Police chief search - what's the holdup?

Looks like Kevin beat me to the punch with a post about the Durham police chief search. I'd started writing this yesterday after reading Barry Saunders column myself, but i'm guessing that folks over at Kevin's day job are already in July 4 mode, while my co-workers have been scrambling to get ready for their vacations next week, giving me a workload about double normal this week.

But that's life, and thanks to Kevin for getting the blogball rolling, as it were.

It's been well over a month since the field of candidates to replace outgoing Durham Police Chief Steve Chalmers was narrowed down to three finalists. And it's been over three weeks since the finalists appeared at a "meet the community" forum at City Hall. City Manager Patrick Baker was quoted back in late May as saying he'd be making a decision in mid-July. I heard a rumor last weekend that the decision may be pushed back into August.

Basically, i wonder who's being served by taking that long to make the decision.

The main fork on the decision tree, it seems to me, is do you think that Durham's Police Department needs a change of direction? If you say no, then Ron Hodge is your guy. If you say yes, then he's not. Kevin makes some very good points about why the department needs a change:

Chalmers certainly didn't do the department any favors by walking, no, running away from reporters' questions every time they came up and giving the impression, warranted or not, of ducking the issues. The next DPD chief is going to be in the spotlight with the local media at the least, given Durham's "gritty" reputation.

Does this mean you want a PR wonk running the police department? Absolutely not. But I'm a firm believer that your ability to communicate effectively doesn't begin and end when the cameras and reporters' tape recorders shut off. You need to demonstrate leadership to your department, too, and part of that lies in the ability to communicate well and often to them.

Beyond communication, it's the little problem of leadership that's really at the heart of the problem with Hodge's statement. A much wiser man than I once told me that managing was about following the process. Dot the i's, cross the t's, and no matter what happened, you did things right, he said.

Leadership, on the other hand, is about the results you bring to the table. Process still matters, but there's something more important at stake -- you also have to execute and you have to make good outcomes happen. If managing is doing things right, leading is doing the right things.

Hodge's statement at the public forum reeks of a managerial mentality: check and cross-check the regs, keep your head down, don't screw up, and you're doing just fine. Technicalities over outcomes, chain of command versus being a commander. It does not demonstrate a readiness to step forward and take the reins of leadership.

My own feeling is that the need for change probably goes even deeper than Mr. Hodge's inability to come up with the right answer to a question at the public forum. The reputation of the DPD is pretty low right now in a lot of circles. Promoting from within, which i'm usually a pretty big fan of, is not going to help with that problem. And moving forward, if DPD doesn't want every single move it makes to be questioned by those with axes to grind, fixing the reputation problem should be job 1.

So for that reason, i think it would make sense for Patrick Baker to step forward earlier rather than later, and let us know what his answer to the question of whether the Durham Police Department needs to move in a new direction is. Even if he hasn't settled on a final choice, i don't think it violates protocol for him to announce that decision. Both of the out of town finalists are candidates for other positions. The longer he waits, the more likely that circumstances may tie Mr. Baker's hands.