The CopDoc Podcast: Aiming for Excellence in Leadership
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The CopDoc Podcast delves into police leadership and innovation. The focus is on aiming for excellence in the delivery of police services across the globe.
Dr. Steve Morreale is a retired law enforcement practitioner, a pracademic, turned academic, and scholar from Worcester State University. Steve is the Program Director for LIFTE, Command College - The Leadership Institute for Tomorrow's Executives at Liberty University.
Steve shares ideas and talks with thought leaders in policing, academia, community leaders, and other related government agencies. You'll find Interviews with thought leaders drive the discussion to improve police services and community relationships.
Happy to report that The CopDoc Podcast is listed as #4 in the 10 Best Worcester Podcasts!
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The CopDoc Podcast: Aiming for Excellence in Leadership
Why Police Leaders Must Borrow and Share Good Ideas-Jason Sieczkowski, Asst. Chief Chandler, AZ Police
The CopDoc Podcast - Season 9 - Episode 161
In an interesting conversation from Chandler, Arizona, Assistant Chief Jason Sieczkowski reveals the innovative leadership approaches transforming his department into what he calls "the Silicon Valley of the desert." As an IACP 40 Under 40 honoree who's spent his entire 19-year career with Chandler PD, Jason shares the philosophy that's helped him rise to overseeing all field operations: continuous improvement.
The discussion dives deep into how modern police departments can measure success beyond traditional enforcement statistics. Chandler's implementation of a real-time community feedback system (their version of "Yelp for cops") displays citizen ratings throughout department facilities, reinforcing that policing is fundamentally about customer service. With an impressive 4.73/5 rating, officers receive constant visual confirmation that their community values their work.
Sieczkowski's most powerful insights come when discussing leadership vulnerability. "Vulnerability equals trust," he explains, sharing how a formative experience shaped his approach. When a superior once told him, "I don't pay you for your opinion," he resolved never to lead that way. Instead, he creates psychological safety in meetings, explicitly telling teams that their honest feedback isn't just welcome but required.
The conversation explores Chandler PD's innovative succession planning, which includes extended transition periods for critical positions, and their embrace of lateral transfers from agencies nationwide. Perhaps most refreshing is Jason's perspective on generational differences in policing. Rather than lamenting changing work attitudes, he celebrates how younger officers prioritizing wellness represents evolution, not decline: "They're better equipped mentally, physically, emotionally to do this job than we've ever been."
Whether you're a law enforcement professional, aspiring leader, or citizen interested in police innovation, this episode offers valuable insights into how one department is balancing tradition with progress. As Sieczkowski emphasizes throughout: "Care for and value people. They are everything to us."
Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com
Website: www.copdocpodcast.com
If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com
Welcome to the CopDoc podcast. This podcast explores police leadership issues and innovative ideas. The CopDoc shares thoughts and ideas as he talks with leaders in policing communities, academia and other government agencies. And now please join Dr Steve Morreale and industry thought leaders as they share their insights and experience on the CopDoc podcast.
Steve Morreale:Hey everybody, steve Morreale coming to you again and this is the CopDoc podcast. I am in Hilton Head Island, south Carolina, today and I'm going out to Arizona and we're going to be talking to Jason Sikowski and he is an assistant chief at Chandler, arizona. Hello there, jason. How are you?
Jason Sieczkowski:I'm well. Good morning, how are you?
Steve Morreale:Well, we had some technical difficulties but we worked through them. I am doing fine. I'm glad to finally connect with you. I think what's important is what drew me to you is me paying attention to IACP's 40 40. And this year's just came out, ironically, so I'm going to reach out to a few others. But you were named a few years ago as one of the 40 under 40. Are you still under 40?
Jason Sieczkowski:No, sir, I'm 41 now.
Steve Morreale:All right, all right, so you don't qualify anymore but you got in just under the wire. Well, at the time you were commander. You were now an assistant chief in Chandler, so thank you for joining us. You've been listening to the podcast they know once in a while, and what I'd like you to do is to tell the audience about Chandler, arizona. What is it? How big is the organization? How big is the city? Where is it located in Arizona?
Jason Sieczkowski:Yeah, we're a beautiful city in the desert southwest. We are the city of innovation. We like to call ourselves the Silicon Valley of the desert, which is kind of fun because I grew up in San Francisco, california, so I came from the original Silicon Valley to the one where it's a little more dry and desert-like City-wise. We've got about 280,000 to 290,000 residents right now, which is shy of 300,000. We're sitting right around 348 sworn officers and 191 professional staff. But it's a beautiful community so we welcome everyone to come out and visit us. We're building lots of homes and we have jobs available, so come on out.
Steve Morreale:Good to hear. Well, the Sunbelt and even down here in the South, there's so many opportunities and so many people are moving in this area, so I understand that. How long have you been on Chandler?
Jason Sieczkowski:I just hit 19 years in August. Actually, I'm just shy of my 20. Is this where you started policing? It is. It was the only agency I even applied for, believe it or not.
Steve Morreale:Was it the only agency that would take you? Is that the reason, Jason?
Jason Sieczkowski:No, no, I don't think I was a hot commodity. Out of the thousand or so people I applied with, we hired two out of that group, so I was very blessed to get this opportunity Very competitive.
Steve Morreale:Well, what drew you to the desert?
Jason Sieczkowski:You know, I came down here for school, Steve. My dream was to teach golf lessons. That was why I moved down here. I was in ASU's Professional Golf Management Program for about a semester Quickly realized that while golf is a passion of mine, it was not going to be my passion. It was more of a fun sport for me on the weekend, so quickly changed over to degree programs, ended up getting a degree in agricultural business and decided that business wasn't going to be the route for me either. And here you are decided that business wasn't going to be the route for me either. I was doing an internship actually down in Phoenix and saw Phoenix PD arresting someone outside my window and I thought that'd be a good career. I should try that Just because of an arrest. Yes, I was watching Phoenix. I thought the lights look cool and I go. Man, that looks like a lot of fun.
