A Qualitative Exploration Into the Transformational Leadership Styles of Senior Police Women

“A qualitative exploration into the transformational leadership styles of senior police women”

Jacqueline Whittred
24080
M.Sc. in Police Leadership and Management
Department of Criminology
University of Leicester
September 2008
Acknowledgments

The author would like to express her thanks to Dr Tammi Walker for her invaluable advice and guidance throughout the research process.

The author is also grateful to Liz Owsley of British Association for Women in Policing, Bedfordshire Police Networking Organisation for Women and also to Chief Superintendent Andy Street and Superintendent Mark Turner for being supportive and truly transformational, enabling this research to be conducted.

Overwhelming gratitude is owed to Nina Bradbury and Suzanne Albon for dedicating so many hours of their time to transcribing interviews, offering advice and opinion and unintentionally becoming experts in transformational leadership.

Finally the author is incredibly appreciative and thankful to the inspirational women that gave their time willingly and enthusiastically to participate in this research thereby adding to the research literature available in this subject.

A qualitative exploration into the transformational leadership styles of senior police women by Jacqueline Whittred

Radical organisational restructure has become necessary to enable the police organisation to provide a modern police service which is able to recognise and address the policing needs of a diverse nation. Transformational leadership has been identified as a vehicle able to effectively bring about the desired, long-term changes within the police organisation.

Current research suggests that women are particularly skilled and naturally employ transformational leadership styles and yet senior police women remain a minority within a minority.

This research qualitatively explores the transformational leadership styles of senior police women. More specifically this research explores how

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