Episode 111: Knowledge, Willingness, Courage: What Officers Need From Leaders

What makes a truly effective correctional leader? In this thought-provoking episode, Michael Cantrell draws from decades of experience to unpack the three essential qualities officers desperately want from their supervisors: knowledge, willingness, and courage.

Correctional officers seek leaders who possess deep knowledge about policies, case law, and facility operations—creating a foundation of confidence and security. They need supervisors willing to step up during challenging situations and act as shields, protecting their teams from both unreasonable administrative demands and front-line dangers. Most critically, they require leaders with the courage to act decisively when faced with difficult circumstances.

Cantrell explores how successful correctional leaders maintain clear visions that extend beyond themselves, establishing high expectations that motivate their teams toward excellence. He examines how a leader's treatment of others—from subordinates to superiors to inmates—reveals their character and shapes the entire facility's culture. 

The conversation delves into how effective leaders combat the pervasive discouragement that can infiltrate correctional work by highlighting purpose and meaning. Even when results aren't immediately visible, the work of maintaining public safety represents a vital contribution to society that leaders must continually reinforce.

Perhaps surprisingly, Cantrell emphasizes the crucial role of appropriate humor in correctional leadership. The ability to find joy amidst challenges creates resilience against the inherent stresses of the profession and builds stronger connections among team members.

Whether you're a seasoned correctional supervisor or aspiring to leadership, this episode provides valuable insights for building stronger, more effective teams in one of society's most challenging environments.

PepperBall
From crowd control to cell extractions, the PepperBall system is the safe, non-lethal option.

OMNI
OMNI is cutting-edge software designed to track inmates and assets within your prison or jail.

Command Presence
Bringing prisons and jails the training they deserve!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 1:08 Sponsor Thanks and Updates
• 8:53 Recent Books and Projects
• 14:53 Post-Surgery Reflections on Officer Safety
• 20:30 What Officers Want From Leaders
• 29:49 Creating a Vision as a Leader

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:34

Hey guys, before I get to our first guest, I just want to take a moment today and thank Pepperball. You know they've been a sponsor of the Prison Officer Podcast for more than three years and without their sponsorship I wouldn't be able to bring this content to you. We wouldn't be able to have these great conversations with these leaders and trainers in corrections. You know I used Pepperball for more than 20 years when I was working in the institution. It was something I believed in, so it was easy for me when I got the chance to become a master instructor for Pepperball. I get to go out and train law enforcement and corrections and I get to see you guys in the field, so I really appreciate that. The great thing about Pepperball is it gives the officers the confidence to have a tool that they can use that they know is going to work. If you would reach out to Pepperball wwwpepperballcom and thank them for sponsoring the Prison Officer Podcast and, while you're there, see all the new things that are part of the Pepperball family, hello and welcome back to the Prison Officer Podcast. My name is Mike Cantrell. Today we're going to talk about leadership. We're going to talk about what correctional officers want from their leaders and we're going to talk about what good correctional leaders do. Before we step off into that, I just want to catch you up on a couple of things. One if you'll look behind me, you'll see my book, my latest book, power Skills, which is emotional intelligence for correctional officers and detention officers and those in the public service profession. I just want to thank everybody. You guys have sales, have done great. I appreciate the outpouring of support that I've had for that book. I'm very proud of it. I'm very happy with it. I do think it's a book that is necessary for corrections. If you are a training officer, if you run an academy, feel free to reach out to me because I would like to see everybody coming in, get the copy of that book so I can talk to you about some bulk pricing and stuff. But that book breaks down a couple of the things that we really have challenges with right now in corrections. One of those is the ability to communicate. Some of our newer officers have. They struggle a lot with just being able to walk up to a person, any person, and start a conversation and, as you all know, in corrections that's a huge part of what we do being able to communicate instantly and effectively with people. So that's part of the book, and the other part of it goes into social skills. You know, some of those skills that are missing from the newer generation. I'm not saying there's anything wrong. I'm just saying that, you know, focus isn't where it used to be and we're a lot more tied into whether it be internet or whether it be phones or the digital age as a whole, and so it talks about some of the social skills. I truly believe that reading that book gives you power skills when it comes to being a correctional officer. So I just wanted to thank everybody for that. If you'll also look over there, you'll see.

