June 2026
LEADERSHIP BOOKSHELF
Continued from page 36
3. Productive Paranoia: Chiefs Who Prepare for the Worst“ Productive paranoia” sounds dramatic, but its meaning is simple and essential for policing: Always prepare for the situations that could break your agency. Not reactively— proactively.
10X organizations built:
• High reserves( in policing: staffing buffers, contingency budgets, officer wellness programs that prevent burnout)
• Risk awareness systems( early warning, after-action reviews, internal audits, CALEAstyle compliance systems)
• Scenario planning(“ What if we lose 20 % of our workforce?”“ What if the next national incident erupts here?”)
Southwest Airlines’ ability to survive 9 / 11 without layoffs or mass cancellations mirrors what resilient police agencies do during crises: maintain continuity, preserve morale, and act based on prepared plans rather than improvisation.
Productive paranoia in policing means:
• Never assuming calm will last
• Anticipating investigations, litigation, and community crises
• Preparing for political transition, budget pressure, or sudden crime spikes
• Ensuring the agency has the reserves— procedural, financial, relational, political, and moral— to withstand shocks
Leaders who“ zoom out” to understand the threat, then“ zoom in” to take decisive action, model exactly what Collins and Hansen describe.
4. Level 5 Ambition: SMaC for Police Chiefs The highest form of leadership Collins describes— Level 5 Leadership— is not about ego, personality, or visibility. It’ s about mission-driven ambition combined with humility. In policing, this means:
• Being ambitious for the agency, not for oneself
• Building systems that outlast one chief’ s tenure
• Prioritizing community trust and organizational integrity above personal credit
Level 5 leaders express this mission focus through a SMaC system:
For police agencies, SMaC may include:
• Clear use-of-force standards
• Transparent community engagement practices
• Standardized after-action reviews
• Formal leadership pipelines
• CALEA or NJSACOP accreditation
• Annual professional development benchmarks
• Codified pursuit policies
• Officer wellness systems
• Recruit-to-retire leadership development tracks
SMaC disciplines help agencies stay grounded even as legislation, public expectations, and incident-driven pressures shift. In fact, the most unstable agencies often share a common pattern from the comparison companies in Great by Choice: They abandon their systems too quickly in moments of turbulence. 10X agencies stay consistent and adjust methodically— not reactively.
The Role of Luck in Policing: Return on Luck, Not the Absence of It The book’ s most surprising finding is this: 10X organizations were not luckier.
They faced just as many bad events— and sometimes worse. But they achieved a much better Return on Luck because they were prepared, disciplined, and decisive when luck— either good or bad— arrived.
In policing, chiefs cannot control:
• When a major incident hits
• When a critical video goes viral
• When a staffing crisis worsens
• When political winds change
But chiefs can control:
• Preparation
• Culture
• Training
• Community capital built over decades
• Speed and clarity of response
• Decision-making structures
• Organizational resilience Continued on page 46
New Jersey Police Chief Magazine / 39