Steve Morreale:And you're not sitting behind a desk, you're not picking corn or planting it. That's pretty neat. So here you are, and you have risen in 19 years to be the assistant chief. And do you have field ops?
Jason Sieczkowski:I do. I've got all of uniform services, so it's if you're in uniform, you pretty much fall under my bureau, which is a lot If you're in uniform, you pretty much fall under my bureau, which is a lot.
Jason Sieczkowski:So talk about the layout, the hierarchy of the department and what units you have, what sections you have. So obviously we have the chief of police. That's above me. We have three assistant chiefs, so it's myself, chris Perez and Melissa DeAnda.
Jason Sieczkowski:I've got field operations, so I've got three precincts. We have our downtown precinct, which is where I come to you today from. We have our west substation and our south substation, and each of those precincts have 18 teams. So at some point we got 18 patrol teams in the city, and then outside of those patrol teams, I have our detention services bureau. I have swat, um, I have all of our training bureau which houses field, and then outside of those patrol teams, I have our Detention Services Bureau. I have SWAT, I have all of our training bureau, which houses field training, firearms training, basic training, advanced training. I've got school resource officers, and then I have our behavioral health unit that does a lot of the mental health pickups in our city, and then I've also got peer support, wellness. So I've got a whole gamut of kind of a broad, eclectic spectrum of units and divisions that fall underneath me. So it's a good time.
Steve Morreale:Are you liking it?
Jason Sieczkowski:I love it. I absolutely love it. Field ops is where my heart lies. When I was a commander and the interim assistant chief, I had the investigations bureau. It was a great time. I had a lot of fun. And assistant chief, I had the investigations bureau. It was a great time. I had a lot of fun and definitely learned a lot about what they do. But I've never been a detective, I've never been inside that bureau until I got to be the commander and then the interim assistant chief. Coming back to field ops, it was like a dream come true. This is home.
Steve Morreale:That's great. Well, having done it for so long and loved it and believed in it, why don't you tell me what your approach is? So you were a commander and then you were promoted to be an assistant chief and now you're responsible for the uniform branch and you're sitting around. Obviously, you have some bosses underneath you. Some bosses underneath you. Tell me about how you came to approach your meetings and your sit-downs and setting your expectations and getting people sort of aligned to be mission-oriented.
Jason Sieczkowski:That's a great question. It's really about tailoring messaging to each individual, each individual commander. That falls under me. Now.
Jason Sieczkowski:We did something a little unique this year in field ops, sat down with all the commanders over the precincts and we came up with a standardized set of goals for field operations for the patrol side of our house. Historically, what we've done is we've had kind of disparate goals and it can vary down to the team level, the district level or the precinct level, and there was always this kind of feeling of inequity across patrol. So this year what we did is we took a data-driven approach and then we looked at okay, what are the averages of traffic stops, subject stops, community contacts, proactive work and just some other measurables. We looked at that data, came up with what the commanders and myself felt was a reasonable metric and we outlined that and sent that out to all of patrol. We tried to come up with just something that was a baseline that we felt everyone could achieve but would still push them a little bit out of their comfort zone. Understanding their main job is obviously responding to those emergency calls for service, but we've done a lot of things in Chandler to take a lot of that workload off of their plate maybe some of those lower level calls for service that consume a lot of time. So what we've done with this is now I want you to focus on being a proactive cop, Since we've taken a lot of burglaries, low-level traffic collisions, out of their house. Now I want you to go be proactive. We're blessed to work in a city that supports that kind of work. We want aggressive cops that ensure our city and community stays safe, and so that's what we've really pushed in and out onto them.
Jason Sieczkowski:As far as the commanders, it's a very simple concept for me and I try to make it as easy as possible. I push them to have a commitment to continuous improvement. That is the goal for them Always be pushing boundaries of what we can do, asking for new things, asking your people to try new things. We don't want to stagnate. We don't want to stay still and coast. We're going to definitely push the boundaries. In a city of innovation, we should be on the forefront of that, and that's really our goal, and that's how I kind of tailor my message to all of my commanders every single day. What are we doing to improve now?
Steve Morreale:So where does that come from? Was that internal? Were you around other people who had that same mindset? It seems to me that you know you are a lifer at Chandler, and yet I'd be curious to know where you catch new ideas. Maybe it's with the IACP, or maybe it's with the Chiefs Association, or reading. My question is you know what? What pushes the boundaries for you, for jason?
Jason Sieczkowski:the answer is yes to all of that. I like to joke lovingly that we don't come up with any original ideas. We just steal them from other people. That's okay. It's about leveraging relationships, leveraging those networks that we build throughout this entire career. It's through organizations like the FBI and Northwestern Command College. Iacp, the Arizona Chiefs Association. I'm also a member, just randomly, of the Florida Chiefs Association because it's a good way to get a new perspective from the East Coast and they would let me in. I reached out to a number of other chiefs associations and they said well, if you don't live here, you can't really be a part of it, but florida florida was desperate and they brought you in huh like hey, come on board, why not?
Jason Sieczkowski:that's great pay my money and I get to go see what they're talking about on the florida chiefs board, and it opens up another avenue of ideas and innovation, even if they're doing the same things. That we are right. This cop work is the same no matter where you go Calls for service, the challenges that cities deal with but the approach to addressing some of those things varies geographically, and why wouldn't we look to that? It's a perspective I've never had, growing up on the West Coast and then spending my entire adult life in Arizona. We're always looking for those new ideas.
Steve Morreale:I'm glad to hear that, because sometimes you have people who almost have blinders on and they just become sort of insular. So the lesson I'm hearing from you is reach out to others, because other people are doing it, but they may just have a just a slightly different perspective that we can adapt, because to me, a leader is somebody who looks at material and looks to figure out how to adapt it for them. And I would presume and that's a presumption on my part, jason, but that when you're looking at documentation or reading, it's not always from the police sector. Is that true?
