About This Course

Taking the Lead: Courageous Leadership for Today’s Public Safety Professionals provides public safety professionals of all ranks, sworn and civilian, with practical time-tested leadership lessons learned from the arena. The program has been developed to prepare today’s leaders to confront the new reality of heightened transparency and unprecedented expectations.

As one of the nation’s most experienced police chiefs, Harry P. Dolan, places a laser-like focus on specific leadership actions and traits that have led to success or failure when navigating challenging times. “We are not doomed to repeat history if we grow to understand that war stories may indeed be case studies. When combined with evidence-based research, these case studies and practical experience contain valuable leadership lessons."

Course Objectives

  • Understand the research on field leadership in public safety: STOP guessing and start applying what we know works.
  • Establish a solid understanding of performance motivational theory.
  • Identify what great leaders do when bad things happen.
  • Understand commander’s intent, unity in command and groupthink.
  • Build and maintain professional ethics throughout the organization: Why the “taking care of the troops" philosophy doesn’t have to result in compromising high expectations.

Instructor

CEO, Dolan Consulting Group

| Chief Harry Dolan (Ret.)

Harry P. Dolan is a 32-year police veteran who served as a Chief of Police since 1987. As one of the nation's most experienced police chiefs, he brings 25 years of public safety executive experience to Dolan Consulting Group. He retired in October 2012 as Chief of Police of the Raleigh (N.C.) Police Department, an agency comprised of nearly 900 employees in America's 42nd largest city.

Chief Dolan began his law enforcement career in 1980 as a deputy sheriff in Asheville, North Carolina and served there until early 1982, when he joined the Raleigh Police Department, where he served as a patrol officer. In 1987, he was appointed Chief of Police for the N.C. Department of Human Resources Police Department, located in Black Mountain. He served as Chief of Police in Lumberton, N.C. from 1992 until 1998, when he became Chief of Police of the Grand Rapids, Michigan Police Department. He served in that capacity for nearly ten years before becoming Chief of the Raleigh Police Department in September 2007. As Chief, he raised the bar at every organization and left each in a better position to both achieve and sustain success.

Harry Dolan has lectured throughout the United States and has trained thousands of public safety professionals in the fields of Leadership & Management, Communications Skills, and Community Policing. Past participants have consistently described Chief Dolan's presentations as career changing, characterized by his sense of humor and unique ability to maintain participants' interest throughout his training sessions. Chief Dolan's demonstrated ability to connect with his clientele and deliver insightful instruction all with uncompromising principles will be of tremendous value in the private sector.

Chief Dolan's unbridled passion to achieve service-excellence is a driving force behind Dolan Consulting Group. He is a graduate of Western Carolina University and holds a Master's Degree in Organizational Leadership and Management from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.