. It's not the strategy. It's not the programs. It's the person standing between upper management and line-level officers. That's where culture actually shifts or stalls.
When Lester got promoted to lieutenant, the model was basic: "Congratulations. You're going to graveyard. You've got a brand new set of patrol teams. Nobody has more than three or four years experience. Here are the keys to the city. Try not to break it." She had one lifeline: she could call the previous lieutenant for emergency numbers if something went sideways. That was the leadership development program.
Now as chief, Lester has completely reimagined lieutenant development. She has roughly twenty lieutenants at the Sacramento Police Department. She doesn't just develop captains and deputy chiefs. She spends significant time with lieutenants because they talk to sergeants every single day, and sergeants have the most influence over how officers behave.
Here's what she does differently: lieutenants ride with her for a week at a time. They go to every event. They attend city council meetings, press conferences, community meetings. They see behind the curtain of what executive leadership actually manages. They understand why decisions get made the way they do. They become ambassadors who can explain departmental direction to their sergeants and officers.
The first year, people wondered if this transparency was authentic. Four years in, lieutenants bring real problems to leadership expecting real solutions. They've seen that the chief actually listens and acts. That changes everything about how they lead underneath them.
Lester is also clear that this isn't about being soft. When people are elevated to captain, she looks for who will be a future chief. She's assessing leadership capacity, not popularity. The distinction matters. She's developing people who understand the department's direction, can navigate difficult situations, and model professional behavior. Some of that comes from state-required training. More of it comes from internal programs built by leaders who are passionate about seeing people succeed in this profession.
The lieutenant development gap exists in most departments. It creates a vacuum where middle managers either become loyal implementers of whatever came before, or they try to be mini-chiefs without the authority or context. Lester solved it by making lieutenants visible partners in leadership. They see the actual job. They understand the constraints. They build relationships with senior leaders. And they take that back to their sergeants and officers. That's how culture changes, not through mandates from above, but through lieutenants who genuinely understand the "why" and can articulate it to pe
Hey there! Send us a message. Who else should we be talking to? What topics are important? Use FanMail to connect! Let us know!
Contact us: [email protected] 

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at [email protected]