Jason Sieczkowski:It's absolutely true. We support classes through Arizona State University. It's integrating with our non-governmental partners. Intel's a big driver of innovation in our city, so we try to partner with them. How are you leveraging what you're doing in your industry and how can we translate that into the public sector of government work? It really comes down to just collaborating with all sides of industry because ultimately we're all kind of dealing with the same things.
Steve Morreale:Well, that's interesting and it seems that many, many years ago I was I was lucky, when I was in the business, to take advantage of the bootstrap program, which was an IACP program, and what they were doing, well before its time I think. They were reaching out to industry leaders insurance, banking, healthcare and saying would you be willing to grab a couple of law enforcement people to your training for leadership? Because, as you understand, yes, leadership and policing is a little bit different because of what we do day to day, but leadership is just about people and about motivating people, and so that's interesting. When you said Intel, you're talking about the Intel Corporation. Yes, sir, ah, I see, yeah, that makes an awful lot of sense because clearly they're pushing people for innovation, and that makes me think about I had just written a book.
Steve Morreale:It is called Leading Police with AI your Thought Partner Enhancing Strategic Thinking, productivity and Creativity, or Innovation, and I think that's exactly what we have to do. You're pushing the envelope and I love to hear that. We're talking to Jason Sikowski and he is an assistant chief in Chandler, arizona, but one of the things I wonder, one of the things I wonder Jason, is what motivates you to never stand or rest on your laurels, to always be moving forward and always be looking for innovative ideas.
Jason Sieczkowski:I want to leave the place better than I showed up here. I look back over 19 years and I think to what we had when I started in 2006, to where we've come now and really just the innovation that's taken place across those 19 years and the drivers that have gotten us there, and if we didn't have those people in place, we would never be where we are now. I want to be one of those people. I want to be driving the organization forward, on the cutting edge. I want to be the beacon for other agencies to look to and say okay, the city of Chandler is doing this. How can we now do this too? It's leveraging real-time, leveraging AI, like you just mentioned, utilizing non-sworn staff to take calls for service away from our sworn staff, where they can then focus on things that cops need to focus on. It's being on the forefront of that innovation. It's driving the business forward and really just pushing us into that new, new era.
Jason Sieczkowski:We're looking at a significant generational shift across the industry right now. Um, and, quite frankly, it's. I don't know if we'll go into this, but it's one of the struggles we're facing, where we honor tradition, but sometimes we're too married to it as well, and we need to break free from that. Tradition is there for a reason. Tradition is fantastic and it's got its place. But just because we've always done it that way, we can't continue to do it that way. We'd still be carrying real guns, we wouldn't have computers in cars, we wouldn't have cell phones, we wouldn't have a real-time prime, you wouldn't have drone as first responder right now if we stayed stagnant. So, really, what does it look like in five years from now, in 10 years from now, and how can I help set us up and my team to get us into that new era?
Steve Morreale:One of the things that I espouse, and I believe that a leader, a true leader, is really not focused on themselves anymore, but focused on the other people around them, and I have a belief that who you leave in your wake is sort of your legacy in a lot of ways. In other words, who are you, who are your commanders looking to develop so that the organization can be sustained? Not in your own likeness, but somebody who is willing to take on responsibility and giving them that opportunity. Talk about that in your life.
Jason Sieczkowski:I think it's a great question. So it's one of our current things that we're embarking on. We discovered historically we've had a lot of single points of fit and receive where if somebody I think we're pretty not unique in this arena, that I think it's over half of our department could retire today if they wanted to, just based on tenure and kind of how the cycle has gone through hiring, some evolutions of budgets and all the other things that play into that. So we see that someone could leave tomorrow and what kind of institutional, organizational knowledge are they taking with them? And what we've seen historically is we haven't done a good job of, I guess, implementing that succession planning to ensure that that knowledge is passed down and that the person that next fills their seat can basically hit the ground running. That's one of the things we just did.
Jason Sieczkowski:I just opened up a sergeant position in our advanced training unit. That sergeant that's in that seat right now retires end of June of 2026. We're going to identify that new sergeant this month and give them almost a year of lead up time. Now they won't fill that seat. They're still going to be in patrol or in detectives. Wherever they're going to come from, they'll still be in that seat, but we're going to bring them into as we build out the training calendar for 2026, we're going to start sending them to all those certification classes that they'll need to be successful in that role. Understanding that 11 months of lead up time is probably pretty close to what it's going to take to ensure we have continuity of operations. So as we look to do that, we're doing that through all ranks now. It's right now. My next sergeant that's on the list is riding full time with a sergeant right now acting as an officer in charge. He's going to get promoted, probably end of October.
Steve Morreale:So this is, this is almost a field training sergeant.
Jason Sieczkowski:So he's going to. He's in detectives right now. They can spare his position and his fellow detectives can pick up his caseload, his workload, and we can put him with a sergeant right now to basically work through that entire field training process. So when one sergeant retires he'll come in, fill that seat and he hits the ground running taking over patrol squad. This is one of our long-term goals that our new chief chief Chapman has really pushed us to integrate into the organization is long-term succession planning that overlap in the long runway. So that's kind of where we're going with that.
Steve Morreale:Yeah, that's amazingly unique. I have to say, at least to the number of people I have interviewed, that I don't hear an awful lot of that. The military does pretty much the same thing. We don't we emulate the military. We say we do, but the military prepares you well in advance for the next position, and it sounds like you're doing the same thing to identify that. And the other thing is that person who's getting ready to retire. It seems to me that the idea of knowledge management would be that somebody would be there to say hey Joe, let's talk for a little while. Let's spend an hour a week to talk about what you know now about this position that you wish you knew when you first got there. In other words, how can we capture some of the information and the beliefs and the practices that you have developed over the years so that we can pass it down and allow others not necessarily to step in the same mud as you had to? What do you think about that idea?
