As part of the continuing education and training that NOPD encourages its senior leadership to access, Deputy Chief Paul Noel recently attended the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) Police Executive Leadership Institute in Nashville, Tennessee.

The purpose of the Police Executive Leadership Institute (PELI) is to develop current and future law enforcement leaders and to ready them for the transition to the top position. The program consists of five components including two classroom sessions, a 360-Degree Assessment, mentor shadowing, and participation in a mock job interview.

The 360-Degree Assessment features a process called the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory, a tool for leaders to receive feedback on how they and others perceive their emotional intelligence competencies.

For the mock job interview, each participant is takes part in an exercise that features a current law enforcement issue from another class member’s city. The participant researches the issue and prepares a presentation that describes how he or she recommends addressing the issue followed by a Q and A session.  

During the program each PELI participant is assigned an experienced MCCA chief executive to serve as a mentor. The participant visits and “shadows” their mentor at their agency before or after classroom sessions. Noel was assigned Metropolitan Nashville Police Department Chief Steve Anderson as his mentor.

“Being able to follow around someone as knowledgeable as Chief Anderson was an extremely valuable experience,” said Noel. “He has more than 41 years of experience so to be able to pick his brain on different issues and to see how his agency handles things was a great experience. I was able to spend a week watching how his department works and just soaking it all in – hopefully I can bring some of those ideas back here and use them to help make our department better.”

The program is funded by MCCA through a grant from the Motorola Foundation.