Explore leadership in law enforcement with Mike Alexander – from family fruit-picking to frontline policing. Discover his lessons in trust-building and team management. Dive into dismantling toxic cultures, emphasizing the role of first-line supervisors, embracing diversity, and overcoming groupthink. Join us for a journey from challenging leadership to holiday cheer!
email us at- bluegrit@tmpa.org
Explore leadership in law enforcement with Mike Alexander – from family fruit-picking to frontline policing. Discover his lessons in trust-building and team management. Dive into dismantling toxic cultures, emphasizing the role of first-line supervisors, embracing diversity, and overcoming groupthink. Join us for a journey from challenging leadership to holiday cheer!
email us at- bluegrit@tmpa.org
The most valuable commodity within the organization are people. That ship would not sail without healthy individuals, but they got to be able to trust a person's spirit.
Speaker 2:Welcome back viewers, watchers, listeners. Bluegrip Podcast. Thank you for tuning in. I'm your host, tyler Owen and Clint McNeil.
Speaker 3:What's going on? Not a lot of getting ready for Christmas. Have all my shopping done, I think?
Speaker 2:How about you? You know I've always been kind of a procrastinator. I never I wait till like the last day on that guy. But my wife is not one to kind of have a list ready. And you know it is frustrating because I admitted, I admit this I did not get her a present one year and it was because she said I don't need anything, I've got you in hint, and so the day of I didn't have anything under the tree. For my wife it's always like well, you know you followed orders.
Speaker 2:You didn't want anything and, my God, what a mistake that was. So for you listeners, watchers, viewers, lawyers. Recommendation for your spouse highly, highly, highly recommend you do not listen to them when they need a Christmas gift. You go out there and pull the trigger no punting to it and go ahead and get that gift, because they will greatly, greatly appreciate it.
Speaker 2:So I don't want anything means, I would like something 100% Okay, and we're supposed to know that as men or spouses, you know that they're they're telling us a fib. So and our kids? I mean? You know, in nowadays, we as parents give them everything anyway for the most part, and so it's just. I don't like Christmas, I like the season I like the for the. You know what it stands for. I don't like the gift exchange and so forth.
Speaker 3:And these are things we don't know as men. That's why I remember Janet now saying that women are from Mars and Tyler from Uranus.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, thank you for that punchline. Thank you for that.
Speaker 3:Enter our guests. Man, we've got often the theme on the show is leadership and there's nothing more important to law enforcement and law enforcement is kind of a paramilitary profession, yeah, and if you have a failure in the military, it trickles down and you have lots of issues and that's a parallel that we see in law enforcement today and we have a guy on that as an expert and an instructor in leadership, and I'm more proud to call him a friend, mike Alexander.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know, I don't know about the expert thing, but I'm definitely glad to be here with you. Yeah, welcome to Blue Grit, appreciate you coming on, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 3:But we'd like to kick them off with who in the heck's Mike, tell us about? Where were you born and kind of growing up, and who is Mike?
Speaker 1:I grew up in a very small town in Florida. I was a farmer for the most part. Really, yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, what part of Florida Central? It's a little town called Fort Meade Fort Meade, florida but it was a unique experience as a child. We traveled during the summer months picking various fruit and vegetables for living, traveling in Florida or in the North. No, I went to seven states per year. Oh, wow. Yeah, we started in Florida picking oranges and when the orange season was over, we went to Georgia and picked peaches. And then we left Georgia and went to South Carolina to do the very same thing, but we included apples there and cherries. And then we went to North Carolina for apples, plums and things of that nature, and then we went to Virginia, west Virginia, new York, and then we went back to Florida. So I did that until I was 17 years of age, and then I how long ago did you start it.
Speaker 1:I was from the time I can walk and talk. That's what I did for the no kidding. Yeah, that's where your work ethic comes from. Yeah, my dad owned a company called the Alexander Packing Company, so, and that's what we did. He had about 300 employees that traveled with us. So we migrated from state to state.
Speaker 1:So I went to probably three, four schools per year and because of Not because of IQ, I got an opportunity here in Austin at St Louis University. They had a program over there. Still today they have that program called CAMP. Camp is an acronym for College Assistance, migrant Program and they gave you a one-year scholarship and that scholarship is designed to get you through that first year, because research says if you can get through the first year of college, the possibility exists, you can make it through the rest. And they gave us a mentor to get me through that first year. And then scholarships and things of that nature got me through the rest of my years at St Louis and yeah, so that's kind of how I grew up and how I ended up in Austin, texas, with small town relatively speaking. When I got here, 300,000 or so and 1970. I'm dating myself 79 is when I got here to go to school over there.
Speaker 2:What was your?
Speaker 1:degree in Criminal Justice. I started out in business but I did not want to be in college and I partied more than anything else. In fact I ended up on academic probation because I partied so much and got my dad's attention and he said, hey, you better get it together. So I had to go over to ACC, where I'm now a college professor over there, but I had to go there to get my GPA up to come back and graduate from St Louis.
Speaker 3:So, when you transitioned from the business plan degree plan, what made you transition over?
Speaker 1:to Criminal Justice. Well, you know college campus I was looking for I didn't know what I wanted to do, to be quite frank, and I met some college students that was in Criminal Justice. So I said, you know, I take a class as an elective. So I did, and I just called the bug. My dad always had a very good relationship with police officers, so that just all came back to me when I ended up in that classroom and I said, wow, this is awesome. And so that was it, and I started in that degree.
Speaker 2:My roommate, was a Criminal.
Speaker 1:Justice degree Major yeah, major, thank you. And he started out at Travis County Sheriff's Office, so I ended up getting a job over there as well. So that's why I started in the jail for about a year and a half or so working in the jail, and then they created this transportation division where we transported prisoners back and forth to TDC. So I did that for two and a half years or so and then I applied for APD.
