| Correctional Compass January 2005 |
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Correctional Compass January 2005 |
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Secretary's Message
How can criminal justice attract the best and brightest professionals to serve in our ranks? How can we establish leaders for the next generation?
A byproduct of war is leaders trained to be decisive in the face of uncertainty. Kevyn DeMartino in his book Bullet Points says war teaches preparedness to fight at a moment's notice, and it teaches leaders how to "smell" victory because certain signs don't often materialize until the battle is over. No training can simulate combat. Only in battle do leaders get immediate, if not horrifying, feedback on their decisions.
| We will be running a series of articles on the Department's leadership initiative in upcoming issues of the Compass, so please pay attention to the information as you think about your own career potential. |
The object of war is to destroy the enemy's willingness to resist. That is certainly important in our business too. Right now we have a lot of correctional officers on duty in Iraq. When these employees come back will they be able to apply the lessons they learned in their jobs within the organization?
Serving in the military isn't the only way to develop leadership. But, we know that the military teaches effective postmortems: figuring out what went wrong without pointing fingers of blame.
According to USAToday, January 18 ("Vanishing Breed, CEO's Seasoned by Military Compat") even among male veterans in corporate suites there is debate over whether it was combat or military training that gave them a leadership edge. The military teaches the responsibility of serving, not just fulfilling your own needs, says Louis Giuliano, the 58-year-old just-retired chairman of ITT Industries and an Army first lieutenant in Vietnam.
Those with ambitions in the military know they need "the sounds of guns" on their résumé to get promoted. But, suppose you are a correctional officer working in one of our prisons and you decide you would like to become warden one day. How do you go about it? Perhaps you are a probation officer, and would like to rise to the highest levels of management, how do you plan your career? Suppose you are working in a clerical job and would like to transition into a security track position, how do you do it?
To answer those questions, The Florida Department of Corrections is undertaking an important new effort in leadership development. The working title is the Florida Correctional Leadership and Management Academy.
The Department of Corrections is an agency in which staff can find many training and promotional opportunities. Over the decades many employees have risen through the ranks of the department, some beginning as correctional officers, others serve as classification officers or educational specialists who eventually rose into senior leadership roles. For example, Deputy Secretary C. George Denman started his career as a teacher. He is a strong advocate for leadership development. "Consciously grooming leaders is fundamental to our organizations ability to compete for the best and brightest and to retain them in our profession," Denman said. "We are dedicated to making the strategies for rising through the ranks understandable to all employees so that the department will benefit from the ambitions of those who desire to serve, " he added.
The best state correctional system requires an exceptional and experienced executive leadership team as well as a well-trained experienced and diverse work force that includes a wide variety of professionals and support staff. We believe our development of a leadership academy will help keep Florida a pacesetter in corrections and criminal justice.
Secretary Crosby
| Correctional Compass January 2005 |