As Ohio’s director of public safety, Andy Wilson leads people committed to serving their communities. He believes every organization has energy lying dormant that, when tapped, will inspire and motivate team members — and, in turn, the leaders themselves. Hear how he develops a leadership culture by reaffirming the mission of these public servants and helping them be the best versions of themselves through empowerment, training and mentorship.  

Trevor Brown 0:04

Andy Wilson 1:11

Dean Brown, thank you very much for having me, it truly is an honor to be here with you today. And it's an honor to represent the the men and women of the Ohio Department of Public Safety. And our mission over here of really kind of keeping everybody in Ohio safe. So it's just great to be here to talk about what we do and talk about really leadership in the public safety space.

Trevor Brown 1:32

Right? Well, I'm glad I'm glad you started with mission. You know, I looked up Department of Public Safety and the sort of classic law enforcement vein is its mission is safety, service and protection. So how critical is clarity around what that mission means for the success of the organization. And as you think about the different people in the organization, do you think they all understand that mission in the same way?

Andy Wilson 1:59

Look at our mission of service, and protection is critical to everything we do. It is the centerpiece of who we are, and what we're we represent here at the Ohio Department of Public Safety. Everything we do every day, is guided by those principles. And it's great if if if we're doing something or if one of our individuals that works for us is doing something and it doesn't fall within one of those principles, then we're outside of our mission. And if we're not being efficient, we're not being effective, we need to make sure that we're coming back into our mission, and keeping our focus on what really we're chartered to do here for the people of Ohio. Now, as I as I work with not only the folks here at public safety, but really law enforcement and first responders throughout the entire state, it's incredibly important that that not only I but but all of the leaders in this space. Just constantly reaffirm that mission to the people who work there. You know, it's so easy in any job but but really in the public safety space. To I don't say get burnt out but but you kind of lose track of the purpose of what you do every day. Because you know, at some point you put on the uniform, you go to work, you do your job, you come home, and when you get in the rut, or you just get in the routine of doing that every day and focusing really what's on just right in front of you. A lot of times it's really easy to lose, focus or just lose sight of the overall mission. And man, I want the men and women who work in public safety, not just for the department folks at but across the state every day, they put on their uniform, every day, they hop in their car, and they head to work. They need to realize that they need to take a second and think about the fact that look what they do what they do everyday matters. And their job is so incredibly important to me, to you, to our families, to everybody in Ohio, when when, when your kid is is has gone off the road is in the ditch, you want that you want that ambulance to get there as fast as possible. You want that Trooper to get there as fast as possible. When somebody's breaking into your house. You need that sheriff's deputy to get there as fast as possible and you need them to be trained. And you need to be them to be professional. And we just it's so important for us to just constantly reaffirm to the men and women who work in this field that we need them and what they do is important.

Trevor Brown 4:46

So how do you you I can feel it even just here over zoom. I feel your passion for this. How do you how do you instill that commitment to mission clarity throughout the organization? What are some of the steps and strategies that you employ to really elevate that, that mission focus?

Andy Wilson 5:07

You know, the beauty of this job, and the beauty of this profession is that you don't necessarily have to instill it, it's there, you just have to set it free, you gotta set it loose, you've got to, you've got to set conditions or an environment or culture, where people are empowered to do that mission. Everybody who comes into the public safety space, love it, they're not doing it for pay, they're not going to, they're not going to be rich down the road by doing this job, when they initially join this field, whether it's in law enforcement, or any first responder type field, they're doing it because they want to serve their community, they want to help keep people safe, it's a higher sense of purpose that that is there inside of them. So what I found is, you know, a lot of times, again, it can be through a unit environment, or culture or just societal, you know, the way society is looking at first responders or law enforcement at the time, a lot of times, people can lose that edge, or they can lose that purpose, or they can lose that sense of service. And it just becomes about going to work and doing the job. So really, what we as leaders need to do is just set, set it free tap into it, because it's inside, remind them, that what they joined up for what they're doing, and point out to them how they're doing it every single day, they come to work. And again, just it'll it'll bubble back up to the top. And then you have to set a workplace environment that encourages them to, to serve to see that see what they do a service. And again, every time they do something that's inside that that mission, every time they do something to protect their community and to serve another pointed out, give them their why. And you know, part of the huge part of leadership is giving the why to your people. This is why what you do is important in like we don't just fail in public safety leadership, we fail in leaders fail at all the time, with respect to the people that they serve the people they work with, constantly telling them or re reaffirming why what they do is important.