Jason Sieczkowski:No, I think it's fantastic. It's let's learn from our mistakes, let's learn from where we were maybe deficient and how can we mitigate that. The whole job as assistant chiefs, commanders, lieutenants is that mitigation of liability. And we think liability in the operational sense right, protecting our officers, the city, the community. But it's also internal, organizational liability. And that's if I'm putting leaders over teams, how have I prepared them to deal with the personnel issues, the operational issues, the administrative issues, all of the things that come with those roles and that responsibility to make sure that we care for and value our people? They are truly our greatest asset. And if we're deficient in preparing them to take those roles on day one, we've done the team no favors and we've certainly done that leader no favor.
Steve Morreale:So interesting to hear that You're a whole much smarter than you look, jason, I'm just saying I can see you. I'm teasing, of course I can see you and you've got a great sense of humor, and I'm only teasing. I know that. But I want to ask this question. You talked about measurement and it also strikes me that we don't measure some of the things we there, and yet 90% of the time policing do not go hands-on right. Most of it is not getting involved in arrests.
Steve Morreale:And I understand how dangerous it can be when it gets to that point. But you're talking about relationships and knowing the community and knowing the schools and knowing the businesses. And how do you convey that? To patrol, to be ready but not always have to be in a command and control mindset?
Jason Sieczkowski:It's that becomes challenging in some areas. Right, because we think of what do cops want to do? We want to drive fast, turn on red and blue lights. We give all this cool equipment, even though that's only 5% to 10% of the job. Right, it is really trying to highlight.
Jason Sieczkowski:Hey guys, we have a program that's called SpiderTech I think it just changed its name because it got bought out by another company. It's basically Yelp reviews for cops, what we call it internally. We have it playing across all the TVs in the precincts. I can send you a picture after we're done filming here so you can see what that looks like. For us it's a state-paid program, so it doesn't cost us a dime, which is great. And so every time our officers are interacting with the public, it sends that individual if they're a victim of crime or if they were in a traffic collision, something like that. Hey, here's the call number, here's the call for service and here's a link. Click on it and tell us how we did. Tell us how we serve you. We want to know how are we serving the community. So every morning at 6 am, I get an email of all the calls from the day before that. People filled these out.
Jason Sieczkowski:Right now, our rating for calls for service that we responded to is, I think, 4.73 out of 5. People love us. Our cops are serving the community in such an incredible fashion and they're providing that level of customer service. And to be able to measure that and then share that with city council, share that with the city manager and share that with the community really helps us enhance our brand. It shows the community you see cops as the enforcement wing of the government.
Jason Sieczkowski:There's all of these other kind of things that come with policing, but in reality we're a customer service organization and I can show you why. I can show you how we measure our level of customer service, where a year and a half ago I could just say, yeah, we're doing well, but now I can show you a metric to say this is from the community. These are people that interacted with our officers and there's text boxes that they can fill out. Underneath those ratings, we have the free form comments. I just saw one when I was walking into my office to film this. Officer Aguilar responded to my rear end collision. He was professional, he was fast and I love the Chandler Police Department and we play those constantly on the loop to let everyone know and it's a constant reminder for patrol sergeants, lieutenants, commanders, everybody Everything we do is community based and it's important. And look at how we're serving the community. The community supports you, they love you and this is kind of. This is the fruits of your labor.
Steve Morreale:Well, it's positive reinforcement, which is amazing that that would happen. And so in your time in policing, I'm sure does Chandler have body-worn cams? Absolutely. How has that changed people's behavior, your ability to analyze and assess someone's demeanor, behavior, interactions?
Jason Sieczkowski:it certainly makes it easier from an administrative perspective. I was actually one of the first ones in the department to get a body worn camera on the bike team when I was there back in 2000. Gosh, what was that? 14, 13, somewhere in that range. Um, I was one of the first ones in the department to get one. I was actually open to it. I loved it because it made my cases easier to prosecute.
Steve Morreale:And you can remember what the hell happened, right, because you've got video content on it.
Jason Sieczkowski:They did say that. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. It's fantastic and again, it serves as a way to really highlight positive behavior but also address negative behavior, because we know that people are people. We're going to come up short at times. It's just the reality of human nature. So we can certainly use it to address that. But what we really try to focus on is also highlighting positive behavior.
Jason Sieczkowski:One of the goals for sergeants and lieutenants is they have to do a random audit of two videos a month from their officers. We've limited it to videos of 20 minutes or less. We use Axon Performance and running in the background of our evidencecom portal and it picks two videos at random. They click on watch, they watch the video. They can put comments in there. Hey, you did great on this call Love the de-escalation. What I want you to work on is maybe this next time, or let's talk about the tactics you used on this and it's a way that we can measure and always look to improve but also then reinforce those positive outcomes or positive things that we're doing in the community and for people.
Steve Morreale:Great. There's a couple of questions. We're talking to Jason Sikowski and he is in Chandler, arizona. He is the assistant chief responsible for the uniform division and one thing is, as you sit back and reflect early on you talked about data-driven oversight and management and, of course, evidence-based policing is big now and being pushed quite a bit. Are we, in policing, measuring the right things? We have a tendency to count beans. We made these kinds of stops and of these stops, this was a warning, this was a ticket, this was a felony stop, this was a misdemeanor. We issued a summons. We're counting most of the enforcement stuff. Do we count the community stuff?
Jason Sieczkowski:That's where I think we're getting better, but I think there's definitely room to improve. It's funny we just talked about this kind of yesterday in a retirement that I was in and one of our traffic officers was retiring after 25, almost 26 years and I told him I said, gary, the things that we can't measure are things that we'll never know. How many lives did you save by stopping that DUI? How many lives did you save by stopping a speeding car? I'll be honest, I don't know how we'll ever measure that. But I come back to things like SpiderTech, things like Axon Performance that are allowing us to really kind of measure how we're interacting in the community. Getting away from enforcement stops, getting away from arrests, tickets, subject stops, contacts those are all important measurables. I don't want to diminish that. But it's also how are we building community trust, how are we building community cohesiveness? Just understanding that without the public support we don't exist as law enforcement, certainly not here in Chandler, but anywhere. So I think we've gotten better by kind of developing some of these new technologies that can show us and really stepping outside the comfort zone. Again, I hate to harp on our spider tech.