Speaker 3:So when you got hired on the Travis County, originally as a jailer or as a sworn deputy I was a sworn deputy but worked in the jail you went through Travis. County's Academy.
Speaker 1:Didn't have to go through an Academy at all. Yeah, I was back in the day. I was old, I mean the old days. Don Bailey was the sheriff. I had a college degree. He brought me into his office, raised my right hand, swore me in. I was a cop. Wow, yeah, because you had the degree. Because I had the degree, no Academy whatsoever. I didn't go to an Academy until I got the APD, but I did not have to take the T-Cole exam when I graduated from the Academy there. So I have no idea what that T-Cole exam was like. Plus, I had a degree when I went in.
Speaker 3:We talk on the show a lot about being a jailer is a good foundation, absolutely. You have to learn to get along with people. You had a book and a drum, absolutely. But if you traveled around basically your whole life, having to meet new people, go to change schools all the time, you probably had to develop some communication skills pretty early on.
Speaker 1:I did, I did. I found myself in some pretty difficult situations and, yeah, I just had to learn how to talk and communicate and get along with people, to talk my way out of situations. From the time I could remember and I tell you the jail experience. I recommend that for every person who's considering law enforcement because of the very things that you guys just said. It gives you the opportunity to really hone your skills of communication and that EQ more so than the IQ, building relationships are probably one of the most is the foundation. It's actually the conduit for influence is that relationship?
Speaker 2:Do you think going to college was more valuable? Which was more valuable in your opinion or in your career working in the jail, setting or having that college degree?
Speaker 1:The jail setting. However, I don't. I extremely value the college experience, but all the college did for me was give me the theory or the theoretical experience, and the jail itself gave me the practical application of the theory, and so I great way to put it yeah, great way to put it.
Speaker 2:We talked about that a lot is the departments, that kind of constrict or restrict yourself from having the applicant pool, from just having solely college applicants instead of having the work history. But this is what you're talking about and so I kind of want to get your perspective on the college degree.
Speaker 1:I don't devalue it by any means, but you can't beat the practical experience, life experience. I get the college degree and the IQ and the ability to critically think your way through things, but you also need to be able to understand people and having life experience give you that people experience.
Speaker 3:So working the jail, they develop a transportation division and so you move over. I guess like transport going, picking up warrants from different counties or taking the hospital.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're doing all of that, all of it. We're picking up warrants. Mainly, our main job was transporting prisoners to and from court to doctors appointments throughout the city, and then every Friday we did what they call a chain run. So we we took 20, 30, 40, 50 to TTC, until TZ's are coming to Austin to take them themselves. Well, they all bluebirds.
Speaker 2:We yours up.
Speaker 1:That was 1981 is when I saw it there.
Speaker 3:And then we're different transport.
Speaker 1:I went back to the jail for a while and then I went over to the 1984. Kind of lateral program. No, no, I had to apply, get an academy, go through there Six months Police Academy before graduating becoming a cop in.
Speaker 2:South.
Speaker 1:Southwest. Austin, how big was AP that it was around 750 officers when I get back down to that day. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Wow, it worked. Southwest yeah, it was like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was the time, it was David's sector, which is out by Barton Creek Mall. That is where I work.
Speaker 3:Nice.
Speaker 1:Academy. Then I got to your program. Yes, I guess 22 weeks I don't recall 16, 22 weeks of FTO program before I graduated from the FTO program and got my own police vehicle and I was back then. It was what we call David, for it was my, my call number explain kind of the mentality of kind of Austin and we see Austin now in Clinton and John went to a class
Speaker 1:in California in the. A reference they made to Austin was that these California conference class and Clinton talked about it better than I can, but they talked about just how difficult the challenges that Austin PD is going through right now and people in California were looking at a video showing all this Austin rhetoric and it was embarrassing for Clinton to go this way. My God, my own state.
Speaker 2:We're talking about the difficulties and challenges of what's going on in Austin. You being there in the 80s, can I explain the? You know? I heard that time and time in Austin was a small city.
Speaker 1:It was 1,300,000, a fairly large city, but the feeling of the small town, vibe on the big city scale kind of going to detail, of you being a street cop and the community policing aspect.
Speaker 1:It's always been around with Austin police. It's always been there. Talk about the small town field Austin had at that point in time. Well, that was one of the things I enjoyed about working with Austin. But at the same time I will say I took my experience with Austin for granted. I didn't know what I didn't know until I left and realized how well prepared Austin prepared me to go out and do other things in other cities. But we did have a very cohesive small town feel and community policing was really a mantra.
Speaker 1:We knew the community fairly well and the community knew us, and so, in fact, I even worked in a unit we call district representatives I don't know if they have those guys anymore, but we all had our own beat and we were responsible for the crime in that community and we leveraged the resources both internal and external to fight crime, because I think everyone knows that crime isn't a police problem. It's a community problem and the police are designed to help community address their issues.
Speaker 2:You look at the. Pm principles and where he says that the police are the public and the public are the police.
Speaker 1:The only difference between the two is that the police are paid to give 24 hour service to us incumbent upon every citizen. So it is all our responsibility, and that's really how Austin embraced it for many years, until what we have now.
Speaker 3:And Austin has always kind of been music oriented, a little artsy oriented, but it hasn't always been nutty off the rails. It's always kind of been like a marathon in a bar for kind of music and artsy, but it just wasn't crazy.
Speaker 1:It was a great place to be. It was almost a secret but it was such good quality of life. When you think about and compare to the San Antonio's, the Houston's and the Dallas In one of the ways I compare the three to four cities is the homicide rate. Back in the 80s and the 90s we were running 20, maybe 30 homicides per year. They're having that now in two or three months and some of the things that I see today.
