Good Leadership in Times of Crisis and Change

Organisational change is a key topic in today’s management and leadership literature. Popular anecdotes in management books capture the heroic deeds of leaders in times of crisis and change. Charismatic leadership is considered to be vital for successful management in challenging times. The initiation and implementation of a change program seems to be the ultimate proof of leadership qualities in the private and public sector. In fact, initiating a change process belongs to the standard program of newly appointed executives. In the face of this broad change enthusiasm, however, the success rates of change processes appear rather depressing. Indeed, research shows that the majority of change programs take longer, and create more social and financial costs than are typically estimated by change initiators and change leaders.

To face the highly complex demands of the constantly changing (political, technological, societal, legal and economic) environment, policing, police change leaders need to take a large variety of personal (i.e. employee attitudes), social (i.e. organisational culture) and organisational (i.e. structure and processes) factors into account.

At this conference we bring together experts from academia and from practice within the European policing arena to jointly explore crucial barriers and success factors for truly effective and sustainable change leadership.

Specifically, we will focus on four of the most important topics that came out of our research into organizational change in European policing, in a series of work sessions entitled;
Knowledge sharing and its significance for change leadership;
Leadership and IT: Challenges and useful practices;
The need for an international perspective on change leadership and
What change leaders need to know about European police culture.

In addition, the conference will include a series of keynote speeches from both academics and police leaders, as well as the opportunity for lively panel discussions and interactive sessions.