Jason Sieczkowski:When we rolled that out, it was met. I think I had people at my office door with pitchforks and torches. I had to do a Kevlar reinforcement on the wall. I mean it was not. Those were some difficult briefings to sit in, telling people. Hey, you know, after you meet and interact with someone, they're going to get a survey link to tell us how you did and tell us if you did well. If they felt you came up short, we're going to see it because our community deserves it. We want transparency, we want to enhance that transparency and it was. There was a lot of fear, a lot of apprehension, I'll even dare say some anger.
Steve Morreale:Well, it was fear of the unknown and and what. What they're going to be? You're going to be able to complain about me.
Jason Sieczkowski:Well, it was how many eyes are you going to cut because of this? And, steve, do you know how many IAs we've cut because of that technology? No, zero, zero. We haven't cut a single one. We have had conversations with people hey, this came up, let's go back and watch the body-worn camera and let's assess, kind of, where we're at. But we've issued absolutely zero discipline as a result of that. But it does allow us perspective in things that maybe we would have missed before, because we can't watch Everybody can, the sergeant can't be on scene of every call and it allows us to kind of address maybe some minor things when we've fallen short and get that person on track or say, hey, let's tweak this for next time. You know, maybe not for them that way. Or let's look at this as a perspective.
Steve Morreale:And I was going to say perception is reality to so many people and if you're coming on strong, that's. You know, everybody is touchy and again, in all of the training I do, you can come on strong, but you don't have to start strong, right? I mean, it's that whole idea of de-escalation. Let me ask you this Do you feel that you are a leader when you're in meetings, where you're listening better but, more importantly, that you're leading with questions? You're posing questions to get people to think more deeply?
Jason Sieczkowski:Absolutely, I think, the best meetings I run are where I talk to me. Absolutely, I think the best meetings I run are where I talk the least, where I can just sit back, maybe do the introduction. Hey, set kind of the vision or the parameters. This is where we're trying to get to. What do you all think and how do we get there? Because I think you said it best, steve, smarter than I.
Jason Sieczkowski:Look right, if I just sit back and I let the people that actually know these roles, know these jobs and do that process every day talk and come up with a decision A there's better buy-in and B it's just going to be better. Because I'll be honest, I don't know. I've never booked someone into our jail Once we went to the new jail system. I've never done it. So how am I going to direct a project that deals with that? But if I talk to the detention sergeant, the detention officers, the patrol officers that are dealing with it every day, hey, come up with a new process and tell me how to get there. They know they're important, their opinion and their perspective is valued and it allows them to then carry that message forward. Hey, we came up with this, it wasn't forward. Hey, we came up with this. It wasn't quote admin that came up with this. This is the process we wanted and we decided on, and we work there collaboratively to get there.
Steve Morreale:That's terrific to hear, and it seems to me. So let me go back a little bit, without throwing anybody under the bus. I'm sure in the past you have worked for bosses that do not engage, that did not seek input, that were sort of more authoritative. This is what we're talking about and you know you've been at all kinds of meetings, and so have I. Where it is a sit down and it is a barking out of well, got to do this, got to do that, got to do this Any questions, and when the questions come up, the person has a look on it that says I don't want your questions. I'm sure that over time you have changed, but how do you set the table? Literally, you're chuckling. So respond to that.
Jason Sieczkowski:How do I set the table? Sorry, mr Carter, you kind of no. No what?
Steve Morreale:I'm asking is you chuckled a little bit?
Jason Sieczkowski:I'm curious why obviously you know those kinds of people. So the quote that I've told so many people and I said it really kind of set where I've gone or tried to go as a leader. I'm sure there's others that would disagree, but I remember I was in a meeting with meeting with someone who was higher up in the organization, and the quote was I don't pay you for your opinion. And I went okay, I know where I stand now. Let me give you a spreadsheet. Here you are. It was that really. It sticks with me.
Jason Sieczkowski:I still remember the meeting to this day, and I never wanted to be that person, which is weird, because I'm good friends with this person still to this day. I still talk to them, we're very good friends, we're close, but it was in that moment I knew that wasn't the leader I wanted to be, and I was a sergeant at the time, and it just kind of sets me up. It's a good reminder and again, I'm not perfect, I'm not here to tell you I am. I'm sure I've run meetings like that. I know I've never said that though, and so it's. It's just that reminder of hey, you know, the first, the very first priority that we have in leadership in our organization is we care for and value people. And if I'm using phrases like that, I'm not living that. In fact, I'm the opposite of that. Right, you're diminishing them.
Steve Morreale:Right, you're diminishing them Right, you're diminishing them, and it's interesting because I say this in so many trainings that I do, and that is that we are in a discipline sometimes that hires supposedly the best and then all too often, especially when they're young and they're rookies, or a couple of years in, we tell them to sit there, shut up. We're not looking for input, and I think it's a major mistake and I think we need to value our people and it sounds like that's what's happening. But again, going back to the question about setting the table, so you are now no longer a commander, you've risen up, you are one of the top four in the Chandler Police Department and you're running the meeting for the first time. How do you set the table about expectations, about when I'm, when we're having a meeting? I value your input, I expect your input. I do not want silence. Tell me how those that was set for you.
Jason Sieczkowski:I actually lay it out just like that. I go hey, this meeting isn't about me, it's about trying to get to a better process, get to whatever outcome we're trying to achieve. I need that through conversation, through discussion, and if I'm taking us down a bad path, not only do I expect that you're going to tell me, I demand it Because if we go down a bad path and you don't say anything about it, we've all failed. It's not just on me, it's on all of us. I need honest feedback. I'm putting my ego aside and if I have a bad idea, please tell me, because I would rather pivot and change it, even if we've already gone down the road. Then just keep operating under sunk costs of well, we're just going to keep dumping things into this, even though this is terrible. So I think it's important to have that open, honest dialogue, especially at the beginning, when we start having meetings, on whatever we're trying to accomplish. Let's be open and honest. Try to take the rank out of it in here. I gotcha.