Speaker 1:I just don't believe that this is the same Austin that I grew up in. I love him. Yeah, I loved him, and it is painful to actually watch Austin exploring and involved in so many different ways what we see happening before before we're going on, and those of us who grew up in this city is absolutely unbelievable to watch and experience.
Speaker 3:So how many people get out?
Speaker 1:and became the line I did 20, almost 26 years with Austin before I left Austin and I went over to office of inspector general, which is the three of those as you know, TDC J is the most popular one and then you have juvenile justice and then you have health and human services.
Speaker 1:I went to health and human services. When I got there we did not have an official law enforcement branch, but we had a lot of police officers like myself were either retired, in somewhere in transition, and so I was retired and that was really going to be my retirement job. And six months into that job, something happened down in Corpus Christi where the employees, for entertainment purposes, they they will pull people with mental, physical disabilities out of their rooms middle of the night, put them in a circle, make them fight each other, and they recorded it for for their own entertainment. They one of them lost their phone at a Walmart and whoever found it turned it into the police because of what they saw on the phone and because the governor appoints the inspector general, it made his way to Austin.
Speaker 1:When the governor saw it, he immediately called an executive session and that Senate bill six 43 was created. When Senate bill six 43 was created, it gave us OIG internal affairs and unbudgeted mandate to create a law enforcement branch within our system. So I was promoted to captain and another guy was promoted to captain and we were given the the job of building a police department from scratch within that system of what we we did. And then shortly thereafter I was promoted to major and so I spent another year and a half there as the major and I had 30 officers or so strategically planning throughout the state of Texas and we were dealing mainly with abuse, neglect, exploitation or anything that had an HHSC nexus, that were criminal in nature was under my umbrella. We handed those things and then I get a call from a search firm to go out to East Texas, to Palestine, to be the chief of police, and that's where I went.
Speaker 1:Next, what year did you leave OIG? I left there in 13, 14, I believe 13, 14, something like that, and ended up in Palestine. I think it was 11, late 13, ended up in Palestine early 14.
Speaker 3:And you went in directly as the chief or interim initially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was interim. I went in as interim and I never actually transitioned to the actual chief because 11 months into that interim job I did a call from the mayor about 11 o'clock one night and I was sitting in the city manager seat for six weeks and because I was sweet, dazed and confused, I said yes.
Speaker 2:Those that don't know where Palestine is at you're probably Louisiana. You're probably 50 miles southwest of Shreveport. You're probably 20 miles east of Tyler. It is deep, deep East Texas. It's not Southeast Texas, it's not Northeast Texas, because there is a difference. Yeah, it is deep, deep East Texas.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, absolutely Great city, great department. Yeah, people out there. Yep, I did. I did three years, three and a half years there as the city manager.
Speaker 3:At what point in there did you stand up the lion?
Speaker 1:development group. Actually the lion was. I stood this thing up in 1999. To be quite frank, it was dormant, but it was there and I did that because of the work While in Austin I did probably 10 years or so. I did a lot of work with DOJ and I was traveling across the country dealing with the underbelly of police departments around ethics and integrity issues. That's when, I think, clinton was in office, I believe, and he stood up. No relation, yeah, yeah, I hear you. He had these 36 regional community police and institutes and I, because I was a community police officer in Austin, I got an opportunity to be connected with DOJ and I was in the travel across the country and even abroad a couple of times. Oh cool, doing a variety of things.
Speaker 3:And I guess that is kind of what began your career of being a fixer and understanding how to go in and identify the core of the problem and try and start figuring out how to resolve that.
Speaker 1:Yes sir, yes sir. And Palestine was really my first official as the executive experience in doing so and I can tell you I thought I was a grown man before I got there, but Palestine actually, I became a real, truly grown man in Palestine because it tested every fiber in my body because of the challenges that they were up against Prior to my arrival. It was a volatile removal of the previous chief.
Speaker 1:And I didn't know that I had no idea. In fact I hate to even say I didn't even do my research. When they called me, because a friend of of Clint's I've got by the name of a no no, johnson called me and because I trusted, no no told me that hey, they're looking and your name popped up. So I just went and took the job Then even think about doing research. And once I got settled I started to do my research after I signed on the dotted line and I saw all of that stuff that was going on and at that moment I realized that it was going to be an uphill battle. I just didn't know how steep, yeah, how old. I had no idea until I got in and got in the middle of it and then I discovered I was in the precipice of hell on earth.
Speaker 3:But what's cool is that set off a chain of stops for you, either interim police chief or interim city manager, and over the course of that you've developed a reputation of when it's at the fan or when things need to be fixed, you can come in and fix it. And that's a really unique. Cops are alpha's and we think we can fix anything because we get a calls and we have to fix it. But going in and fixing a broke organization, that takes a bit, that's a tall order it is.
Speaker 1:It is, and I think there are four things technically that I kind of discovered over time that are missing from these agencies. Number one the culture typically is fairly toxic at the time. That's number one. Number two For various reasons, for various reasons and a lot of times it's because of a lack of information in time and space create the toxicity within the organization for a variety of reasons, and what happens is leadership stop focusing on the things in which they need to focus on, and so at that point you have a toxic culture, no leadership engagement, there's no psychological safety in the organization and people are suffering, and so you have a lot of mental health issues, a mental illness and police officers that are happening within that, and then because of that, the critical thinking is flawed. And so then you begin to see mistake after mistake after mistake and you see cannibalism take hold of that organization and people are attacking each other.
Speaker 2:And, on top of that, the community, where there really should be focused on serving they're negatively affected because the people that are trying to help them can't help themselves. That's right.
