Good leadership is not just about supporting the marquis players, rather it's about ensuring the bench is qualified and prepared to take over when they have to. Like sports, this principle translates into the management of corrections.

"It's almost like baseball. When you look at the great teams -- the Dodgers and Braves --most build good farm systems. You take thousands of single A ball players at a lower level and when they jump to AA ball, there are different sets of skills that are needed. Then they move to AAA and to the Majors," said Robert Brown, Chief of the National Institute of Corrections' Academy Division.

The NIC has focused in recent years on the leadership training of managers, supervisors and executives in prisons and jails in an effort to raise the level of performance in corrections and increase professionalism.

"It used to be if I ran a good prison or managed a good jail, then that was good enough [to be a leader]. But the senior level managers need to look at whether their values are right, how do I prove that, how do I make changes and collaborate with others and build political coalitions so we can be more effective," said Brown. "We're not just the entity that is out in the woods someplace -- out in the far flung part of the state."

Being effective as a modern leader also has bearing on personal sustainability in the field.

"Let there be one good riot or disturbance and the political nature is such that you can find yourself out of a job because you have failed to meet the public's expectations," Brown said.

Some agencies pay heed to this and lead accordingly and some agencies don't, but they all should as corrections increasingly mirrors the operations of American business - where outcome management and a quality product are top priority.

Skills for Succession and Beyond

According to Susan McCampbell, corrections consultant and a former jail administrator in Broward County, Fla., corrections agencies should focus on succession planning along with the promotion of good leadership principles.

"[Administrators] are very talented, but they don't know how to inspire [those below them]. It's setting a vision and values and setting standards and that is much more difficult. Some don't know any different [about leading], [but] people need to know when they don't have these skills," she said.

Part of this succession planning concept is taking those managers with the raw leadership talent and giving them the opportunity to learn what their role might be down the line, as well as the larger vision and mission of the agency.

"The more you move up, what moves away is your capacity to be a good technician and what increases are the people skills and seeing the big picture," said Brown.

Aside from that, McCampbell said that agencies and agency heads should understand how to work with and motivate those on the lower end of the leadership spectrum - the Gen-Xers and the Millennials.

McCampbell said while the baby boomers are good at following directions, the Gen-Xers and younger staff want to be a part of the decision-making process. As a result, leaders cannot simply tell them to follow; they have to learn to do business differently.

This is all part of developing critical leadership skills that will bring corrections to a new operational level.

According to Brown, who is closely involved in the NIC's leadership training programs, corrections leaders are learning that they first need to understand themselves and what they believe in so that it can be passed down to those below them.

"When you look at executive competencies, they need to know who he or she is," he said "Leadership is more value driven. We are looking for someone with a sense of purpose, which is driven by values."

One of the core competencies for corrections leaders, Brown said, is being able to communicate with others; another is to be able to influence people.

These are important both for the lower level managers as well as the executives. Lower level managers need to be able to work with employees and offenders, while upper level executives need to be able to influence legislators and policy makers.

"The directors get the vision thing and setting goals but what has been a success [for other organizations] is creating an agenda - how are we going to get from where we are today to what we might face tomorrow," Brown said.

Corrections executives face a lonelier club at the top because of the political instability in state government. Legislators who would befriend a corrections commissioner several years ago are now being forced out of their positions by terms limits and may not have the time to forge a friendship. So, corrections commissioners need to be strong in purpose and make sure they are skilled at getting their message across.

Jeanne Stinchcomb, Associate Professor of the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida Atlantic University, agrees that making a mark externally is important for corrections leaders.

"It's unfortunate that there isn't more input into policy making, but there isn't. Corrections isn't asked, for the most part, and corrections doesn't offer," she said.

If communication were better between policy-makers and corrections officials, then some of the issues around rehabilitation and the cost to provide it might be resolved more quickly. But, Stinchcomb understands politically why some corrections leaders don't go there.

"It's a dangerous bridge to cross because you can get sucked into the political process. A corrections leader can say, 'Yes. I understand the vision.' But how do they affect it externally, instead they focus internally," she said.

Stinchcomb said years ago when she was involved in creating leadership development curriculum for corrections, the prevailing idea was that corrections leaders first and foremost learn to "grovel with dignity." Stinchcomb said corrections leaders need to go beyond that stage, but to do that those leaders have to be willing to take some risks.

"They are not getting the big picture of how does this contribute to achieving our goals, how does this contribute to the value and mission of the agency," she said. "Accomplishing change, if nothing else, is associated with leadership and corrections is such a status quo organization - how do you make that change? We are [traditionally] so reactive - wait until the cell block floods before you fix the leaky toilet."

Being more proactive is part of maturing as leaders. Stinchcomb said in corrections, some have to wean themselves from the excitement of fixing something in an emergency state.

"You get addicted to the reactive adrenaline rush and we are not able to do proactive planning. That's partly because we think of leadership that is done at the top, but it needs to be infused in every part of the organization," she said.

This is true in both the prison and jail setting, although there are slight differences in the needs of leaders from those environments. In jails, for example, many of the leadership issues revolve around internal conflict.