Steve Morreale:I think it's important for leaders to recognize that they don't know everything and admit that, and I think the leaders who I began to lose respect for were people who would say things just to be fillers and they were wrong. Everything. And that to me was not, was not anything negative, because you can't, you don't know what you don't know. And and if you don't know everything and you and you realize that, how important is this word in your bearing as a leader vulnerability and humility.
Jason Sieczkowski:Incredibly important. Talk about it. Vulnerability equals trust. If I'm not vulnerable to my staff and my personnel at all levels, they're not going to trust me. If I look like a robot to them, why would they ever open up to me? Why would they talk to me? Why would they want to? I'm very open.
Jason Sieczkowski:I have pictures of my wife, my kids, my dogs around my office. We shoot a weekly video here called Inside Command. It's kind of my joke. One of my wife, my kids, my dogs around my office. We shoot a weekly video here called Inside Command. It's kind of my joke. One of my dogs, portillo. He's a little dachshund. He sits over my shoulder in that video and so we shoot him at different locations and I take that picture with me now and he's always over my shoulder and it's a way to say look, the assistant chief is human. We have a lot of new cops who probably don't know me. They know who I am when I walk by, but if it just creates a little bit sense of no, he's actually a normal person, that's always a good thing. To be vulnerable, it builds trust. That's the key. And letting them know hey, I'm not perfect, I've made mistakes. Hey, I know, I'm giving you discipline out of this IA. Let me tell you about the pursuit I had back in 2009 where I took a hit. You can overcome this.
Steve Morreale:It's okay. It's not fatal, right? Yeah, you know we have to be accountable. This is our way of holding you accountable. But now go back, get back on your horse and get back to work.
Jason Sieczkowski:It's okay. Like that's okay. We all make mistakes. You'll overcome this. We've got you on a good path and I've been there too, Like I've got hits in my jacket, so it's okay.
Steve Morreale:You know, and I I I love to use the word hope. You know I had a boss who would say you know, steve, I see what you do with people and and what I do realize is that even when you're chewing them out, the one thing you do is you give them hope hope that they can learn from this and hope that they can do better and hope that they can overcome this and go down. You know the correct path and that that, to me, was a was a badge of honor. I think, in a lot of ways, that you always have to give people hope.
Jason Sieczkowski:Yeah, it always comes from a position of love, like we love you as a human, as an employee, as a man or woman, like we, we value you in the organization and just you in general.
Steve Morreale:And this may hurt right now, it may not make you feel good, but we're still here to support you. Well, I always say that getting a bit from behind just gives you calluses on your ass, and that's what made me a little bit stronger as I went through my little rips here and there. The 40 under 40, that particular award what did that mean to you? That's pretty special.
Jason Sieczkowski:Just an incredible honor, something I didn't expect. I remember my wife and I were on a staycation in Tucson and I got the call from my then assistant chief saying that I got that. I got it. I didn't even know they put me in for it. Just an incredible honor to be one of those individuals nominated, named, selected to receive it out of the, the IACP global, you know ecosystem.
Steve Morreale:Just incredible honor what did it change for you with that honor?
Jason Sieczkowski:I don't think it didn't change much.
Steve Morreale:You didn't get paid anymore.
Jason Sieczkowski:I understand all that kind of stuff, but but I have a great trophy that sits on my desk right back there. Yes, it was a. What it did was it opened another avenue of networking. I talked to some of those people still over LinkedIn and, just again, share perspectives. Some of them aren't even in law enforcement anymore and they run their own business, a consulting business, things along those lines and I think it's an avenue of perspective where you can see what other people are doing.
Jason Sieczkowski:Hey, how did you overcome this? And again, we're not all in the same realm, right. Some are PIOs, some are pio, some are cops, some were. You know other arenas in the law enforcement, you know big machine. How did you deal with this? What technology you're using? Now, how did you deal with this personnel issue? Like, I've got an employee that's doing this. Have you ever seen this? How? How did you do this? Or how did you navigate that successfully? So I think for me, the biggest avenue that it opened was just that networking side of it and like-minded leaders who are generationally similar too. Again, kind of go back to the generational shift in law enforcement, and it's good to have people that are of a similar tenure, that you can lean on and say how are you doing?
Steve Morreale:That's interesting because I think, and that's why I begin to focus on the 40 under 40 because you are the future. Obviously, you're here in the, you're in the present tense, but you are the future and those who make it, and the 40 who were just named, from all over the world, just as are amazing to me, and some are civilian staff and some are, some are I don't mean simply, but sergeants and a few officers there. So it's very, very important. I want to ask and we're talking to Jason Sikowsky and he's in Arizona but if you had to give me some words to describe your leadership philosophy, what might that be? Philosophy? What might that be? In other words, what are the things that you hold dear to you about interacting with other people and working on your leadership approach with them?
Jason Sieczkowski:It all comes back to the philosophy of continuous improvement. That's the biggest thing. It's pushing people to always be improving. Every day should be a little bit better than the last. We should always be uncomfortable in what we're doing, um, and be striving to be a little bit better than the day before personally, professionally, spiritually, financially, whatever that looks like for you and it's not always unique, it's not always going to be the same thing, right, you're going to have an off day at work, that's okay. How are you working on your personal life then? How are you working on your physical fitness? How are you working on your mental fitness? You know, academic fitness it doesn't have to just be professionally related, but if we're always striving to be in that mindset of continuous improvement, that's where everything starts with. Is what we're doing here leading to a better outcome for you, for the organization, for our community, for our city? How are we improving?
Steve Morreale:They say leaders are readers. What are you reading?
Jason Sieczkowski:Oh man, right now Not much, Steve.
Steve Morreale:Okay, so you're not a leader, you're not reading. No, no, no, no.
Jason Sieczkowski:It's been a while.
Steve Morreale:But what? No, I'm not talking about books as much as you know where. What are you looking at? You know to keep sharp and keep on top of things. Are you looking at at police chief magazine? Are you reading any blogs, those kinds of things? You know what is what is pushing you to to think bigger, and if you find an article, do you share that with some of your other leaders.