Speaker 1:So in order to fix an organization like that, so that you can serve the community better, you have to go in to come out. So literally not literally but figuratively you have to do heart surgery on that organization in order to do so, and it's very careful, you have to be very careful. And I have just learned and dealing with people, there are really like seven things that I have embraced sort of as my mantra, my theme, when I go in to address those kinds of issues and I just kind of walk through those things very carefully and dealing with trying to get remember that relationships are the conduit of influence. So the first thing I have to do is get to know my people and if, in getting to know them, that means I have to get very close to them, then I have to be able to display, put on display for things within that's coming from me and that's empathy, sympathy, vulnerability and compassion. I need to be able to show those things to my people so that they can begin to trust me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, otherwise they probably just think you're some bully coming in there to start ripping. You know, rip us open and firing people and Right cause they're in a A horrible state.
Speaker 1:They're in a vortex right now and they don't trust anybody. So then they're siloed and they're attacking each other to include that new person coming in. So I have to be very careful and very strategic as I do what I do, but very intentional in how I go about doing so.
Speaker 3:Is there a theme? Cause you've been in a bunch, you either had to enter them or you've been brought in as basically an outside investigator or forensic auditor. Are there themes, you see, of why there's a breakdown Is there, or is it just so different every time that there's not some consistent themes or issues?
Speaker 1:There are some consistency, but every situation, although there are some consistencies, they're all different. And the four themes that I just mentioned is usually, when I get that call, the underbelly of the organization is showing. That means toxicity and that also means cannibalism is happening within the system itself and there's a divide between the community and the police and the council. All of that stuff is going on at the same time. They're all fighting each other. Nobody trusts anyone. So I come in and I look at all of those things. That's the first thing that's happening.
Speaker 1:And then you also see the us versus them, between leadership and the troop. They don't trust the troop and the troop don't trust them. And then you have those who are outspoken. They are shut down, and that's the last people you want to shut down. You need the outspoken individuals.
Speaker 1:In a roundabout way, some of the stuff that they're saying is rhetoric, but at the same time there are some nuggets that if you listen and you have the right ear to be able to hear it, they are telling you things that you need to hear. So that means that the organization is void of psychological safety. And then at the same time, you have mental health issues going on as well, and so one of the entities within that system that I immediately embrace is HR, because I know I'm gonna need HR at some point to deal with an outcry. Every agency I've been a part of I've had to do a intervention of some sort, and what leadership failed to do is that I fail to see oftentimes that oftentimes they are the trigger because of the lack of leadership that's happening within that organization and they've broken the trust for that troop to come forward and feel safe enough to address an issue.
Speaker 3:Yes, sir, you mentioned the outspoken go quiet. There's a great meme that says when your most passionate employee goes silent, you're probably heading towards the bottom of the problem and the things are getting worse. That's right, and that's what it just made me think of is when you're passionate outspoken people or decide screw this, others don't even have anything else to say. That's right.
Speaker 1:Probably got some problems. Oh yeah, they silo. At that point they don't care and they become willfully blind to things that are happening around them. When they're outspoken is when you push your pool, and even if they're your adversary, your objective is to turn them into an ally, because you don't ever wanna take the voice away. There are some of your most passionate leaders within the organization. You just need to know how to transform that energy into the positives things that you need.
Speaker 1:What I'm not saying is that that's easy to do. It's very difficult to do. But again, I go back to the relationship building the leader going into that organization. You need to be very intentional and what you're doing all day, every day, is building what I call idio secrecy credits, because in your building those things for the next mistake that you, the leader, will make Cause every leader is gonna make mistakes, but you need to be able to have money in the bank to pay off those mistakes when you make them and a lot of leaders are bankrupt Tilt them capital. Yeah, absolutely have zero. And when you don't have the capital, you're not gonna be able to get past that next mistake, and that is where you guys end up. Coming into these organizations. Oftentimes is when that leader is bankrupt. A member of that organization will reach out to you guys and then you go in and you do the things in which you do, and oftentimes that administrator is gone.
Speaker 2:Couple of things that I was gonna touch on is my excuse me. My exposure and bringing me into TNPA occurred in Marshall.
Speaker 1:That's where me and Clint met.
Speaker 2:Looking back on my career, there are certain things that I could have done different. I was the president of the local association. That's gonna be a lot of our viewers from watchers and viewership of this podcast. One of the biggest mistakes that I, as the local association leader, felt like we had a police chief that needed to be gone. Clint was instrumental in getting that done, but what happened ultimately ended up happening is that we did a basically a silent vote to the city manager that he needed to be removed and we did it and he was gone. But what I saw after the fact- and the chief there is now is good people and he I think he's a good leader.
Speaker 2:But what it did, is it almost like we blew our wad as an association and anything after the fact we couldn't correct and we couldn't there was no accountability from that because we became more powerful than the leadership of the department. So, in your instance and your experience, talking to local association leadership, their line level employees, and because, just like Aaron Slater said, there's no rank is not amongst leadership, Is it leaders?
Speaker 2:That's right. There's no right. So what advice would you tell local leaders and local association leadership on what's the best way to handle those type of situations?
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell you the way I handle. When I go in as a chief, the first person I wanna meet is the association president, perfect. And for me, I wanna meet that person because he or she had power and I consider that person to be a chief of police just like I am. They have the voice of the people, so I don't make any critical decisions without that person being in the room, and I want it just like.
Speaker 1:When you look at Abraham Lincoln, abraham Lincoln was very strategic. He does a great book called Team of Arrivals, and what Abraham Lincoln did is he put people around him that opposed him, but at the same time, he wanted the very same things he wanted. So, to avoid groupthink, I want adversarial people in my space to challenge my thinking. The last thing any chief should want to do is have ultimate power to make decisions, because, although you may have the best interests of that agency in your heart, but you can make a decision that will create major problems over here. And if you're autocratic and not democratic, as was decision making, then you're making mistakes. When the battle of the Lord, yes, yes, you need to have people around you.
