Thanks, I can see only what I posted above, no mention of who exactly the 25 people are, and no previews of what they have written. Are you able to see the entire chapter about GJ? Is it too long to repost it here so I can see? Not sure why I am seeing it differently, but I suspect due to country browser? Ugh.
I can see the whole chapter. I made an abridgement:
One of the qualities that I find isn't given enough importance in leadership is empathy. . . . By empathy, I mean everyone in the team is equally important. . . .
People will form their own opinion as to whether I display empathy. I've got a reputation for being short-tempered and fairly passionate in the way I do things. . . .
On particularly tough investigations, where we're not making much progress, chasing up all sorts of leads and having no joy, I've had what I call, for want of a better term, 'Autonomy Week'. I've thrown it open to a strike force of about fifteen people and said, 'Okay, whoever's got the craziest idea for this week, I want you to follow that idea. I don't care how stupid it is. If you've just got a hunch on something, follow that up'. It gives ownership to the people in the investigation because you don't want a team full of clones of yourself.
I think I could be described as a risk-taker in my professional life, and I like to work with a person who's more of a deep thinker, who will take a step back. I say this jokingly, but when I say, 'Stuff it, let's go lock this person up', the quiet thinker will say, 'But boss, we haven't got any evidence', and I'll say, 'Okay that's a good point'.
So to balance out my teams, I look for people who are prepared to kick the doors in . . . but I also need the more cautious approach, the analytical type of mind. I try to get a team that combines all those different characteristics, and when you do get a team like that, you'll find it functions very well, it balances out. It's that Yin-Yang thing.
There is definitely a need to question yourself. Homicide investigations . . . are different from all other types of investigations in the high level of scrutiny that's attached to them. Regardless of what occurs, whether we charge someone or not, it will be scrutinised by a court--it could be a coronial inquest or the Supreme Court . . . so you've got to be able to justify your decisions.
. . . With the investigation I've got at the moment, there are 15,000 pieces of information. Now, for me to say that I've got my head around all those pieces of information is ludicrous, but I'm making decisions based on what's contained in that information, so I rely heavily on my team to brief me and keep me informed. If I make a decision, I will check with my team that everyone's comfortable with it. Sometimes they're not. Just because they're not comfortable with it doesn't mean I won't go through with it, but it will make me reconsider.
I'll give you a couple of fatal flaws in leaders: if they aren't prepared to change their mind, and if they won't take responsibility when things go wrong. . . .
. . . Very early in my career, when they were rotating a lot of people out of Homicide, it was part of an anti-corruption program not to let someone settle there too long. I remember saying to a senior officer who was aspiring to climb up the organisational ladder, 'You've got your dreams and aspirations, and I've got my dreams and aspirations'. And he said, 'Well what are yours?' I said, 'I would like to be the person people look for if their loved one was murdered. That's what I aspire to.' I'm not aspiring to be the commissioner of police, but I want to be the best homicide detective and that's my dream. . . .
. . . As a leader, I've got to recognize that in people: that it does wear people down, and I've got to take the pressure off sometimes. The perception of me is that I'm very serious and an aggressive type of person. I am, and when the job's on I can be like that, but I also give people a lot of autonomy, a lot of trust. I sign a lot of reports where I just take it on face value that everything's in there because I know the person, I put trust in them, and nine times out of ten that's fine.
I say to a lot of people, 'I don't mind if you make a mistake. Everyone makes a mistake. I've made ten so far today and it's only 10 o'clock in the morning. But I don't accept mistakes out of laziness. If you show you're trying, I'll support you 100 per cent. But if you've made a mistake out of laziness, you haven't got my support because of the work we're in. The New South Wales Police is a big organisation; you don't have to be working in Homicide'.
. . . If you're going to be in Homicide, you're going to miss some family functions, you're going to miss some Christmases, you're going to be up for forty-eight hours, and you might not be able to attend your game of sport, depending on what happens. That's okay because the trade-off is that you're doing something you love, something that's worthwhile. I push that with my team.
I watch closely the way people react to the grief that surrounds a homicide. There is nothing wrong or weak about a homicide detective coming up and giving someone a cuddle who's just suffered the biggest trauma in their life, who's lost a loved one. That's empathy and you've got to have that. And to help my team with that side of things, I show them how to do it. I consider myself quite tough, but I'm happy to reveal the emotional side--I think that catches people off-guard. From a leadership point of view, I think it's important to show that, 'Yeah, I care about this, this is really upsetting', and, 'This is sad, and we've got to catch this person'. It helps motivate the team.
Having said that, I've seen some people who are probably too empathetic. . . . Quite often there are people close to a victim and they are the suspects. And we have to go hard at them. And when we do go hard at them, some people go, 'Oh, I really don't feel comfortable about that'. . . .
I remind my team sometimes, 'Okay, it's good to care, but the one thing that the friends and family want is for us to find out who's done the crime, so let's keep focussed on that. . . .'
I'm mindful of my role now as a commissioned officer, an inspector. We get on the drink at certain times, but I also distance myself a little bit from it because I think the team needs to galvanise at the sergeant and the constable level. I'm sure that everything they say is not favourable about me--I'll make a hard decision--but I don't take offence that they might be bitching about me. And I have an open-door policy in that there's no rank if you want to speak to me. . . .
. . . With the William Tyrrell investigation, I've spoken to the parents on a weekly or fortnightly basis. They've put their trust in me to find out what happened to William, so that's driven me. Sometimes I'll bring the victim's family in to meet the strike force, and that's for a reason. I ask the parents, 'Could you come along? This is a tough investigation. I want my investigators to see what we're actually working towards'. I do it quite often, and a picture of the victim is always close by in a strike force so we don't lose focus.
The Change Makers