So you've begun to articulate this. And I want to hear you elaborate on more, which is what is your personal approach to leadership, you've been in a variety of leadership roles. And not that you're at the apex of your career by any means. But you're you're at a very high level now and in state government. And so you've you've been around other leaders as well. What's your what were? What are your sort of precepts, your key tenants of leadership, and where did they come from?

Well, my my philosophy on leadership really is, is people centered and not look, the people who work in the public Department of Public say they don't work for me. They don't necessarily work with me, although we work together on projects I serve with them, we serve, together, in part of that service, for me being the director, is a desire an intense desire that everybody who works here, and everybody who worked in this space, becomes or strives to be the best version of themselves. And I'm not just talking about work, work is work is work is what we do, it's not who we are. And I'm focused on the individual are we here trying to set up a culture where we're focused on really making the individual the best version of themselves in all phases of their life. Look, we need them to be the best they can physically, we need them to be the best they can mentally and emotionally we need them to be the best they can in their relationships with with their families, and friends. And what I found is if people are striving to be the best they can, in those areas, and be the best version of themselves, well, then the work stuff just falls into place, then they're better co workers, they're better employees, they're better public servants. They're the kind of people that you want to show up when you call 911. So they're in they're happier, they're healthier. So really, what we're trying to do is encourage our folks here to just constantly focus on being the best version of themselves in all aspects. And if you asked me where I got that, I'd have to I'd have to go back probably to the military is where it started for me and I think the purest form of leadership that I I've been exposed to or really kind of the first time I was exposed to it was was in the military, but it's really about mentors, a, you know, mentors that I've had in my life, who have I've not only set the example of what I wanted to be like, or what I one day wanted to lead, like, but but people who pushed me who saw value in me, who saw potential in me a lot of times when I didn't even see that potential in myself. And they pushed me to be the best version of myself. And as a result, I just constantly think that as leaders, we need to continue to, to be mentors, to develop mentors and to have mentors. So I think a lot of my philosophy comes through mentors that I've had my life and then opportunities I've had to mentor other young, young leaders.

So those sound like great lessons and great approaches for any kind of work. I'm wondering, as you've been in law enforcement for a good and prosecution, and obviously the military before that. That's a particular kind of line of work. Are there specific tenants of leadership that you think are really, you know, germane to that setting that maybe don't apply to others? Or is this people center approach that you're describing? That's just good leadership, no matter what field we're working?

