Introduction
This is an analysis section. It highlights how the data will be collected and explain how the respective data will be adequately and effectively analyzed. Furthermore, it specifies research methods used in the analysis of the collected data. Basically, the data collected will be analyzed through qualitative and quantitative methods, which have been extensively discussed in the paper.
Research methodology
This section focuses on the research methodology of the study and the theory of research design in detail. The present study was taken to ascertain the need for the implementation of transformational leadership in the homicide division.
Data collection
Basically, data used in this research will be collected through primary and secondary sources considering the nature of the study and the intended purpose of the study. Generally, primary data will be obtained through the questionnaire while the secondary data obtained from a review of articles, journals, and other research related to the topic to ensure conclusions drawn are related to past conclusions on the study topic.
Primary source
In this source, I directly interacted with the defined respondents and fill the structured questionnaires on the basis of their experiences and knowledge. To collect the information from the respondents in the study used face-to-face interaction, one-to-one interviews, mail, and telephonic techniques.
Secondary source
In the secondary source, I used library books, articles, journals, and previous research papers constructed by many practitioners and researchers which were very useful as they gave more insight to the topic and made it significantly important due to the development in technology and level of awareness.
Research analysis
This section is concerned with the analysis of the results obtained. Data was collected from two sources, which are primary and secondary sources. Generally, primary data collection involved direct information collection from respondents through structured questionnaires, while secondary data collection involved the collection or obtaining of information from references, articles, journals, library books, and past research papers.
To analyze the data some statistical tools and also used Bar graph and Pie chart were used to represent the result which saves the time of the researcher and student to understand the overview of the respondent and data analysis.
The questionnaire and the respondents’ real output will be competitively helpful for the researcher to successfully complete the study of “critical evaluation of implementing transformational leadership in the Homicide Division”.
Generally, the research applied a descriptive and qualitative approach to data analysis. Descriptive data analysis was used to describe the data and to serve as the first phase in understanding the results gained. The data was reduced to descriptive summaries for the mean, standard deviation, and correlation. Graphical techniques (i.e. scatter plots, frequency distributions, and histograms) were employed to visualize the summarized data (Vick 2000, p. 4).
Inferential statistical analysis was employed to test hypotheses regarding the opinion of police officers and transformation in police leadership style. In addition, Pearson’s coefficient of correlation and the T-test were used to analyze the relationship between variables. SPSS was used in the data processing. Pattern-matching was also used as a strategy for analysis between study variables. Mean scores, standard deviations were used in analyzing items that adopt a liker format. Where necessary, t-tests were also conducted to establish whether the means are statistically significant between other variables (Sarros 2001 p. 245).
Evaluation and analysis
The researcher will evaluate on the basis of analysis and the results that have been observed and measured with the help of respondents and their valuable feedback.
It should be noted that there is a pie chart, bar graph, or a Likert scale post all the table to show the result graphically which would make it easier to understand the result of the collected data.
Personal Data of the Study Participants
The results show that the majority (80 percent) of the study participants were male while the remaining portion (20 percent) was females (Ortmeier 2002, p. 6). The results also show that the majority (38 percent) of the participants had at least ten years of service working for the police service, while 32 percent had at least 20 years of service. The remaining portion (30 percent) had at least thirty years of service. On ages of respondents, 42% were between the age of 18-30 years, 36% were between the age of 31-40 years, 15% were between the age of 41-50 and a mere 7% were above 51 years (Bond, 2003, p. 206).
Figure 4.1.1: Age Range.
Figure 4.1.2: Years of service.
The survey established, as shown in figure 4.1.3, that 39% of the officers were in receipt of salary between $3000 and $6000, 42%, which was the highest figure, was earning $6001 – $9000, and 18% earned $9001 – $12000 (Lester 2000, p.3). Only 1% of those surveyed earned over $12000 dollars. Supplementing the basis salary 8% of the population received commuted allowances.
Figure 4.1.3: Salary range.
Marital status was also instrumental in the responses received. This is because it illustrated the diverse views of respondents based on marital status. Basically, personal views on issues related to law and order differ based on marital status and other issues. This is because there are certain factors or aspects that affect married people, but not single persons. Furthermore, the opinions of married persons also differ on common law and other related issues on gender. This is because different genders have different opinions on common law and divorce among others. The presentation has been illustrated effectively as shown in figure 4.1.4, 36% of the population were still single, whilst only 22% were married. The remaining 37% were pursuing common-law relationships, whilst 5% were divorced (Bass 1999, p. 24).