Speaker 1: 3:35

While I've been off for a little bit, I'll talk about that. I had a chance. I've had a couple of books floating around in my head for a while, and they are children's books. The one behind me is called how do rainbows grow? And uh, my son asked me when he was about three, 20, oh shoot, maybe 30 years ago. But uh, he asked me and he said daddy, how do rainbows grow? And I sat down and wrote a little poem about it, and I've been looking for a while for a way to illustrate it, and so, with some of the time off I've had. Recently I got to take the time and I have put out three children's books. So if you'd like to, if you have children, if you'd like to check those out, probably the easiest way I mean, you can look them up on Amazon, and it is. How Do Rainbows Grow is one of them, sky School is another one and Grandma's Cloud Parade is the other one. The easier way to find it might be to go to my writing page and that is Cantrell Writes all one word, cantrellwritescom, and and you can go there and you can see all my books. But uh, I do appreciate the support I've had and I'm even. We'll get these children's books out. I'm going to have a launch here in a couple of weeks and so be looking for that Also.

Speaker 1: 4:52

The reason I had a little bit of time off is because I have been sitting around at the house a lot more. I recently had a shoulder surgery, had a replacement, so had a little bit of downtime. So I've spent some time here catching up on books and articles and things. I've been writing a couple of classes and I just want to let you guys know how important it is for you to take care of yourself because, although they won't actually say you know, this was when your shoulder got hurt. I know when I started having trouble with it, and it was after a use of force back in 2011. And I've had trouble with it ever since, ended up taking some shots. It's finally developed to the point that they had to go in there and replace it, and I attribute that to how hard this job is on our body. So I encourage all of you to not only take care of yourself physically, but to understand that when you have a use of force, de-escalation is the way to go.

Speaker 1: 5:47

Going through that door, there's only two things you get. One is the chance for liability You've heard me say this before and the other one's the chance for injury. So here I am, however, many years later, with an injury that haunts me even after I'm done and retired. So, uh, but I'm doing well, everything feels good, I really appreciate my doctors. They did a great job and I expect a full recovery.

Speaker 1: 6:09

So what else? Uh, command presence Uh, we've been. I've been putting off doing some classes, but it's going to get really busy here in a little bit. So if you would go to commandpresencenet, check out the website there. You know we started developing this year corrections specific classes and I'm very proud of those. We've given a bunch of them. We just gave our first correctional training officer class with the coach train and evaluate method and that's something that Command Pres presence has been doing on the law enforcement side for a long time. We've developed that, made it specific for corrections and so we put out that first class. It went wonderful. I did it up in Michigan and thank you to all you guys that attended. We had a great time. I learned a lot. I'm sure they learned a lot and I appreciate it. But we've got some classes coming up in September Excellence in Corrections I'm going to be back in Michigan teaching Excellence in Corrections.

Speaker 1: 7:04

October 1st through 4th I'm going to be in Branson teaching a couple of classes and we'll have the podcast down there at the Missouri Correctional Association, missouri Probation and Parole Officers Association Conference down there in Branson. I've been there the last three years and taught there. October I will go to New Mexico and go to the Southwest public safety and corrections conference down there. I just finalized that. So I'll be speaking down there and so if you're in the area, come by and check us out. November I'll be going back to Michigan again A lot of time in Michigan, but I appreciate it and we're going to be doing a report writing class up there. I think it's Ottawa County, so get on the website, check that out. And then in January I've already got one scheduled for New Mexico and I'm going to be down there teaching excellence for corrections. So get on the command presence website, check out those upcoming classes. I'd love to see you there.

Speaker 1: 7:58

Let me know where you heard about it, because it's so interesting and fun. When I get into class and people go hey, I heard about this and I listened to your podcast and you know that feels good. It truly does. I'm glad there's people out there that that gets so much out of this podcast. So I think that's about it, just catching everything up.