Look, I think you would agree, and I think probably all your listeners would agree that there are certain tenets of leadership that apply, no matter what you do, it doesn't matter. If you know, I'm a janitor, I deliver the mail, I wash cars, or I'm out on patrol with the police department, if you're part of an organization. Or you can be part of a club, you know, there are certain tenets of leadership that apply across the board. And leadership is in an organization, it can be vertical. So it is your manager, assistant manager in law enforcement, its chief deputy chief major Captain Lieutenant is very structured, same way in the military. And there are certain parts of that leadership that we need to do everything in our power to develop so it can be structured leadership development course, as you go to podcast reading lists. You know, it's also the followership. Yeah, in the vertical leadership. Part of being a leader is being a good follower and being a good team member. So we need I think, again, we're talking about general leadership tenets, we need to make sure that in all aspects of what we do, we are setting up vertical leadership development. But there's also there's also horizontal or lateral leadership, and we need to build cultures. Again, I saw this in the military. And I see it in law enforcement a lot, we need to build cultures where our folks are empowered to lead each other laterally. So what does that mean? That means all of the road troopers or all the road deputies or road officers on a shift, are empowered to hold each other accountable to the standard, they push each other to be the best version of themselves. When something goes wrong, they hold each other accountable. I'll tell you a quick story. I've been doing a lot since I've been over here at public safety. I've spent a lot of time out on the highways and out on the roads with troopers just, you know, sitting down trying to better understand the issues that that our road troopers and our road law enforcement are facing. And I was with a trooper up north earlier this year. And he told me a great story. He said, Look, we have a great shift. We have a good Sergeant good Lieutenant. But what really what makes our ship strong is if we have a problem, if there's something that's affecting morale, we go out into the garage and we have a garage talk. And that's that's no sergeant. No, Lieutenant, it's just the troopers who are on shift. And together we talk about whatever it is that's negatively affecting the morale and we've worked through it. And I was like, well, first of all, what a great what a testament to that vertical leadership chain to allow them to do that. Because a lot of a lot of vertical leaders who you know, a lot of supervisors who have a scarcity mindset don't want their their people doing are scared to let their people do stuff like that, because they think it's a it's a it's a ding or an attack on their leadership. So what a great testament to the sergeants and lieutenants of of that post. But man, what a great testament to that leadership culture amongst those those troopers. And isn't that what we want? As leaders don't, don't we want our people pushing each other, holding each other to standards and then holding each other accountable and working through those problems. Does that make our job as leaders so much easier? So, you know, I guess, I don't even know if I've answered your question here that that Yes. Those are some of the general tenants that I see and you can take that and you can apply that in any company or any organization, both the vertical and the horizontal. What are the lateral leadership specific to the military. And, again, more specifically to law enforcement, you know, we have, we have issues that that private companies don't face. And one of the issues that we're really looking at and we're having to lead through right now is wellness, you know, wellness, with our folks, burnout. Apathy, you know, we're losing a lot of our qualified law law for our experienced law enforcement folks who are just leaving the profession, because they're just burnt out. And we really need to do a better job of leading to address wellness, again, I go back to, we have to make sure that our people are physically healthy, you know, not just physically able to do the job, or meet the physical demands of the job but but healthy disease free, like we, I've heard a million stories in law enforcement or public safety where somebody retires, and six months later, they're dead, you know, or they've got, you know, a terrible disease because they didn't take care of themselves. And the nature of this job is that the chronic stress of dealing with the terrible things that they have to deal with day to day, we know that takes a toll a toll on their health. So so we've got to, we've got to address the physical health of our folks and lead in that space, we have to address the I say the the mental health and when I say mental health, I'm not talking about emotional health, I'm talking, we have to constantly be challenging our our people to, to grow their minds, their minds a muscle too, so look, pick up a new skill, you know, pick up a new language, pick up a musical instrument, pick up a new certification in your, in your career field, constantly, grow your mind, read books that are important to you, you know, so so we need to push in that area as well. And then obviously, in law enforcement, we have to lead to make our folks emotionally healthy. You know, we our folks have to have healthy outlets for the stress of the job and what they're dealing with everyday. And I say this all the time. And when I talk to guys and gals who do this job, I say, Look, if you've had a bad day, and you come home, and you don't talk to your spouse, your partner, your neighbors, your trusted outlet, and instead you sit in your chair and you pour yourself a glass of scotch. Look. I'm not a teetotaler, I'm not saying that you should never drink but but man that's going to catch up with you that that is that's going to get you one day. Not only is it is it, not a healthy emotional outlet, but it's gonna take a toll on your relationships. So we have to lead. There's so many challenges facing this profession right now that are unique to public service and public safety. And we just need to do a better job of teaching our leaders how to navigate those challenges, and then empowering our junior leaders. Look, man, I'm absolutely convinced that the success or failure of any organization really rises or falls on the backs of the first line leader. And if we are not empowering, teaching, coaching and mentoring our first line leaders, and then empowering them to lead in healthy ways, we are going to our organization will have failed your your post your unit, your shift, it's not going to be as good as it should be if you're not developing a leadership, climate and culture there. And that's on you as the leader to do that.