Speaker 1:There's another great book written by a guy by the name of Dr John Townsend. The title of the book is People Fuel, and what he talks about is having an inner circle. That inner circle is crucial to your decision making. So, yes, the first thing I do is I meet with that association president and I ask them a question what do you need from me? What's the theme in the organization? What's going on? Who do I need to know? Who do I need to meet? What do we need to do together to move this department forward?
Speaker 2:And I can confirm these down the multiple times Well, and to the association leadership out there, when someone is just in your position ask you those questions, I challenge you To be thoughtful on how your response to that. Your first response to someone who comes in and is trying to reorganize the city, reorganize the police department, is not to splurred out there and go ahead and out the changes that you think need to be made.
Speaker 1:They will figure that out on their own.
Speaker 2:What I mean by that is is that your first interaction with this man or anyone that represents these types of leadership organizations is man the chiefs, a piece of crap. This is the challenges that we've gone. That's not your first. You don't need to out that from the get go. He will develop that on his own and realize, hey, there's some significant leadership challenges here. Get to know the individual coming in and trying to fix your department. Get to know them as a people or as a person, and then they will figure it out. Now you can assist them and try to.
Speaker 2:Hey, did you witness what just happened here? But they will see that A lot of times. We see it because the social education leaders are so passionate and so emotional. There's a lot of emotion and you go back to mental health. This is their community, this is their world. So again, it goes back to the challenges you face when you go into those kind of situations. So kudos to you for doing that. But it's also aggravating sometimes from our perspective, because they've got the situation where local association leaders can make such an impact and they do it. They don't start off on the right foot.
Speaker 1:And that's a mistake on the part of the association. President. You got to go in very. It's a delicate balance when you go into those situations, because one of the things that happened when, when they assign a new chief, everybody Googles and everybody is looking for dirt, and so we use that dirt as leverage and that's the wrong thing. You give that person the benefit of the doubt, because that person's character, through adversity, will be revealed, and so what?
Speaker 1:the association president need to do is develop that relationship around that person and with that person but at the same time make sure the association is synergistically sound so that if they need to rally to address issues with that incoming or that new person, that they still have a voice and they still have leverage. You don't, you know, we all have what we call basis of power. Don't overuse your coercive power, your legitimate power, your expert power, your information power. Don't overuse any little things. Use them very strategically as a associate president, as a chief, because there need to be some collaboration between the two and reciprocation back and forth, because that that, that incoming person, if they're honest, they cannot be successful without that association president and the association president need to realize that they have tremendous power.
Speaker 1:But don't overuse any component of your power. Exactly, just lay low, work with that person, give them the benefit of the doubt and eventually the true character of that individual who's in that seat now will be revealed. And when that happens you have to leverage to do whatever you need to do in addressing that person. But don't go in and attack right away, because that person isn't going to show you who they actually are. You've got to be able to really see shit first.
Speaker 3:Well, that's in everything we do. Bottom line of policing is relationship. Yeah, but the beautiful part about what I've always respected there's a lot of guys that call themselves you know career intrams or you know. They go around and you you leave everywhere. You've been better off than when you arrived.
Speaker 3:And there's some people in this business attempting to do what you're doing and I won't name their names, but they actually go into a broken place and they either leave it as broken as it is or sometimes they they even tear it up even more on the way out the door. And I think what has been unique that I've valued in you if you know you're only going somewhere six weeks or six months, you don't fall in love with that place. You don't. I'm gone in six months for you people, I don't care and that's not how you manage that. But I've literally watched other people that do what you do. They go in. They could care less about the people there. They could care less the changes that they're making and how drastically it's affecting it. And it's not. It's happened before. Where they leave it actually worse yeah, more damage than the damage that was already there when they arrived and you've whatever that unique ability, you have to go in and fix that.
Speaker 3:I always use the analogy when we do management surveys. I'll tell the Association leadership. I'm about to go meet with the chief and present the results of the survey. There's, there's one or two, there's a fork in the road. You want me to go in and say, hey, these are the issues. We want daddy to stay and we want marriage counseling and we want we want the family to reconcile and we want to work on these issues. Or do I need to tell dad to move out and we want the house and he needs to leave?
Speaker 3:And while ago, when you were saying that people end up siloed, and you know the chief has barricaded himself in the bunker and the troops have decided they're done with him and you know they want to, they want to assassinate the general. And everybody's siloed. When you show up, what's almost just like a divorce, when the marriage is bad, you're both living in the house, nobody's talking, you can't stand, even see them. When you pass them in the hall, you're certainly not going to communicate. It's not healthy. Your mental health is deteriorating, because that's about, and that's about what it's like in these departments consistently and one of the challenges I I face when I do these management surveys. When I talk with the associations, I'll say tell me which fork in the red. We're taking counseling and we're staying married Keep that at home, or the other route. And they'll give me whichever direction they feel the body of the association wants to go in. And every time they'll go how do you think it's going to go? And I said well, he's either going to be dismissive and minimize and this is nothing, or he's going to explode and throw me out of out of the building Probably one of those two. And they'll say well, you don't think he's going to self reflect and, you know, acknowledge. Well, maybe, and I'm like About 99% chance no, I don't think that's going to happen.
Speaker 3:In Very rare occasions his chief, his chief got condescending and arrogant and told me I challenge you to come get my job. I challenge you to come get me. Do you see, once you've been in a position too long, do you become over comfortable, over confident. The last one was an agency in North Texas and they said the association called me on speakerphone and said, hey, if you were the chief, what would you do right now? And I said I would call in a mandatory department wide meeting for in the morning and I would stand up and say, hey, I've obviously got our ship listing, if not about to flip.
