Prudence is one of the four cardinal virtues and one of the 30 Magnus Virtues that reflects acting cautiously and wisely in administering the authority of your office while making morally correct decisions, even under pressure. Prudence impacts performance.
In our profession we cannot afford to become arrogant about what we think we know. As leaders we need to be open minded. We cannot be prudent if we ignore facts and data or make decisions absent evidence. Our decisions impact our employees, our community and our profession. Every time an officer acts without prudence it moves our organizations into potential liabilities that cost our communities thousands, even millions of dollars and more importantly community trust.
As leaders our failure to act prudently costs even more. We alienate our most precious assets, our people, the very people we swore an oath to protect. Whether serving our employees or community our failure to act prudently costs us in trust, productivity and morale.
Consider some past practices that we believed were important:
- Women did not get an opportunity to serve in law enforcement because it was assumed, absent evidence that they couldn’t handle the job.
- Men had to be at least five foot ten, because it was assumed that a show of force was the key to effective law enforcement.
- The community had nothing valuable to add to law enforcement best practices, because we assumed that we were the experts and no other opinions, but ours mattered.
We now know that women are great officers, that men do not need brute strength to be successful officers and that our communities have insights about the jobs we do that often we do not see.
Implicit bias means that we do not know, what we do not know. We develop opinions and perspectives that may be skewed and make decisions absent fully grasping the knowledge we need to be prudent. What else do we think we know, that we really don’t know?
As a prudent leader we need
- to learn to turn down the stress and turn up our virtues
- To focus on clear moral principles, not an end justifies the means mentality
- To base our decision on clear evidence, not “the way we have always done it”
Do not let stress, implicit bias or expedience shape your decision making, learn to build your ability to be prudent by investing in yourself and building good quality character.
Good leaders listen. When we listen, individually or corporately we add value to people, we gro ourselves and we improve our performance.