Book review: Police Leadership Changing Landscapes
| Author | Roger Arditti |
| Published date | 01 June 2020 |
| Date | 01 June 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X20918610 |
Book review
Book review
Pauline Ramshaw, Marisa Silvestri and Mark Thompson (eds)
Police Leadership Changing Landscapes, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, 320 pp. £99.99 (hbk), ISBN:
9783030214685.
Reviewed by: Roger Arditti , Canterbury Christ Church University, UK
DOI: 10.1177/0032258X20918610
It appears that police leaders are under unprecedented pressure: austerity has bitten deep,
resulting in a divesting of service, resources, staff numbers, infrastructure and delayering
of rank. The requirement to do more for less wil l endure, regard less of whether th e
concept of austerity morphs into something new or fades away. Against this back-
ground, demands upon police are both changing and multiplying rapidly, not least
through an expanding, networked and global population. Similarly, the technological
revolutionhascreatedanever-increasingplethora of opportunity for those with nefar-
ious intent, while exposing police frailties to an instant and critical audience. No
wonder the police seem to lurch from crisis to crisis. It is therefore highly apposite
to consider how police leadership operates within this changing – indeed arguably
unstable – environment. Against this background, Police Leadership Changing Land-
scapes edited by Pauline Ramshaw, Marisa Silvestri and Mark Simpson sets out to
‘develop the knowledge basis on police leadership, particularly in relation to devel-
oping understandings of shifts and continuities in leadership styles, practice, and
performance over time, in the UK and beyond’. This is a broad aim which, with some
significant caveats, the authors tend to meet.
The book is an edited volume which is divided into three sections. The first section
aims to provide the contextual backdrop to current thinking and the primary challenges
facing leaders in police service. Peter Neyroud presents a convincing case for a leader-
ship framework which is both evidenced-based and ethical. Tom Cockcroft then con-
siders police leadership in a broader way, particularly the way different forms of
leadership emerge in response to variation in environmental and societal context. He
also provides a useful discussion about perceived tension within police leadership. The
following chapter by Pauline Ramshaw and Mark Simpson which contrasts the transac-
tional and transformation models of leadership and posits that ‘effective leaders “flex”
between the two models according to circumstance’. The last chapter of the section,
provided by Claire Davis, seeks to move away from leader-centric analysis by consid-
ering leadership as a social construct.
The Police Journal:
Theory, Practice and Principles
2020, Vol. 93(2) 162–164
ªThe Author(s) 2020
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