Leadership Effectiveness: What It Takes to Lead in Criminal Justice
Updated October 13, 2026
Leadership effectiveness in policing is closely associated with emotional intelligence. A 2014 study of 107 South African Police Service commanding officers by Yvette Ramchunder and Nico Martins found a positive correlation between the two. Servant and transformational leadership both draw on that same foundation, and many effective commanders use elements of each depending on the situation.
If you’re running a shift, a unit, or an entire department right now, you already know the pressure your people carry. Chronic stress and burnout are common strains in law enforcement work. Emotional intelligence won’t resolve a staffing shortage or an unsafe caseload, but how you lead shapes whether your team handles that pressure well or badly.
What Is Emotional Intelligence, and How Does It Relate to Leadership Effectiveness?
Researcher David Sterrett’s 2000 analysis defined emotional intelligence as the set of personal-management and social skills that let someone succeed at work and in life generally. Psychologist Daniel Goleman’s 2005 framework broke that down into four domains: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. For a supervisor, those aren’t abstract traits. They show up every time you decide whether to react to a subordinate’s attitude or manage your own first.
Psychologists John Mayer and Peter Salovey’s four-branch model, developed in 1997, breaks emotional intelligence down into four separate abilities:
- Perceiving emotion: catching what you and the people around you are feeling in real time, especially once a call or a confrontation starts to escalate.
- Reasoning with emotion: holding your own reaction long enough to decide instead of reacting.
- Understanding emotion: reading why a subordinate, a victim, or a suspect is behaving the way they are.
- Managing emotion: steering the interaction toward a better outcome instead of just surviving it.
A 2014 study of 107 South African Police Service commanding officers by Ramchunder and Martins found a positive correlation between emotional intelligence and leadership effectiveness. The study didn’t test EI against rank, tenure, or technical skill as competing predictors, so it shows that EI is part of the picture at the command level, not that it outweighs those other factors.
Servant Leadership and Transformational Leadership: Two Approaches Worth Understanding
Servant Leadership treats the leader as a resource for the people under them: developing their skills, prioritizing their growth over the leader’s own interests, and building toward a culture that holds up over the long term. Robert K. Greenleaf introduced the idea in a 1970 essay, “The Servant as Leader,” later expanding it into a 1977 book. He described the servant-leader as someone who leads from a motivation to serve first, not from rank or title.
Transformational leadership works differently. A 2004 study by Smith and colleagues described it as leading toward a shared vision, giving people the resources and support to get there themselves. Some leadership researchers suggest this approach fits well during periods of fast change, like a reform effort or a staffing crisis, though that’s an interpretation rather than something the research directly measured.
Leadership styles don’t prescribe one universal response to a subordinate’s mistake. Servant leadership’s emphasis on developing people suggests treating an error as a chance to learn, while transformational leadership’s focus on a shared goal can mean tolerating some mistakes in pursuit of a bigger outcome. How a given leader actually responds depends on the situation and the person, not just the style label.
A 2022 analysis by Meuser and Smallfield explored how servant leadership and transformational leadership relate to ethical behavior in organizations. The research didn’t focus specifically on criminal justice command structures, but the broader point that leadership style and emotional intelligence together shape the ethical tone a team follows is consistent with what supervisors see in practice.
Praise: A Low-Cost Leadership Tool Worth Using
A 2006 analysis by Wall examined how recognition functions in leadership and found that genuine, specific praise can meaningfully support morale and performance. It costs nothing but attention, and it’s one of the more practical ways to invest in a team under strain.
- Catch it in real time: notice when someone does something worth recognizing, or just ask them directly what they’re proud of this week.
- Be specific: name the exact thing they did and who it helped. Generic praise like “great job” reads as empty and gets ignored.
- Skip the vague version: “Great to have you on the team” tells someone nothing about what they actually did right.
- Separate it from corrective feedback when you can: pairing praise with a correction in the same breath can undercut the praise, so delivering them separately usually lands better.
A real exchange sounds closer to this: “Kevin, I noticed how you talked that caller down on the domestic last night. That de-escalation helped resolve the call without force. That’s exactly the kind of judgment I want on my shift.” Specific, tied to an outcome, and said where the officer can hear it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is leadership effectiveness?
Leadership effectiveness is how well a leader’s actions translate into real outcomes for the people and the organization they’re responsible for, from team retention and morale to how a unit performs under pressure. Research connects it to several factors, including emotional intelligence and self-efficacy, though no single trait fully explains it.
What is emotional intelligence in leadership?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize your own emotional state and the emotional states of the people around you, then manage both well enough to communicate clearly and resolve conflict. Several frameworks describe it, including Daniel Goleman’s four-domain model and Mayer and Salovey’s four-branch model.
What’s the difference between servant leadership and transformational leadership?
Servant leadership puts the follower’s growth and needs first. Transformational leadership focuses on rallying people around a shared vision. Both have been studied as approaches that can support effective leadership, including in policing, and many leaders draw on elements of both rather than choosing one exclusively.
How do I start building emotional intelligence as a leader?
There’s no single required path, but tools like 360-degree feedback, self-reflective journaling, or a structured self-assessment of how you read other people’s emotions can all help surface blind spots you might not catch on your own, including a tendency to judge your own actions more favorably than an outside observer would.
Key Takeaways
- Emotional intelligence is linked to leadership effectiveness – a 2014 study of South African Police Service commanding officers found a positive correlation, though EI is one factor among several, not a replacement for rank, tenure, or technical skill.
- Servant and transformational leadership can be complementary – each brings something different, and many leaders draw on both depending on the situation.
- Specific, genuine praise supports morale – naming the exact action and its impact lands better than generic praise.
- Self-awareness improves with outside input – tools like 360-degree feedback and structured self-assessment can help surface blind spots in how you lead.
About the Author:
By: Janina Cich, MA
College of Human Services & Behavioral Science
Department of Criminal Justice, Chair
Professor of Criminal Justice, Forensic Behavioral Health &
Trauma, Resilience Self-Care Programs
Want to go deeper on one of these styles? Our full breakdown of servant leadership walks through what it looks like day to day, not just in theory.
Read: Serve First, Lead Second: Attributes of a Servant Leader