Leadership Styles In Corrections

The first step in developing a culture at any institution, especially corrections, is putting together the right leadership team. There are three basic leadership styles: transactional, transformational, and laissez-faire. The transactional style is where someone leads with a system of rewards or punishment as they will reward when their expectations are met and punish when they are not (Sickels, 2015). There is no attention given to the employee’s personal development or goals (Sickels, 2015). A transformational leader is just the opposite, her or she is hands on and will motivate and assist employees in developing their jobs skills, which will help with job satisfaction and work quality (Sickels, 2015). These types of leaders
Carlson (2015) says that training is the key to use of force issues and all correctional staff members must be trained on threats and correct responses. It all starts with the general Use of Force Continuum for Corrections which is “officer presence, verbal commands, soft techniques, hard techniques, and lethal force” (Carlton, 2015, slide 5). This must start on day one as just an officer presence can de-escalate most problems. The staff member must look and act professional as inmates can easily pick up on weaknesses, which leads us to the next important level of verbal commands. The staff member must be able to articulate to an inmate what and when he wants something done and be able to spot non-compliance. Next comes defensive tactics and the major challenge of being able to stop when physical resistance has ended. In my 18 years in the criminal justice field, restraint has been the hardest challenge to teach as adrenaline, high blood pressure, and other factors make it very hard to just stop. These issues must be hands on, not just taught in a classroom setting, and reiterated several times throughout the year. The old saying ‘practice makes perfect’ is a good statement for use of force
To be truly effective, the correctional administrator and his leadership team must be transformational in style and develop their institution’s culture with training that begins at hire and never stops. If not, complacency, bad choices, law suits, inmate resistance, and possible criminal charges could make an institution a very bad place to work. Money and time must be found for the training and development of the staff. It will be well worth it in the long