Speaker 3:I'm an, own my part of it. I'd like for you guys to own whatever bit. What can we do? Let's start. I'm the captain of the ship. I'll take it all right, the ship to the bottom, but starting right now, what can we do? And they sold. You think he's going to do that? I'm like, oh hell, no, and he didn't. He blew up and it was all their fault and he was perfect, never done anything wrong. But we see it again and again, and again, and sometimes in city manager roles. What?
Speaker 1:is it?
Speaker 3:about? Is it the position? Is it being in it too long? Is it overconfident? Is it? Do you get thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:Well, the answer to your question is yes. All of the above could be possibly the problem, but what I see Is we and you know I'll talk from the law enforcement perspective, first the person sitting in that seat have a very difficult time and apologize for mistakes made. Chief, yes, yes, that is the most difficult thing to do but it's the most, the most inexpensive, expensive thing to do is just simply apologize and say listen, I screwed up. I didn't think this thing through very well and I like to write this ship. Here's the information that I did not provide to you, that I need to provide to you and provide that information, and oftentimes the officers will be Fairly forgiving and you move forward. But if you allow Too much time and space In between speaking up and speaking out about those things, then it becomes very difficult for you to gain any momentum to get in front of the narrative that has been created. The cost of a variety of issues.
Speaker 3:Is it the culture that doesn't allow them to come forward sometimes and say you know what? I thought this was going to work. It didn't. Or I thought this that's a couple of years ago at my department. They decided we do it with gang unit because that way we don't have a gang problem if we don't have a gang unit and we're going to do away with undercover work and then we don't have to have a drug problem. And it lasted, I think, 18 months and it was a complete train wreck. And suddenly they came back and they it tore the department up. I mean, people were furious about it. Man, it would have been a great opportunity to come forward and be like hey, man, I wanted to look at something, or I believe that this was going to lead to something, and it clearly didn't. I know you're pissed at me and I own it, but we're developing the gang unit again. You know we're going to get this thing. It was just never it just suddenly it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the best way to answer that question, clint, is number one Don't put yourself in those positions to where you have to be autocratic, and when you become an autocratic leader, then you're, you're, you're actually making yourself extremely vulnerable. This is why you need that inner circle. You should not make any critical decisions in that agency without having that inner circle play a role in it. Your cabinet yeah, you got to have it. I mean, it's imperative, and you got to have a cabinet that you don't create group think.
Speaker 1:So when you look at the composition of a team, that team is either very homogenous, meaning a very similar in nature. Are they very heterogeneous, which is very diverse? Doesn't matter which, if it's homogenous or heterogeneous, the key is avoiding group think. I need people in my space that are willing to challenge me, to get my attention when they see the micro issues that I am about to put out and make a macro issue. So one of the things that I do is I teach leaders how to focus on the micro, to mitigate the macro, without being called a micro manager, and that is very strategic in nature and it goes back to I think they do probably have heard me say this time and time and time again on this broadcast relationships relationships are crucial, and I'm by nature.
Speaker 1:I'm very introverted, but I know as an executive I cannot be, so I have to learn how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. So I put myself in these positions because the most valuable commodity within the organization are people, and that ship will not sell without healthy individuals doing the work that I need them to do. But they got to be able to trust the person steering the ship, and that's me, and so the only way that they're going to do that is I have to expose who I am and allow myself to be vulnerable in their presence, and one of the things that cops, especially leadership, will not do is allow vulnerability to become their superpower, because vulnerability is actually a superpower, as well as compassion. And see when you, when you look at the grand scheme of things in this profession, police officers live 20 years less in general population 20 years less, and it's because of the toxicity within these organizations.
Speaker 1:And it's a lot of times it starts with leadership. Now, the most powerful people within the organization was that first line supervisor, and so what we don't do and should begin to do is don't ask much of our resources at that first line level of leadership. Ftls, corporals and first line supervisors, because they're the ones with the power. That's your, that's your power right there in that, in a small units, and we ignore that group of people. And you can't, you absolutely can't.
Speaker 2:I see it in my apple tower making decisions that have affected these folks, and I'm not even getting there input.
Speaker 3:That's the thing.
Speaker 1:You don't go to war a general doesn't want to war all the sergeants out there with much squads and platoons. Excuse me, that's who's winning. That's when your war is the sergeants that are in terms of the troops and leading the way. A general sitting in DC is not going to win. That's a great analogy.
Speaker 3:One of the one of the cool things about Mike is he walks the wall, he talks the top, the leadership stuff he's talking about. You know all these leadership classes and read these supervisor books and it's all this fluffy stuff.
Speaker 2:But the cool thing about Mike is.
Speaker 3:I've known him doesn't years probably. He talks about the vulnerability and he talks about being having a relationship.
Speaker 1:Relationship me and my connoisseur. I guess 12 to 12 years there's times we buy heads. Sometimes we go ahead pretty passionately and then we go break bread go out of lunch and he's still a good friend of mine, I still respect the living.
Speaker 3:But he didn't get mad that I'm mad, or I don't get mad that he just screws it.
Speaker 2:We know all this go back to your point, yeah. We just at the moment, we can't see each other's way until we get at the table, have that conversation he understands my perspective and I understand he is and what we do.
Speaker 1:And we don't compromise, we reconcile for the betterment of all.
Speaker 3:It's never been Literally we've.
Speaker 1:Passionate agreements and we'll get back on the phone.
Speaker 3:And chat up and get home and have your family and I won't go eat much, some food now. That's. That's where I grew my respect, because a lot of leaders.