Speaker 1: 8:19

So one of the questions I get asked often is what do correctional officers want from a leader? Usually in class and we'll go over some of this you know you go to a leadership class and they say you know what was the quality, the best quality, of your favorite leader? But when I talk about what correctional officers want from a leader, I've kind of narrowed it down to three things. Okay, the first one correctional officers want supervisors or leaders that are knowledgeable, that are knowledgeable about their job, that are knowledgeable about policy, that are knowledgeable about case law, that are knowledgeable about their shift, that are knowledgeable about case law, that are knowledgeable about their shift and who works on their shift. Okay, that's what they're looking for. They're looking for that person with the knowledge to take them down the road safely, avoiding liability, avoiding injury. That's one of the first things we look for. The second thing that we look for is a supervisor or a leader who is willing. Okay, now, what does that mean? That they're willing? Well, willing means that and I've had this happen where I was working a seg unit I've got one of them inmates.

Speaker 1: 9:34

You know he's on the door, bam, bam, bam, and it's all night, it's two hours, three hours, whatever. And you call down the Lieutenant's office and you're like Lieutenant, I've got this guy, he's. He's hitting his head against the wall, he's kicking the door, he's making noise, he's got the other inmates stirred up, whatever's going on flooding. You know how it is. You guys were saying before and you know they'll tell you on the phone, we'll take care of it. I and they'll tell you on the phone. We'll take care of it. I don't have all the tools here to take care of it. That's why I have a supervisor.

Speaker 1: 10:05

But you have those supervisors who have moved into a position and they're not comfortable with what their role is and they're not willing to step up when it's time. And that's what I mean by a supervisor or a leader that's willing. It also means a supervisor or leader that is willing to step in front. You know one of the things that I didn't know I was going to be, but it turned out to be a large part of my career as a lieutenant and as a captain. I was a shield for my officers. I deflected a lot of stuff, and that's not just from inmates. I also deflected a lot of stuff from an administration who was unreasonable or that was so micromanaging that they didn't allow mistakes. And so is that lieutenant.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Is that supervisor, is that leader willing to step up and be a shield for their staff? That means so much. Staff recognize that quickly, whether or not it's there or whether it's not there, the person who and I've had these supervisors when the shit hits the fan or something kicks off, you turn around and look and all of a sudden they're gone, they're out the door, they're back in the office. That is not what people want out of a supervisor. If you're not willing to be part of the solution, if you're not willing to step up when it's time, and if you're not willing to be the shield for your officers, you probably ought to go find another place to be, because you're in the wrong job. So the second one is first, is knowledgeable? And second is are they willing? And the third thing that I've decided now this is all me, but the third thing I've decided is do I have a leader or a supervisor who has the courage to act, the knowledge to act, the willingness to act, and then the courage to act? And one of the questions I get is isn't willing to act and courage to act the same thing? And no, it's not.

Speaker 1: 12:10

I know people who have come into this job. They've taken an oath to do this job, but when it comes time to act, they're hesitant. They don't have it within them to step forward. They don't have it within them to charge forward towards the gunfire, not literally, but figuratively. They don't have the courage figuratively, they don't have the courage to stand up when it's time to be a shield for your people.

Speaker 1: 12:44

So when I look at willingness and when I look at courage, they are two different things. They may be willing to do it. They may have trained their whole life and I have seen it. I have seen people who you thought were going to be the person who jumped in there and solve this problem, but when the shit hits the fan, when push comes to shove, they don't have what it takes, and there's nothing more disappointing.

Speaker 1: 13:08

So when people ask me what officers want out of their supervisors, what do they want out of their leaders, that's my answer. We're looking for someone who has the knowledge to act. We're looking for someone who has a willingness to act. And then finally and you may not find this out until you're put in that situation I'm looking for someone who has the courage to act. So that's where I believe most correctional staff are looking to their supervisors for so as a supervisor, are looking to those supervisors for so as a supervisor, take a little inventory, go, step in front of the mirror, take a little self-assessment.

Speaker 1: 13:47

Do you fit those categories? Are you ready? Have you trained, have you studied? Are you knowledgeable? Are you willing? And the only thing with courage is you can. You won't know courage until it's time. But when it comes time, a courageous man steps up, even when they're scared. So are you willing to do that? Can you do that? And that's something to think about. So I guess the next thing I want to talk about is what makes a good leader, and there's all kinds of lists, there's all kinds of articles, there's a lot of people have a lot of thoughts on this, but I'm going to. I'm going to give you a few of what I think make a good leader.