Figure 4.1.4: Marital status.
Service Comparison
Figure 4.2.1: Rating the leadership in the Police Service with other protective services.
Assessing the impact of transformational leadership required an analysis of the degree of satisfaction that officers felt for their leaders in comparison to other protective organizations. Figure 4.2.1 exhibits the response, general consensus was that most officers were of the view that the police service was above average (37 %), conversely a significant percentage felt that it was below average (35%).
Generally, female respondents believe in the protective duties of the police compared to male respondents. This is a representation that the female gender is satisfied with the protection given by the police but male are not equally satisfied with the services. This can be based on rapid response to females’ protective needs in society compared to male protective needs response. Furthermore, most female respondents also believe in the leadership in the police service considering 47 percent of female respondents agreed that most police officers perform above average. This is an indication that female genders believe in leadership in the police service compared to other protective services. On the other hand, a high number of male respondents considered leadership in the police service below average. Moreover, though female respondents considered leadership in the police service above average, most female respondents also considered leadership in the police service among the worst compared to male respondents (Morale 2003).
Satisfaction with current leadership
Figure 4.3.1 satisfaction with current leadership.
From the analysis, an insignificant number indicated that they were very satisfied (6%), whilst 25% was very dissatisfied, the largest percentages were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied (33%) as compared to the percentage of officers that were fairly satisfied (8%) with their jobs (Bass 1999).
Reporting relationship in the service
As figure 4.4.1 below shows, the majority (50 percent) of the 76 participants interviewed by way of questionnaires, are aware of the reporting relationship in the service (Bass & Steidlmeier 1999, p. 200). Twenty-six percent of the participants were not aware of any reporting relationship in the service, with the remaining twenty-four percent being unsure of the presence of reporting relationship in the service (Sarros 2001).
Figure 4.4.1 Reporting relationship in the service.
Need to implement the transformational leadership style in the Homicide Division
From the collected data, the issue of whether the advent of the 21st Century Policing initiative triggered the need to implement the transformational leadership style in the Homicide Division formed a major theme (Barge 1994). The majority (53 percent) of the respondents agreed that there is a need to implement the transformational leadership style in the Homicide Division Out of the remaining participants, 26 percent said there is no need to implement transformational leadership in the service. The remaining 21 percent were not sure if there was any need to implement transformational leadership. The following frequency figure 4.5.1 helps to explain this set of results in a tabular manner (Burns 1978, p. 189).
Figure 4.5.1 Need to implement the transformational leadership style.
Figure 4.6.1 Performance of the leader.
Leadership traits possessed by the Leader
From the analysis, the majority of the respondents fairly indicate that the police service leadership takes the risk (33%), has shared vision (29%), provides intellectual stimulation (39%) as well as demonstrates high-performance expectation (16%). Only 7 percent indicates that police service leadership does not exhibit traits such as risk-taking or demonstrate high-performance expectation. A similar 12 percent rate the police service trait possession is low in terms of provision of intellectual stimulation and shared vision (Griffin & Rafferty 2004, p. 342).
Figure 4.7.1 Results of leadership traits possessed by the leader.
Employees views and perceptions on leadership skills and resources provided by the leadership.
Figure 4.8.1 Results on leadership skills and resources and facilities provided by the leadership in the service.
The main leadership skills that pertain the leadership in the police service: valuation and recognition of the employee’s work, fair treatment of, and respect towards employees, difficulty in balancing work and personal life, and stress affecting job performance among others (Avolio & Bass 1990, p. 78).performance were some of the leadership skills that could police service offered (Avolio 1999, p.134). This was indicated by the frequency of 36, 2 8, 4, and 3 shown in the ‘disagree’ column. The survey also included questions on the correlation between stress, work, and personal life. It was found 47% of officers strongly agreed that job stress affects their job performance and 59% thought that the organizational stressors will affect their life (Chen 1989, p. 122). Additionally, 66% opined that their job as police officers interfere with their personal life.
As shown in figure 4.8.1 above, 59%, 33%, and 4% strongly agreed, agreed, and neutrally agreed respectively that that stress encountered due to engagement in police service affects the personal life of the officers. Only 4% completely disagreed with the view. This is attributed to the fact that the nature of the police service job is stressful (Ortmeier 2003, p.5). There are task-related and working conditions stressors.