Let's let's I'm glad you brought that up. Because I want to pivot now to talk a little bit about broadly about professional development and training and then ultimately work our way over to professional development and training for leadership. And I think the way I want to start as is you put in you pointed to a lot of the similarities between law enforcement and military service. But now I want you to just start by drawing some distinctions. And I'll just preview the reason I want you to do this is because I feel like I've read and you could correct me if I'm wrong, that the amount of professional development and training in the military is higher than is generally the case in law enforcement. And so and you've had experience in both and so that's why I want to sort of draw on that. So I want to I want to get there. But I want you to just start by just describing given your own personal experience. You've laid out some of the similarities, what would you see as some primary differences between those who are in military service and those who are in law enforcement?

I think you you made a great point. I think the military does a better job of doing professional development, mental leadership. So I mean, it starts at basic training. When you go into basic training as a as a private, you are organized into a platoon and you are given leadership positions within that platoon. You know you could be a squad leader. Now. Again, it's not rank but you're a private You don't have more rights than anybody else, but you're put into a leadership position and you're taught what it means to be accountable for the actions. That's the successes and failures of the nine or 10 guys or gals that you're in charge of, and you're held accountable when they don't do what they need to do. And so that starts day one in the military. The other thing the military does a great job of is at every level, before you get promoted. There is a class or a It's not class. It's a it's a training school that you have to go to now, it's been a minute since I've been in, but when I was enlisted, before you you could become so E4, E5 is in the Army is going from a specialist to a sergeant. So it's going from enlisted to a noncommissioned officer, it's really your first leadership position in the army. Before you could be promoted from E4 to E5, you had to go to something in my day was called primary leadership development course. And you went there, you learned what it meant to be a squad leader and what was expected of being a squad leader and the roles and responsibilities. And then before you could become the next level, which which is a staff sergeant, E6 going from E5 to E6, you had to go to something called BNOC, which is the basic NCO course. And they would teach you everything it was expected that next level of leadership. And then before you could be promoted again, you had to go to ANOC, which was advanced NCO course at every step along the way, there was actual structured leadership training on the expectations and responsibilities of that next role that you are going to go into. That's, that's just the formal leadership. That's not the informal leadership that you're getting every day back in your unit through sergeants time, and leading, you know, tennis time. And, you know, there's all kinds of informal leadership training that's going on back at your unit. So I think that is such a good model. And as a matter of fact, what we're working on something in the patrol right now, that that basically would replicate or emulate what they're doing there. And that's before you, before you become a sergeant, we want you to come to the academy with everybody else who's in the promotion pipeline. And you're going to have to go through a couple week training course where we do exactly that we talk about leadership, and what's expected of you being that that next level leader, so we're going to copy that I really think that there's a lot of opportunity for that type of professional development.

Why Why isn't there that? Somebody just sounds so logical what you were describing and clear, clear evidence that that it's been effective in in one of the largest organizations and most successful organizations in the United States, in the US military? Why hasn't this? Why are you having to build this now in in law enforcement? What what's the difference?

It's the practical realities of the job. Look, the bottom line is, you can't put your people in a leadership class, when you don't have enough people to staff your shift. When you need somebody to respond to that domestic violence call, and you need a body in that cruiser they can't be over at a leadership training. So it's just the reality of, of the demands of staffing.

Yeah, I've always wondered, there's hope this doesn't come out the wrong way. I think in life in the military, there is a lot of idle time, where you're preparing for a really intense kinetic event, perhaps. But there's a lot of time where you're not involved in that activity. Whereas I would imagine in law enforcement, as you just said, It is day to day to day to day or night tonight tonight, tonight there. It's not like, oh, I sit around for three months. And then and then I go out on on a patrol. No, I'm going on in patrol every day. So one of the important differences is just the rhythm of the work is such that there's not the space and time in law enforcement to be able to do that. And then you said, you just don't have the surplus of people to do that.

