Sint Maarten : Team leaders KPSM graduated from ‘Leadership course’

Last Friday, November 29th 2014, about twenty police officers (team leaders and acting team leaders) received their certificates for the Leadership course they were taking last summer.

20 police officers received certificates for the Leadership course

All officers received their certificate from David McGregor, the senior trainer at the UTS Training and Development Center (TDC).

During the course, the officers learned not only the technicalities of leadership and the structure of communication skills, but they also learned how to manage and support their team members into making their working days as productive and challenging as possible.

All graduates were congratulated by TDC, the management team of KPSM and, from a distance, by Mrs. Angela Dekker, member of USONA, the organization which financed the ‘Management development Training’. Mrs. Dekker unfortunately couldn’t personally attend the ceremony, because she was in Curacao at the time.

Facilitator, David McGregor, addressed all students in a speech that came directly from the heart. He talked about how the group had first arrived as cynical and hardened officers, with many years of service, and yet they opened their hearts quickly to the spirit of good leadership and motivational management. Mr. Mc Gregor said that he saw changes within the personality of most of the officers, who started to appreciate that their staff are people who need to be developed, encouraged and validated. Furthermore these officers now have the tools to bring out the best in their team members. “During the course,” Mc Gregor stated further, “it became somewhat of a competition to get the highest grades on the tests that the officers were taking almost every week.”

Mc Gregor drew the conclusion that there are many occasions when the police force is criticized, bad news always receives more publicity than good news, but he learned from talking to his students that these men have put themselves on the line on many occasions and that the many hours of extra work are never publicized and appreciated as they should be.

To finalize his speech he asked the graduates to continue in their efforts to make the people of St. Maarten proud of the men and women they lead and of the service they can provide.

“It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed.”