Stripes and Bars AMAURY MURGADO
THE THREE THINGS ONLY YOU CAN CONTROL Your choices, attitude, and performance largely determine the direction of your career and your life, so act accordingly. LOU HOLTZ, a former American football player, coach, and ever said life was fair. Ask yourself, "Is my attitude helping me or hurting me?" analyst, said, "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it." I found this to be very true in my own ca- If it's not helping, then why keep the bad attitude? Wouldn't reer. Anyone who spends any time at all as a law enforce- you rather work with someone who has a good attitude over ment officer realizes the job is filled with ups and downs. someone with a bad attitude? So would everyone else. I reMost of them come not from dealing with the public but fer to people who consistently have a bad attitude as energy from your own interactions within your agency. How you vampires because they just suck the life right out of you. It's perceive those interactions will affect the way you manage the same drama day in and day out and they never do anything about it. Don't be the type of person who feeds into your career. Some people like to take the easy way out and blame oth- your own drama. As a supervisor, you're responsible for managing producers. They become whiners and complainers and see fault in everything except in themselves. Don't ever become that tivity, so your performance is important. Productivity can person if you want to be a successful supervisor. Instead, be considered a direct result of what choices one makes and what attitudes influence them. For exyou need to concentrate on changing WOULDN'T YOU RATHER ample, how productive you are in trafnegative situations into positive outcomes, even if that outcome requires WORK WITH SOMEONE fic enforcement is up to you. You can document results by using verbal warnyou to change something about yourself WHO HAS A GOOD written warnings, or uniform trafor the way you do things. There are three ATTITUDE? SO WOULD ings, fic citations. Or you can choose not to things only you can control: the choices EVERYONE ELSE. make any traffic stops at all, displaying you make, the attitude you display, and a lack of performance. your level of performance. A lack of performance is always a The choices you make are your own. Only you can decide what course of action you will take. For clue to something bigger going on that requires attention. example, let's look at choosing not to follow policy. If you in- Keep in mind that changes in your performance are the eastentionally violate policy without an exigent circumstance iest to spot because they are the easiest to measure. If you to cover it, it's on you. During your internal affairs investiga- are a hard charger one day and dragging your feet the next, tion, stating, "But everyone else does it!" will only make you everyone will notice it. Just as you can't run from your choices, attitudes, or persound juvenile. Besides, any veteran officer will tell you the response to that is, "We are not talking about everyone else formance, neither can your subordinates. If you have an energy vampire in your unit you need to deal with that perright now; we are talking about you." Making an honest mistake is not the same thing as con- son quickly. As a supervisor, you must not accept their poor tinuing in a course of conduct you know is wrong. That's not choices masquerading as excuses. You need to remain firm a mistake, but a clearly defined choice. You cannot hide be- and stress the importance of having standards and enforcing them. Make sure your people know what you expect of hind a poor choice and then pretend it's something else. The attitude you display reflects how you view the world. them and take action when they don't meet that expectaNo one can decide your attitude for you. A big part of it is tion. Don't let them blame others, especially if it involves how you frame an issue, because this is what drives your their choices, attitudes, and performance. Understanding approach to finding a solution. If you frame your issue in that there are always three things you can control is a powa negative way, then no solution will make you happy. I'm erful tool. Don't be afraid to apply it to yourself or others. not suggesting that every issue has a happy ending, nor am I suggesting you try to turn everything into unicorns and Amaury Murgado retired a senior lieutenant from the Osceorainbows. I am asking that you confront any issue honest- la County (FL) Sheriff's Office with over 29 years of experience ly, accept what you can and can't do, and move on. No one and retired from the Army Reserve as a master sergeant.
J
8
POLICE AUGUST 2016