But But you make such a good point. And here's the issue. Leadership is not something that our law enforcement sergeants and lieutenants have to do as part of their job. It is the thing that they have to do as part of their job. And we don't, I just don't think we do a good job of, of messaging it that way. Look, look, your job is to lead the men and women on your shift. And if we're promoting you, without giving you the tools that you need to understand how to do that, then then we're failing. We're failing as a profession. And and look, I get it, it obviously if we're not responding to 911 calls, because we don't have enough people. We're failing as a profession. So I get it. But it's so important.

Well, so how do you how do you square that circle then of knowing that you you have this, you have a commitment and a passion? And I'm I'm right there with you to provide more professional development, leadership training opportunities for law enforcement. But the space isn't there at the moment to be able to do that. So as you think about how to create these, these programs, and these expectations, tell us how that will work. Like how, how will that work, given the current constraints on law enforcement? And first responders broadly?

Right, right. And what we're talking about here doesn't just apply to law enforcement, it's across the public safety spectrum. You know, it's, it's, there's, there's several folds to it. First of all, it's got to be something that at the unit level is important. So at the at the agency level, you have to have leaders and and that could be the elected sheriff, that could be the City Council who understand how important this is. And they they make it part of the curriculum, we also have to look at, what can we do to support that. So again, that in the military, they had that like the NCO Academy, where you, if I was stationed at Fort Knox, you know, I might be sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for a month or for three weeks, or whatever it is. So I could go through my BNOC, or my PLDC, we need to do a better job of setting up structured leadership development, and you you all are on it with the academy that you've set up. But that's, that's such a high level. I mean, that's great. We need that that's it's such a high level, we need to replicate that concept, at at every, at every level, at every at every level. I mean, because would you offer, what you offer there with the Public Safety Leadership Academy is there's people who are already chiefs in there, a lot of the folks who are in there are ultimately one day going to be chiefs are going to be elected sheriffs. So it's very high executive level training, we just, there's a lot of space where you can do that at the lower levels.

So this is I can talk about this or listen to you talk about it all day. So forgive me for keep going down the rabbit holes, but but how do you with law enforcement officers? How do you get them excited about learning, and I'll preface this by saying I've done some work with with folks in the military. And I've been fascinated by how there is a cultural commitment to education broadly in higher education in particular, and the old sort of bromide I've heard is the army, they the generals, etc, they go study history, Air Force is tends to be more of a sort of logistics management. They go get MBAs, navy, its engineers, they get engineering degrees. And so I asked why why is it that arm folks in the army get get history degrees and PhDs in that field? Well, it's because they want to learn the lesson of histories and not repeat them. They want to keep soldiers safe. And one of the ways to do that is keep them out of conflict. So they have they have an incentive to learn. Because they're they're driven to make the functions that they perform, that allow their their soldiers to survive. How do you inculcate that similar kind of commitment and passion to learning in law enforcement?