Rising Up and Leading

In a survey of sheriffs conducted by McCampbell and Stinchcomb for NIC, they found that the most pressing leadership issues were around personnel, establishing trust and dealing with conflict. Fiscal issues and political issues ranked lower on their list of challenges.

"Most of the challenges were having to separate from friends. They said, 'I have worked with these people for 25 years and now I have to manage them,'" McCampbell said.

She said two types of leaders rise to the level of sheriff and end up running jails. There are those who come up through the ranks and those who come in from the outside, such as police chiefs or FBI agents, with "a big broom."

The challenges for each may differ slightly but they relate to the same leadership problems.

Those who come up through the organization, are faced with the responsibility of liability for the jail and the actions of those who work there. When they try to make changes, McCampbell said, they experience resistance from those they know from lower in the command structure.

"Their friends say, 'Wait a minute. This used to be good enough for you.'" McCampbell said.

Those who come into a jail from the outside experience more trust issues. Those lower in rank may race to the new leader to establish a position, but these new leaders find it difficult to know who to believe.

"It's about building trust. They were floored because they had to balance the interests of those who got them elected versus ethics," McCampbell said.

Stinchcomb said one advantage that sheriffs have over state corrections leaders is they already have a relationship with the public and potentially a better opportunity to educate them about the issues. The down side is they also have a greater responsibility to appease their constituents.

From the survey responses, a new leadership curriculum, which will debut at the National Sheriffs' Institute (a collaboration between the National Institute of Corrections and the National Sheriffs' Association) this fall, will focus on some new approaches to leadership.

Stinchcomb said that the curriculum will touch upon self-awareness, communicating and establishing a vision and mission, ethics and values, power and influence, using teams to accomplish your mission and planning, evaluating and collaboration.

"The bottom line with all of this is we talk about understanding yourself, rather than commanding others and having all the answers. [It's about] asking the right questions and learning how to get the answers," said Stinchcomb.

In addition to accessing leadership training at the NSI and NIC, some corrections agencies have interwoven leadership principles into the regular 40-hour training for staff. The Michigan Department of Corrections has had its training in place for a few years now.

Michigan Trains Leaders from Top to Bottom

The Michigan Department of Corrections developed its Leadership Training Unit in January 2000 to work with newly appointed sergeants, but since then, the institute has covered all levels of leadership training.

"What we wanted to start with was the transition from being a corrections officer to a supervisor. That was the first thing we wanted to talk about," said Bill Hudson, Administrator for the Office of Training and Recruitment for the DOC.

In this 80-hour training, the sergeants learn how to encourage performance, deal with difficult people, conduct investigations, ethics and professionalism, deal with emergency situations, labor relations and work with the officers' union among other topics. But the training department and the then-director wanted to do more.

So the department set out to devise separate trainings for managers and supervisors as well as wardens and executive staff -- all focused on leadership principles.

"We had a new director who went around the state and talked to many staff and felt leadership training was needed because they needed to feel better about the jobs they do and we as supervisors and mangers could treat staff better," said Hudson.

According to Hudson, the leadership unit was proposed to be a part of DOC policy in order to maintain consistency in training and the leadership message.

When developing the curriculum, the training department surveyed both staff and supervisors at several levels to find out what the staff felt they needed and what the supervisors felt their staff were lacking.

According to Jeff Ferris, Manager of the Professional Development Section for the DOC's Office of Training and Recruitment, where the answers from staff and their supervisors intersected was where the training department created its curriculum.

In addition, the department created a Leadership Training Council that reports directly to the DOC Director, reviews the leadership curriculum and makes recommendations for changes every year.

Hudson, who is the Executive Secretary for the council, said that the administrators involved put a lot of time and energy into the leadership program and volunteer their time as "faculty" members to teach lower-level managers and supervisors.

The DOC's current director Patricia Caruso was one of those faculty members prior to her appointment and, as a result, the leadership training program has continued to receive support from the top level of the department - even in tough economic times.

"She lives our leadership," said Ferris.

Both Hudson and Ferris believe that the leadership training program is important for  other reasons as well.

"The workforce is getting older, there's going to be an exodus of a lot of employees and a lot of middle managers who go in behind deputies will leave. This [training] is allowing us to prepare," said Hudson.

Ferris agrees, and said that corrections departments nowadays do not have the luxury of preparing staff through experience on the job. This means leadership training, combined with mentoring and other on-the-job shadowing, is all the more important for corrections.

According to Brown of NIC, this is exactly the kind of preparation that corrections agencies should be doing to position corrections for the future.

"That's a part of finding what works, establishing goals and challenging the old ways of doing business," said Brown. "In today's world it takes future oriented and strategic thinking. Today that is very necessary."

Resources:

National Institute of Corrections -http://www.nicic.org

National Sheriffs' Institute - http://www.sheriffs.org/NSI/

Susan McCampbell - Center for Innovative Public Policies - http://www.cipp.org

Jeanne Stinchcomb - http://www.fau.edu/caupa/dcj/public/faculty/jstinchcomb.html

Fast Company -Leadership articles

http://www.fastcompany.com/guides/leadership.html