Speaker 1: 14:35

And I think first is good leaders always have a vision bigger than themselves. So what do I mean by that? Vision is what people grab hold of. Right, when you're a leader, you have to put out a vision of what your expectations are, of what that institution looks like when it's running good, of what an officer a good officer looks like, sounds like, acts like. And then, once you've got that vision, now you have to bring it to the people around you. You have to influence them in a way so that they can see that vision.

Speaker 1: 15:17

You know, and one of the biggest parts of vision, in my opinion, is expectations. If you don't have high expectations, you're not going to have anybody reach for the pinnacle of what that job is If you have low expectations. People and humans are naturally lazy, and correctional officers aren't any different. If you have super low expectations, you're going to get super low results, except for maybe the single person here or there who has their own self-confidence and have assessed themselves and they're doing it for a greater purpose. But generally you're going to get low results if you have low expectations, and having a vision comes before having expectations. You have to understand and know what. The perfect workplace and I take that with a grain of salt when I say perfect. But what's in your mind? What do you want to see? And this doesn't just go for staff.

Speaker 1: 16:17

I had expectations for my inmates in my housing unit on my work detail, whatever. The inmates in my housing unit knew what Cantrell expected and things would change when shifts changed. Have you guys seen that? Absolutely you have. You've got the lazy officer on one shift who lets them get away with everything. They know Cantrell's coming in at four o'clock, at 3.30, they're cleaning up because they know I'm going to start grabbing stuff and taking it. And then you've got a different officer on midnights who has different expectations and at the end of my shift. They're trying to adjust for this new guy coming in, whatever his expectations or lack of expectations are. But I saw that with my own eyes. My expectations set the level of work, how my housing unit looked, how my inmates behaved. Your expectations mean everything. But before you have expectations you have to have a vision, because if you can't see it, you're never going to vision, because if you can't see it, you're never going to get anybody else to see it. So I hope that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 17:26

I think the second thing, I think the next thing I'm going to talk about with good leaders, and it has a lot to do with how they treat others. And when I say others, that's a wide swath. I'm not just talking about their direct subordinates, I'm talking about how do you treat everybody. How do you treat the officer that works for you? How do you treat the supervisor who works above you? How do you treat your administration? How do you treat the grandma in the visiting room? How do you treat the inmate in the housing unit? Treat the grandma in the visiting room? How do you treat the inmate in the housing unit?

Speaker 1: 18:03

You can't be a different person every day and expect people to follow you. They need to know who they're following and how you treat people is probably one of the biggest clues to what's inside a person. Right? Nobody wants to follow somebody that they don't like. Nobody wants to follow somebody that is mean or vengeful or vindictive. And if they do want to follow someone like that, we need to take a look at the follower also. But people will usually rise to the occasion when they see someone who treats others right, when they see someone who has a positive attitude, when they see someone who goes into work to fix things, to make things better. Right, we all want to get behind that person. I want to know that person, I want to work for that person, I want to be influenced by that person, I want to be mentored by that person and, as a supervisor, once people see how you treat others right, once they see how you treat others, that will dictate how they treat others. Once again, it's you know.

Speaker 1: 19:22

All of this is culture. You want to set culture. It starts with you. You don't like the culture where you're at. Look in the mirror. We are I guess I should say we are all an example, whether we're a bad example or a good example. That's the difference. So how you treat others matters. You have a problem with recruitment. You have a problem with retention. Look at how you treat others. Look at how your other supervisors treat others. Look at how your other supervisors treat others. Look at how your administration treats others.

Speaker 1: 20:04

When someone comes to you to talk or have a question, do you actually listen? Do you look up from the computer? Are you hearing what they're saying? People know if you're blowing them off. And if you're blowing them off, why would you expect them to care too much about what you have to say? You don't care what they have to say. Something to think about.