So there's two parts that I that I want to answer. First of all, then let me come back to this because I plead so it's important, don't let me escape it, but I'm gonna hit the so the first I want to talk to you about my experience with law enforcement is they are passionate for training. And I've never met a police officer who's not interested in doing more training, if given the opportunity. So let's set that aside and come back to that here in a second. But when I was in the army, I really think there's a great opportunity in law enforcement to do this, although everybody's litigation averse, and nobody, you know, there's just hesitancy to do this. But when I was in the army, there was something called the Center for Army lessons learned. I think it was out of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the way it works is, every battle, every incident, everything that happened, they had a group of researchers really or historians who would come out and talk to the people who were involved, and they would do a complete after action review. And really, they would, they would, they would list out all the lessons learned. Here's why this outcome happened the way it was good or bad. You know, I we a lot of the a lot of the battle studies that I got in the armor school, were were battles that had had, we had won and that they were they were teaching here's why, why you won, so I don't wanna I don't want anybody to think that it's just bad. So I thought that was great. And you could, as an Army officer, I could read all kinds of stuff, all kinds of lessons learned that the Center for Army Lessons Learned had had posted. We don't have anything like that. In the law enforcement space, and there are a moment I see stuff here at the patrol all the time, I'm constantly getting body cam videos or reports about stops or pursuits. And I'm like, Man, these are such good lessons that we need to capture. And, and tell talk about, we need to talk about I'm going tomorrow morning, I'm gonna go over we got a cadet class in right now, I'm going to go over and I'm going to work out with them first, and then I'm gonna sit down, I'm going to talk to them. So once a month, I do directors PT with them. So I go over into physical training with them. And then we talk, we spend the last 10 minutes talking about leadership, vision, philosophy, that kind of stuff. Tomorrow, I'm specifically going to talk about something I saw here of last couple of weeks, where a trooper intervened with some officers who there was a chase and and the suspect had them had a knife. And these officers had tased the suspect, and they were amped up, and the trooper just stepped in, he said, Hey, just settle down, just just just settle down, he was able to recognize that, that these guys were too amped up. And again, they weren't they weren't abusing the suspect or anything, but they were just amped up, they were still their adrenaline was too high. And he was able to calm him down and bring the situation down. I mean, it happened in like five seconds, you know, taking that five seconds, recognizing what what happened. And, and, and slowing him down. Look, that's a lesson learned that we shouldn't be repeating again and again and again in the schoolhouse. And that that happens, doesn't just happen with troopers, it happens with agencies all over the place. And we just think of it as well. It's just part of the job. It's just what they do. And we're not doing a good job of capturing it, and teaching it either in roles called trainings. Or, you know, I don't know what the format is. But I just think we need to do a better job of capturing some of the good and bad that we're doing and turning them into actual lessons. And we don't we don't do that. So now let me pivot back to officers in in in basic, how do we inspire them to want to learn? Look, again, a lot of officers, almost all the officers I've dealt with are like, give me training, I'll go to whatever training that you'll send me to. So it's just really about allowing them the opportunities to train and giving them something that's that's palpable look, a lot of the training we do in law enforcement right now is check the block. It's it's internet based, PowerPoint on screen, web learning, where let's be real there. Click Click, click, click, and there's a quiz the answer the quiz, and they're checking the work. Look, we know without a doubt, that the best training that people can have is meaningful, scenario based challenging, it test is it tests their decision making, it creates some kind of stress inoculation, we know that that's the best training. And yet yet, all of our all of our continuing professional training, the majority of it is PowerPoint based block checking.

I love that. And we were going to pull this to a close now. But I love that we're coming back to where we started. And you clearly have a general faith and belief which is inspiring in people's innate goodness. And so your leadership approach you said at the beginning was not getting out of the way by any means, but freeing that inner desire to be public service oriented. And here again, I'm hearing you say people have an innate curiosity and a desire to learn. And so how do we create those conditions for them to be able to pursue that to learn to be better versions of themselves. So thank you for being a co educator with us in the Glenn college and fundamentally, thank you for our partnership in the Public Safety Leadership Academy. We're we're really proud to be your partner in pursuing this mission that you've described. And you're, you're an embodiment, too. I think the other thing that's that's implicit in your leadership style is you walk the talk, you model it for your, your, your staff members in your officers. So thank you for that. And thank you for spending 30 minutes talking with me. I'm the beneficiary as well.

Thanks, I appreciate it. Listen, for me, everything is about energy. And I believe in an organization a lot of times there's energy that's just laying dormant, that if you can just tap into when you can release it, you'll you'll Your people will be inspired, and they'll be motivated. So what I found in this job and throughout my career is I feed off of that energy when you release it just a little bit in your people are becoming energetic, then it feeds me It challenges me and my mind is constantly going okay, what are we going to do next? What do we do? And then that in turn, energizes the folks that I serve with so it's I love it at I'm passionate about it. And I'm telling you the thing that really stands out to me is we have amazing people here in Ohio, who are just great public servants and and it's just such an honor to serve with them to work with him and just to try to leave a positive mark on the profession.

Well, it's virtuous work. So thanks for doing it.

Thank you.