Jason Sieczkowski:Oh, all the time it's the IACP monthly, the police chief magazine, different articles that are coming out on IACP PERF. Certainly it's those law enforcement publications. That's what we're constantly sharing back and forth over email blogs, just interacting with the other, even just chiefs here that are a part of different organizations that they're seeing, you know, different publications coming out through their arenas and how can we leverage that in field ops?
Steve Morreale:Great. I'm glad to hear that New officer comes in. Obviously for most, first stop is patrol. Do you have the opportunity to sit with them?
Jason Sieczkowski:Every time.
Steve Morreale:Tell me what that's about.
Jason Sieczkowski:Yeah. So I go meet with them when they're in their post-academy phase. So, even if they're laterals or new recruits that have just graduated the academy, I make time. I take 15 minutes or so, 20 minutes maybe to go sit with their group and I introduce myself first of all. I tell them hey, I know, when we got your new hire email, I sent you this email. It says welcome. Hey, we're part of a broader family up here.
Jason Sieczkowski:New organizations and change is always scary, but we're here to make sure you're successful. Here's my phone number. Here's my email. It's on 24-7. You can always call me. I've never gotten a call from one of them yet, but I put it out there and when I go sit down with them, I tell them okay, this is who I am, this is how I got here. This has kind of been my path to get here and this is what I've seen. You're going to choose your own path now and we're blessed to have you as part of our organization, no matter where you've come from.
Jason Sieczkowski:We want your ideas, just like I want you to steal our ideas and send them back to where you came from, especially if they're laterals. Maybe you've seen a process that is better than ours, I want you to bring that here and I want you to share that up the chain. And, conversely, if you see a process that we do that's better than where you came from, or a program, something, steal it and share it with your old agency. Please do. If you see a tactic that they should use, because you know we're well-connected in the state of Arizona here, send it. We want our people to Send it. We want our people to be safe. We want you to serve your community better, so we are open to it. That is what. That's where we've gotten half of our ideas. These are laterals that we're hiring. It's they bring ideas from their agency in Michigan, in New York, in Washington, california, new Mexico, wherever they're coming from. We're taking ideas and bringing them and linking them ours.
Steve Morreale:So you're, you're looking at laterals from all over the country.
Jason Sieczkowski:We leverage laterals. We're literally unique in the Valley. We lean on laterals more than new recruits. We've seen such a high level of success with them that that's where we're really targeting a lot of our recruiting efforts.
Steve Morreale:Really and you've had success.
Jason Sieczkowski:It's also easy to get them on board. We don't have to wait six months for an academy and then a full FTO process. We can speed up the FTO process frequently and get them solo capable a lot faster. I'm amazed at the amount of success we've had with Laterals. I know when we started down that path there was some apprehension People are running from agencies and all the other kind of things that come with always hear about laterals. We have not seen that. It's been a point of pride for us, in fact.
Steve Morreale:That's an interesting concept. I'm glad to hear that because I know that I saw Florida saying, even when the FBI was having problems, that we'll take if if you've been spurned by your agency will take you. And I think that's that's very interesting because I know when you're looking at laterals you have the ability to go and look at their background to see whether or not they've had a lot of complaints and if they pass muster then that's pretty good because they've already come in trained. You just have to retrain them the Chandler way, I'm sure.
Jason Sieczkowski:We do. I was just talking to one in the hallway that just finished up his polygraph before I came in.
Steve Morreale:So one of the things you indicated was there were generational differences coming. It does not mean because somebody is a 20-something and has a different life view that they are not going to be beneficial to the organization. In a lot of ways, I think leaders have to adapt More than asking them to adapt to us. We have to adapt to them in a lot of ways because they bring a lot to the table if we ask. Talk about what that means to you. The generational differences.
Jason Sieczkowski:I think you again you've hit it spot on. I think those 20 plus year cops that's who we're really leaning on to impart institutional, organizational knowledge on our new cops. Tell them what the Chandler way is. Tell them how we've gotten to where we are. Tell them about the history good and bad. Tell them how we've misstepped as an organization the controversies that we've been embroiled in, because that's going to help them shape their path to avoid those as we go down the road. And on that same page, I ask that our 20-year cops be open to new ideas from our young, our young cops that are coming out of the private sector. They're coming from real estate agents, technology backgrounds, ai firms. Let them teach you how to do some new things that we've never been a part of as an organization. So, just just like I say, generational differences doesn't mean it's going to be a fight. It's just we have to work together and be open-minded, be willing to change, learn, grow, bend and adapt.
Steve Morreale:Well, in a lot of ways we're hiring our own kids, right, If you're a 20-something person, you're hiring someone similar to your own kin and you have to be receptive to that and be willing to understand that there are differences. There's a difference in work ethic, and that's an adaptation that we all have to deal with in my mind. But I love to use the ladder of life is what I call it and I draw a ladder, If I can have you visualize this, I draw a ladder and I put 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 on the side of the ladder. And what I say when I'm saying that we have 20 something, 30 something, 40 something, 50 somethings and in some cases, 60 somethings working in our organization.
Steve Morreale:Each one of those generations has a different view of work and of the 20-somethings and it's going to cause friction, naturally, until we become open-minded and receptive. And it sounds like you're closer, even at your age. You're closer to the 20-something than a late 60-something and I presume that sometimes you have to have conversations with someone who may be older than you to basically buffer what that 20-something brings to the table. It looks like that does happen. Talk to me.
Jason Sieczkowski:That was one of my biggest challenges promoting into leadership. I was younger than a lot of the people I would supervise and having to kind of overcome the generational gap there and really what that looks like for them. But going back to your question about maybe being the buffer or the conduit between those generations, I think that our 20-year-olds, our 20-somethings and fun fact, I've got a 21-year-old daughter who I'm like and I could hire her in McKinsey they're smarter than we've ever been, even my generation of 19, 20 years on. Certainly we have some people that have been here for 30 years. They are smarter and better equipped than we've ever been, and I say that kindly. They are smarter and better equipped than we've ever been, and I say that kindly.