Speaker 1:We just really will screw you. Or now you're on evenings with two days and Thursdays.
Speaker 3:Offer man, it's never really been that way and all of this stops where he goes in fixing. You know he'll call me and there's issues going on and we'll talk it through, or the troops will call me. Hey, I don't know who the hell this new guy is.
Speaker 1:But and I'm like we'll give it time and see how this thing plays out We'll get in that quick call because things Work out and, man, some of the stops are challenging.
Speaker 3:You've been some racially charged communities where things are simmering. You've been some departments where things are Boiling and simmering.
Speaker 2:We see it, how challenging is Texas because it's such a large state and there's so many different regions and the culture in each region so significantly different.
Speaker 1:You ran into seeing the cultural differences Within Texas and in the regions that you have work. I know I know he's Texas. You know I ran into Some racism in Southeast Dallas. I ran into some racism but at the same time he's at the Well, what I will call it, more than racism, is Ignorance. Yeah, when people don't know what they don't know, it becomes my responsibility to educate.
Speaker 2:So I don't make assumptions about things that people say you do.
Speaker 1:I look at it as an opportunity to educate so that we can all move forward, because a lot of times, just like me, I grew up a certain way and I believe certain things until I came face to face with those things. You got educated around those things and you know all those Perceptions went away and so it becomes my opportunity to do the very same thing when I run across things, but and then when I north.
Speaker 1:West Texas wasn't any of that stuff per se, but there were other issues that were happening there, but I spent most of my time either in East Texas or the Metroplex as chief and say manager in East. Texas, but I've worked all over Texas doing all kinds of issues. Some of those things are absolutely unbelievable. I've been in one particular situation where I was scared to death Getting out of that town alive. That particular situation actually made national news. I won't necessarily. It's in the public domain.
Speaker 2:I still don't want to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mention it, but that situation was a very, very difficult situation and the only other time outside of Texas that I rented this situation like that was I was doing some working in and Hollywood Florida and the same kind of situation happened and I was with another executive out of out of Florida and we literally had to get on the phone with people and stayed on the phone with them until we got out of that county Because of the fear that we had Because we were challenging the agency and some of the unethical things that were going on within the system. But this is also around the time where DOJ was was implementing consent decrees across the country, pittsburgh being the first city to.
Speaker 1:End up in a consent decree. But I've gone into a lot of agencies that were either going in or coming out Of those consent decrees. So I've seen some things in my time and and as Clint I mentioned, I just kind of have developed a kind of a process when I go in, because Nothing necessarily surprised me, there are a lot of things that disappoints me, but they don't surprise me and I always to the best of my ability to give the person the benefit of doubt, even when other people have given up on them.
Speaker 1:I don't give up on them immediately Because I know that a lot of the person's problems were not created by them, the the system itself, and I wanted to. The people that I admire a lot and I met him once is Kevin Gilmorton and his book emotional survival, and one of the things he talks about is that the profession in it of itself is predisposed To creating mental casualties. So if I know that going in, then I know when people are sideways with themselves and Sometimes they get caught up and they don't know how to help themselves. So I just look at myself being to conduit to be able to help them to the point where I can't help them anymore.
Speaker 3:But I have to do everything I possibly can to help that individual help themselves before I let them go, and that's true statement, because I watched him give second chances and third chances now and he keeps trying to build an uplift and rebuild and stand people back up. Yeah, sometimes can't help themselves and he's still trying to problem.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you know I Read a lot. I read a lot leadership stuff. There's another author by name of Dr Henry cloud, into cleanse point. The title of the book is necessary Endings and what cloud talks about is pruning. So occasionally for the fruit to grow on the branches, on the vines, you got the prune. So, yes, you have to release people from time to time, but before I do so I want to make sure that I've done everything I possibly could do for that individual, because that person has gotten caught up, not by themselves, in enough themselves, sometimes the system they get caught up, and I know my wife is a therapist and so she deals with a lot of these issues as well, and so I know that people can get caught up so much that they don't not help themselves, and so I do everything I can to help them first.
Speaker 2:Slime like information that he's he's he's talking about today. I hope people are resonating it and writing it down and processing what you're saying.
Speaker 3:I'm glad you all got to meet under you guys with oh yeah.
Speaker 2:What likes to ask this question. I think you'd be a very person to ask what's your best and worst day in my Mike Alexander.
Speaker 1:My best day is when I know, at the end of the day, I made a difference and dealing with people, places are things. My worst day is Is when I think I guess what, I feel helpless and I can't do what I know I Need to do, I want to do and that can, that can mean anything and that's, that's such a profound question in such an ambiguous question at the very same time. But I, I think you know just off the top of my head.
Speaker 1:That's. That's my best answer. I want to always do the Best I can for the individual. Why? Partly because I want the same in return, and I do believe it's a paradox, that's a great and it's a biblical principle Is is more blessed to give than receive, and I know the more I give, the more I receive. So I do my best to give, give, give, give and I don't expect in return, but I know that mine is coming as well, because there will be a day when I need to lean on a Clint to help me stand when I can't.
Speaker 3:But I like, on the first part of that too, if you're gonna expect greatness or demand greatness, then you better be displaying that too. That's right. You're not. You're not playing your C game, expecting a game out of everybody else in here in your C game, it's like that. Yeah, one other one we ask I know you, you just turned 42 years old. Yes, sir, what would 42 year old Mike Alexander say to 15 year old Mike Alexander right now?
Speaker 1:Wow, man, I think that question should have been asked the first question and we've spent entire. You know, I made so many mistakes, I mean so many mistakes as a 15 year old, as a 40 year old. I really this is the honest truth I believe that I really did not know Michael Alexander until I was about 40 years old. I just made so many mistakes along the way and at some point I woke up. Some people wake up a lot sooner than I did, but eventually I woke up and if I had to do it all over again, I would immediately the best of my ability to surround myself with people who are a lot more intelligent than I and just sit back and absorb as much information as I possibly can from them, so that when I need to dip into that well, for some of that wisdom to use as I grow and move about life that I have enough in the bank to be able to do so.