A majority of the respondents (87%) strongly agreed that the lack of human resources in the police service challenged their operation levels. This could be attributed to the duration of operation and the general nature of the police service. 5% of the respondents agreed on the same issue meaning that they are well aware of the lack of sufficient police officers in the police service (Morale 2003, p. 2). Other respondents of 1% and 7% respectively represented neutrally agree and disagree on their view pertaining to lack of human resources as a challenge to providing efficient service (Babbie 2004).
Summary of the findings
Most of the respondents in the study have served for long in the police service. However, most of the respondents were male servicemen that are about 80 percent while the remaining 20 percent were female. Though most of the respondents were police officers who had served for a long time in the unit, they were not satisfied with the current leadership in the police service (Conger 1991). From the results obtained from the respondents, it is evident that both male and female respondents are not fully satisfied with the current leadership in the police service. However, most female respondents consider police service leadership the best among protective services in the country (Chen 1989).
Additionally, male respondents do not consider it the best. On the other hand, though female respondents consider leadership in the police service among the best, a high percentage of female respondents also consider it among the worst compared to male respondents (Bond 2003). Furthermore, female respondents considered leadership in the police service excellent. Similarly, male respondents also consider leadership in the police service excellent but female respondents recorded the highest percent. Furthermore, high numbers of respondents, 50 percent, were aware of reporting leadership in the police service while 26 percent were not aware of any reporting leadership in the police service (Nissinen 2006).
Moreover, most of the respondents have embraced the implementation of the transformational leadership style in the police service leadership. This is an indication that the respondents being serving police officers who have served the unit for many years recognize the benefit of transformational leadership in police service. Generally, most of the respondents were police officers who had served for below ten years (Meese 2004).
Furthermore, most of the respondents agreed with the need to implement transformational leadership in the homicide division. Moreover, most of the respondents reported unawareness about reporting relationships in the police service. Reasons for transformational leadership may be due to respondents’ concern about understaffing, which most respondents agreed was present in the police service (Burns 1978).
List of References
Avolio, B 1999, Full leadership development: Building the vital forces in organizations, Thousand Oaks, California.
Avolio, B & Bass, B 1990, ‘The implications of transactional and transformational Leadership for an individual, team, and organizational development, Research in Organizational Change and Development, vol. 4, pp. 231-272.
Babbie, E 2004, The Practice of Social Research (10th ed.), Thomson/Wadsworth, Belmont, CA.
Barge, J 1994, Leadership: Communication skills for organizations and groups, St. Martin’s Press, New York.
Bass, B 1999, ‘Two decades of research and development in transformational Leadership’, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 9-32.
Bass, B & Steidlmeier, P 1999, ‘Ethics, character, and authentic transformational leadership behavior: A systematic analysis of issues, alternatives, and approaches’, Leadership Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 181-217.
Burns, J M 1978, Leadership. Harpur & Row, New York.
Bond, L 2003, Decision making in police organizations, Paper Presented at Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Conference, Boston.
Chen, G 1989, ‘Relationship of the dimensions of intercultural communication Competence’, Communication Quarterly, vol. 37, pp. 118-133.
Conger, J 1991, ‘Inspiring others: The language of leadership’, The Executive, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 31-45.
Creswell, J W 2003, Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods Approaches (2nd ed.), Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Griffin, M & Rafferty, A 2004, ‘Dimensions of transformational leadership: Conceptual And empirical extensions’, The Leadership Quarterly, vol. 15, pp. 329-354.
Laurie, D 1997, The work of leadership, The best of Harvard business review, Harvard Business School Press, Boston.
Lester, C 2000, ‘Motivational change among police constables: A case study of the Metropolitan Police Service’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics.
Meese, E 2004, Leadership, ethics, and policing: Challenges for the 21st century, Prentice-Hall, New Jersey.
Morale, S 2003, Perceived leader behaviors in law enforcement, Law Enforcement Executive Forum 3, pp. 2.
Nissinen, V 2006, Deep leadership, Talentum, Finland.
Ortmeier, P 2002, Community policing leadership: A Delphi study to identify essential competencies, Ph.D. dissertation, Union Institute, Prentice-Hall, Saddle River.
Ortmeier, P 2003, ‘Ethical leadership: Every officer’s responsibility, Law Enforcement Executive Forum, pp.1-9.
Sarros, J 2001, ‘Leaders and values: A cross-cultural study, Leadership and Organization Development Journal, vol. 22, no.5/6, pp. 243-249.
Vick, C 2000, ‘Aspects of police leadership’, Police research and management, pp. 3-14.
Appendices
The graphical representation of the table shows that out of 100 respondents 59 were male and 41 were female. A detailed profile for each player was also evaluated.