Jason Sieczkowski:But when we look at it from what's the big? What's the big talking point in policing right now? Ai and wellness, right like technology and wellness are two big kind of pillars that we're all focusing on in the space we're living in right now. One of the things that our chief tells everyone when they retire is I hope you left here better or physically, mentally fit than when you started. And yesterday in the retirement I heard him say but that may not be accurate for you because historically we haven't done a good job of making that priority.
Jason Sieczkowski:A lot of our older generation and I see it, one of our officers that retired last year he was working 50, 70 hours a week of overtime because he valued money. He valued that money that came from that and working those shifts and I worry about that because, well, he valued that. You know what he called the work ethic. What is that doing to your long-term health, longevity, resiliency Whereas I have a 21, 22, 23, up to 25 year old, maybe they want to do 40 now and they want to spend time with their family, their kids, their dogs, whatever that looks like and work out or hike or whatever, yeah, to keep themselves fit.
Jason Sieczkowski:That's a smarter avenue than we've ever taken. Because they have longevity. They know that pensions have changed. They can't retire until they're 52 and a half now, right Whereas I can retire at 42. They're going to be here for a lot longer tenure. They've got to do a better job of taking care of themselves and they have more information to do that with, more resources to do that with. So, while the image or the perspective may be, well, they don't work hard and they're not here. They're not picking up all the overtime. Is that a bad thing? We have 348 cops that can pick up overtime. Why is it all on that one person? You're going to retire in a year and you've done 25 years. They have to do 30. They're better equipped mentally, physically, emotionally to do this job than we've ever been. So why don't we look to them and celebrate that instead and say, hey, maybe they're actually on the right track and maybe a broader section of the department needs to pick up some of those shifts and we can all collectively split that apart?
Steve Morreale:Yeah, that's a great perspective and a great point of view that you hold and have and that you've conveyed to us. Let me ask as we wind down. We're talking to Jason Sikowski and he's a Chandler, he's an assistant chief and he was one of the 40 under 40 with the ICP.
Jason Sieczkowski:What did you think when I called you? I thought it was a spam call Steve, 30 a day. No, I was shocked. Honestly, I did not expect that. It's always an honor every time I get to talk to any group and share who we are as Chandler Police Department, chandler as a city. I believe we're a premier law enforcement agency. I believe we're a premier city, a city built on resilience and an organization certainly built on that. Just an honor, like I said, anytime I can share anything that we're doing and maybe help someone else out, it's a very happy day for me Good.
Steve Morreale:I'm glad I think you know I chided you a bit that you look that you're smarter than you look, but the fact is, I think that you sit there and what you're conveying is that you're a thought leader and you are working with your agency to try to make it a better agency than it already is, and that's quite a step, I think. I'm so glad to be able to chat with you and look forward to dealing with you in the future, but I just want to ask you what your view is, because policing has gone through some difficult times and I think we're on the upswing, but what's your belief in policing as a career?
Jason Sieczkowski:I think it's the greatest career. I think it's a noble profession. It is an absolute necessity of a job. I think people call us when they're having bad days. Human nature is we're not always going to get along. There will always be a need for it. I cannot imagine a better career where you can make a bigger impact on anything from an individual's life to an entire community. I think this is the greatest job in the world. There's nothing else I can imagine doing.
Steve Morreale:Well, like you said earlier, it seems to me, if we can look, there are certain segments of Chandler or any other city that cause a great deal of problems. That cause a great deal of problems and yet there are some great people who live even in those areas. And you know, I just wonder, you know how you help create the mindset that it's not us against them, that we're guardians. We'll be warriors when we have to be, but generally guardians. Is that a fair assessment?
Jason Sieczkowski:Yeah, absolutely Every day. We have to be integrated into the community. Every day we have to be a part of this city, in this community, and we do that through just simple interactions. It's the moments of truth, velocity, right. Every interaction is a chance to make a positive impression, where every time we're talking to somebody, even when I stop at at Starbucks in the morning right, I stopped there, I know the baristas by now you can say hi to people that are sitting waiting in line for coffee Maybe they're on their phone and just share hey, how's your day going? It's you become human Just because you wear a blue suit every day. We're still human and so when you can be vulnerable again coming back to that word you build trust, and that's just not internally, that's externally with our community. So, be vulnerable, say how's your day going, you know.
Steve Morreale:Well, I think, I think approachability becomes important, right that that. That that's what ends up happening. And when you're on a bike, that's a great way to approach people. When you're a dog officer, it's a great. It's a great way to approach people. When you're a dog officer, it's a great way to approach people. And I always say, whenever possible, make friends for the police department. We don't need more enemies, Right, Absolutely. It's a great point, Steve. Well, thank you very much. You have the last word. What do you leave your listeners with a positive view on policing and leadership?
Jason Sieczkowski:I think care for and value people. People are our greatest asset, internally in our cities and our communities. If we lead with caring for and valuing people, everything we do will be positive after that. People are what drives this world, this community, our profession. Everything we do is people-centric. So lead with that in your heart. Care for and value people. They are everything to us. So take care of yourselves, take care of your families and take care of your cities and everything else will fall into place Terrific.
Steve Morreale:We've been having the opportunity to talk to Jason Sikowski in Chandler, arizona, today, and so that's another episode of the Cop Talk podcast in the can. I thank you, jason, for taking the time to be with me.
Jason Sieczkowski:Thank you.
Steve Morreale:I wish you the best of luck. So that's it. Let me know if there's anybody I should be talking to. Thanks for reaching out. The last I checked 97 countries are listening and 3,600 cities, which just mystifies me. Thank you, don't be afraid to reach out. I'm always, very often, I'll call you if you reach out. So please let me know what we should be talking about, who we should be talking to. Thanks, keep your people safe.
Intro-Outro:Have a good day. This is the CopDoc podcast for regular episodes of interviews with thought leaders in policing.