Speaker 1: 20:29

I think good leaders share the workload. Now, some leaders take this too far. Some don't take it far enough. But sharing the workload doesn't mean that you have to go do what the officers are doing. They don't expect that. Matter of fact, I had a warden, and I forget if it was once a week or once a month, but whenever it was, he would go work a day in the segregation unit with the officers, and this was his way of showing you know that he was part of it, that that he cared, that he understood and that he worked as hard as they did. But what he did was number one. He didn't know his job because he didn't work down there. He made life harder. Everybody was on edge because he wasn't down there as another officer or another supervisor. He was down there as an administrator. The inmates had direct access to the administrator throughout the day, which isn't. It isn't conducive to the way our communication system works. I'm not saying they shouldn't be able to talk to them, but they shouldn't be able to talk to them in the same manner as they do an officer. They should have to take their issues through the channels.

Speaker 1: 21:53

I believe that I believe in a chain of command. Now, not everybody believes in a chain of command. I do talk to some millennials these days. I did a little article that talked about a millennial I talked to who said that she believed in a horizontal chain of command. Even though she didn't really understand what that meant. She thought she should be able to talk to anybody in the institution about anything, unless you've given your supervisor the chance to fix the problem and their supervisor the chance to fix the problem. It's not fair to the people you work with. That's why I believe in a chain of command. And that warden would go down there and work seg unit. He was going directly past the chain of command. He was going over people and I didn't enjoy it. I know the officers who worked there didn't enjoy it. We didn't look forward to it. Matter of fact, after a while you would see Sickleaf go up on the days that he was scheduled to go down there and work, because nobody wanted to be a part of that circus.

Speaker 1: 22:52

When I say share the workload, that's not what I'm talking about. They want to know that you're putting in the work, but they want to know that you're putting in the work. But they want to know that you're putting in your work, your part of the workload, that you're trying to do what a supervisor or an administrator should be doing to make their job safe and what they do effective, to provide them with the tools that they need. That's what they're looking for. When I say share the workload, they want to know that you're up there supporting them at the same level. That they're down here. Working Doesn't mean we want you working with us, so don't take that wrong. But whatever your job is, do it to the best of your ability and do it to make the institution better. Do it to make your job easier for those below you, and if you do that, you can't lose Leaders.

Speaker 1: 23:47

Don't let discouragement become the culture, and in corrections that's easy to do. It's easy to get discouraged. It's hard to see what we do, whether or not it's effective. It's hard to see whether or not the job we do actually changes something. So it's easy to get discouraged. And good leaders or great leaders, don't let that discouragement grow. They have to be the people who come in and find a reason, not only for themselves, which everybody should do, but to find a reason for everybody else in the institution also.

Speaker 1: 24:33

Why are we here? What is the job we do? Why is it important? You know I had Dave Grossman on podcast a few episodes back and and he talked about, um, the fact that we're sheepdogs. You know we watch the flock and we we protect the flock. You only see that when the wolves show up, right, that's the only time you know that the sheepdogs there and that he's working is when the wolves show up. But the fact that the flock is safe is a sign of that it's working. That's something that we miss in corrections quite a bit. If you went home tonight and didn't see crime on the streets and didn't see anybody getting carjacked or robbed or mugged or whatever.

Speaker 1: 25:22

What you're doing works. What you're doing is keeping a system strong, our justice system, and that's what corrections is. Whether you're in a jail, whether you're in a detention center or whether you're in a prison, we are part of that justice system. You're in a prison, we are part of that justice system. The judges, the law enforcement, they do their part and after that it's time for us to do our part, and it's an integral part of that system. If we don't do it and we don't do it well, it falls apart. And right now we have a lot of things to work on.

Speaker 1: 25:59

If you look at the news and you know normally I say the media doesn't give us a fair shake and I don't know that they are on all the articles that are coming out. But this, the simple number of articles of inappropriate use of force, inappropriate sexual contact, people bringing, you know, contraband inside Gang members pretending to be civilians to get jobs so that they can take stuff inside the other gang member, people selling their soul for $5,000 or $10,000 to bring a lunchbox full of cell phones in it's something I can't imagine, but it's going on, and it's going on at a level that is more than I've seen. So how do we keep from getting discouraged and how do you keep others from getting discouraged? Number one you walk in with a smile on your face. Number two you have ready reasons for them to be there. You make their job good. You help them out. You make them feel productive. Nothing discourages a person more than going to work and not feeling productive. So how do we make our officers productive? You give them the tools. You support them when it's time.