Speaker 3:You founded at 40, honestly, I'm 51 and I don't think until like my mid 40s that I realize I think I'm hitting my stride. I feel like I know kind of where I'm going into your point about surrounding yourself. Whether people like George W or not and some people you know say he's brilliant and some people say he's dumb redneck. W surrounded himself with brilliant people, dr Condoleezza rise. There was a bunch of people in his circle because W knew I'll surround myself with people that will have answers that I may not have at times, and, whether folks like him or not, I think he did a phenomenal job of being aware enough to surround himself with people like Condoleezza rise, who's brilliant, and that he could dip into that well and use Dr Rice's knowledge and experience when he needed it. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that was big dog.
Speaker 3:Where can people? So you're teaching at ACC. I know you call me sometimes when you're up in the motorplex teaching. Is that Aliyah?
Speaker 1:Well, it may be Aliyah, it may be Karuth, it may also be the TPCA. I do a lot of work for Texas police chiefs, I do a lot of work for Aliyah, I do a lot of work for Karuth and I do a lot of work over at ACC. And then, of course, the lion Institute, which is my website. There's a lot of things that I do there. So I'm on Facebook. I have a Facebook account. I never go there. I have a Instagram account. I also have the website and I think there's a Twitter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, linkedin. I have a LinkedIn account and then the Twitter account, x, now better known as X. So I have all of that. I don't go there. All the place I spend some time occasionally is on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3:Speaking of great leaders in TPCA, chief Ellis just got appointed executive director of TPCA Freaking, phenomenal leader. Yes, he is Very, very good dude. And T Cole just announced their new executive director. Yes, chief Greg Stevens Another very, very good guy. Two great choices, like in the week time period. You know two good men, two good leaders and two good people that are going to be excellent for Texas law enforcement.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I'll be working very closely with you, both of you.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. Two really really good men.
Speaker 2:Well, we like to end each episode with three rapid fire questions Are you ready? Did you study? Oh?
Speaker 1:wow, no, I didn't, but I think I'm ready.
Speaker 2:What's your favorite cop movie or line from a cop movie, your favorite police vehicle and your favorite drink of choice when you were relaxing off the clock?
Speaker 1:My favorite police movie is actually the wire. The wire is fairly old now it came out in 2007 or 2008 but it's still relevant today. In fact, I use the wire as a part of a leadership academy that I teach yeah. So week two, I do a three-week leadership academy for TPCA. The first week is about the individual, the second week is about groups and the third week is about the organizational system itself and week two when I'm trying to build and grow a synergistically sound group. I use the wire because they ended up in that situation is loosely based off of Baltimore Maryland police department, where they had a lot of drug folks, drug dealers killing folks. So the agency put together a task force built with narcotics officers and homicide, and these two groups typically don't work together. So they got together and they were fighting a lot of each other because of the familiarity of their different disciplines.
Speaker 1:So I use that to show how to build a synergistically sound team, to move that team forward, to build that cadence necessary in order to attack whatever you need to attack. So that's my favorite movie. As far as police vehicle, you know, I really don't have one, but if you, if you go back when I first started, this may sound strange, but we had one of the most people probably wouldn't agree with this one, but I had dodge diplomat. Yeah, I kind of enjoyed that vehicle back then and I don't remember the third question.
Speaker 2:Favorite drink of choice when you're relaxing off the clock.
Speaker 1:I drink a what they call the honor Palmer. Oh yeah, yeah, that's my, my Very good choice. Yes, yeah, I just sit back. I bought a piece of property out in the hill country and I just sit back in the back porch, watch the the livestock come through the backyard and just sit back and enjoy when you're in the downtown, texas hill country is just absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is. Yeah, I'm. I'm right up by the lake, a couple minutes from the lake and the deer come up, I got this big barrel I just feed them. Back. In the day I hunted them a lot, but now I've even named quite a few of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's an interesting. Yeah, that's awesome. I can relate to that. Yeah, absolutely that's awesome. I mean, you got anything else?
Speaker 3:I cannot thank you know, for the time coming down. I know you're busy and I know you're always on the road every time I talk to you. You're somewhere in a different part of Texas, but I appreciate you taking the time come along. I appreciate your friendship, your mentorship and love having you home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, thank you for coming on, man. It's unique and cool to see I know about you and I've witnessed some things that you've done and for you to go into the environments and situations that you do and fix those and then just kind of walk away quietly and look at the things that you built up. It's phenomenal. A lot of times you see leadership where they they demand accolades and they demand you know the notoriety and in the respect and you just you're. It's just not your character. So who knows you for doing that?
Speaker 1:Thank you guys, I truly appreciate the opportunity you guys afforded me today to talk about something that's near and dear to my heart. I love leadership and I love policing and I love the officers, and all I want to see before I leave this out of life is that Austin get it right. It need to come back to some of the things that we once represented, and I think that they're on their way. Things have to get worse before they get better, but I think that they are, they will. They will write that you have something.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna make a prediction. Right now. We're gonna watch the analytics of this episode and I think this will be the most watched episode by females, because my man's sounds like Barry White on the microphone. My man sounds like Barry White on the microphone. He's just keep talking this is roll, this is roll, this and you just keep talking.
Speaker 2:You guys are crazy man you guys stay safe out there. Happy holidays and blue grit. You guys hit the comments, hit the like button and subscribe. Appreciate you guys tuning in. God bless you as always. May god bless Texas, wow you.