Leadership styles in life-threatening contexts: Exploring police officers' level of trust.

摘要

This quantitative study was an exploration of police officers' in Puerto Rico level of trust, perception of leadership style, and perceived leadership effectiveness in two different contexts, normal contexts and life-threatening contexts. Data were collected through a web-based system, SurveyMonkeyRTM, where police officers from Puerto Rico completed an online survey. The survey instrument included the Leadership Style Survey by Dr. Peter Northouse, the Global Trust Scale by Dr. Jason Colquitt, and the Perception of Leadership Effectiveness Scale published in Psych Articles. The sample included 128 sworn, active duty police officers from Puerto Rico. The findings of this study revealed that demographics such as age, sex, and years on the force were not related to trust in the supervisor by the police officers. The study findings further revealed that police supervisors in Puerto Rico demonstrated an authoritarian leadership style in both normal contexts and life-threatening contexts. Multiple regression analysis showed that high levels of authoritarian leadership styles are related to high levels of trust. Although the study findings revealed that, overall, leaders' skills were rated on the subscale as moderately bad, authoritarian leaders were also perceived as effective leaders in both normal contexts and life threatening contexts.