Speaker 1: 27:19

Training Training is a huge recruitment and retention. It's huge for that. If your officers feel like they know what they're supposed to do, if they feel trained in case something happens, they're going to stay longer because they're going to feel comfortable. They're going to feel knowledgeable in their job. They're going to feel safe, and I don't always mean physically safe. Sometimes you don't feel safe legally.

Speaker 1: 27:49

Liability we walk around with a huge amount of liability over our heads. Some of it's caused, some of it's just part of the job caused, some of it's just part of the job. Can someone die in their cell without any bad actors involved? Absolutely, we have it all the time. Are you going to be investigated? Are people going to look at every tiny thing that you did for the two weeks before that. Absolutely, I've seen it happen. It doesn't mean there was any intent, but death by natural causes inside a prison still get an investigation and everything's looked at. And I don't know any job where the person working there wants every ounce of what they do studied, investigated, looked at. I don't care if you change oil and cars for a living. Would you like somebody to come in there and see if you did it precisely right every time? So that's what we live with. It's not only the safety of physical, but sometimes it's the safety from liability, the safety provided by the agency for us to do what we do.

Speaker 1: 29:05

And I think the final one that I'll talk about you know what makes good leaders, and not everybody's going to agree with me on this, but I think it's necessary. It's been necessary in my career and that's humor. When you have someone who has no humor and does not know how to laugh and I don't always mean dark humor we do that. That's part of what we do. It's how we deal with some stuff. But you've got to find the happiness in life. You've got to find the humor in life.

Speaker 1: 29:35

I don't mean making fun of other people. I don't mean being inappropriate, I just mean enjoying life, enjoying the people you work with, enjoying the job you do. Sometimes that takes a while, but I do know that every day I get on Facebook and I run through the deals and I almost every day run across a retiree and they'll say something about been retired five years. Don't miss the place, but I miss the people, and that's absolutely the truth. We do. We do miss the people and when I think back I don't remember the bad. I remember the jokes. I remember the, the kidding each other. I remember the fun. I remember the good times. That's what you're going to remember.

Speaker 1: 30:25

So I think, as a leader, you have to have that humor. I think humor does so much. We talked about discouragement. Humor does so much to prevent discouragement. Now, I don't think anybody wants their warden walking through telling dad jokes all the time. But you've got to have some humor, you've got to be able to smile. You've got to be able to enjoy things in order to be a good leader, and sometimes that enjoyment might be people friends on the outside, family on the outside. Do people enjoy being around you, not just at work. Family on the outside? Do people enjoy being around you, not just at work? Do you have friends that are maybe not in the profession outside of work? That's a plus, it absolutely is. Do your family enjoy having you at home? Have you asked them? Sometimes we're a bear, we come home and we are a bear to live with. Sometimes we're a bear, we come home and we are a bear to live with. So keep that humor. Learn to enjoy life. I think that's infectious. I think it's something that all the officers grab hold of too. All the supervisors grab hold too. So, anyway, that's my opinion.

Speaker 1: 31:43

That's my podcast for this week. I hope all of you have a great week. I hope you stay safe inside. Look out for each other. If you see someone who seems like they're a little off this week, walk by and say hey, how, hey, how you doing, are you feeling okay? And then stop a minute and listen. That's the number one thing you can do for each other. Inside that prison, inside that jail, wherever it is, you work. I hope you guys have a great day. Be safe out there, hey. Before we go, I'd like to take a minute to thank one of our sponsors.

Speaker 1: 32:21

Omni real-time locating system is a company I've been working closely with for years. I'm proud to be a part of this innovative team that's developed the best real-time locating system on the market today for your jail or prison. Omni's PREA-compliant real-time monitoring technology is the very best way to track and record your inmates' locations, their movements, their interactions, throughout every square inch of your correctional facility. Imagine getting an alarm the second an escape happens, or an alert that lets you know when an inmate's heart rate drops below a set level. To learn more about Omni, go to wwwomnirtlscom. That's omnirtlscom. That's omnirtlscom. Or you can click on today's show notes to get in the information guide. Omni Real-Time Locating System is a powerful tool specifically designed for the modern correctional professional. If you haven't done so, please take a moment to like my podcast or, better yet, hit the subscribe button so that you'll be notified when the next episode comes out. Thanks for listening and let's be safe out there.