Some years ago I was involved in an incident in a small town in St Catherine. It was one of the most difficult days of my police career. Many things happened on that day in that small town. At the end of it, the crowd was bitter and violent. That’s the price of gang domination.

The crowd had started to burn our vehicles and were they not fearful that we would fire, they would have attacked us directly. The stand-off lasted for about 35 minutes. No matter what we did, we could not get them to cooperate; they wanted blood.

Just when it appeared that an attack from the crowd, which included women and children, was imminent, a deputy superintendent of police (DSP) named Leighton Grey came onto the scene.

DSP Grey was the operations superintendent for the division in which I worked. He is a full superintendent now. He simply walked to the scene from his vehicle and instructed two officers he had brought with him to run a yellow tape approximately 40 metres from where the incident had taken place (yellow tape is the traditional crime scene barrier).

The DSP then looked at the crowd of people in front of us who were still full of rage and instructed them: “Now you all go behind the yellow tape.”

To my astonishment, they all just turned and went behind the tape. Grey then walked up to the tape and said: “Now you can talk to me.”

The people ventilated their feelings to him, but without the threats of murder or the use of indecent language. I was evacuated soon after, along with other members of my team. DSP Grey and a few officers stayed back and maintained the peace.

That day was a lesson in leadership. It was also a lesson in communication that I still remember to this day. Somehow, the crowd knew he was in charge. He wasn’t asking for their compliance; he was instructing them to be compliant. He wasn’t talking loudly, but he was commanding respect.

Leaders who shout and growl at their audience are not usually the most effective. I have been in a courtroom presided over by High Court Judge Dale Palmer. He does not raise his voice. He treats everyone with respect, yet everybody in the court slavishly follows his instructions. No one is demonised, no one is belittled, no one is shouted at. They comply, not because they are afraid of him, but because they respect him.

As we work our way through the 21st century, leadership has taken on a different tone. People who are considered effective leaders have abandoned the browbeating style of headship. I remember Edward Seaga. He ruled the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) with an iron fist. He was strong in a way I admired. Despite this, he literally destroyed the JLP because of his style of leadership. His own party rose up against him.

I have never heard Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness raise his voice, but I guarantee you that he will never have a revolt within his party. This is because he is actually the leader of the party. He does not have to growl for his party to follow him; they follow him because he leads.

Mark Golding took over the People’s National Party (PNP) as a deeply divided organisation. It was split into two separate camps. Ironically, circumstances that prevailed caused Golding, who was not previously a contender for leadership, to end up leading the party.

He more than doubled the seat count of the party at the last general election. Almost every seat that was considered a PNP seat was returned to the party. I have never heard him shout, cuss, or threaten.

Dr Kevin Blake has managed to motivate one of the most complex organisations in the Caribbean, the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), while hardly raising his voice. And look at the impact.

Effective leadership is no longer about how many people you intimidate; it’s about how many hearts you win.

What caused this change? I believe that the approach to leadership changed with former US President Barack Obama. It’s just that not everyone bought into the concept.

Obama approached his life in politics using a concept of communicating non-confrontation. Real dialogue, rather than threats of punitive measures. His approach worked. People bought into it and it became a culture.

I have been on the front line of fighting organised criminal gangs for decades. When I finally have them in custody, I rarely raise my voice. I have found they will communicate more if they don’t feel intimidated or disrespected.

That being said, they will kill the moment they get back into their own environment. The question to be asked is: Is it the environment that makes them violent or is it their presence that causes the hostility?

Is there an issue with the way those in authority communicate with them
— from schools to the police force? If we were to extract them from the current environment and replant them elsewhere in the world, would they behave differently?

There are case studies that exist regarding a criminal group emigrating to the United States (US) in the 80s. Did they change? No. They became the Shower Posse.

Is it because the immigrant environment in the US was simply a satellite community of the Kingston ghettos? Would the result have been different if we had sent them to Norway? I think so.

I believe in a strong, hard approach when dealing with criminals. They must feel your strength, metaphorically speaking, and, of course, within the guidelines of the law. They must know there is no fear.

Once the criminals are in custody, my approach is based on one rule: Everyone must be treated with respect. Communication techniques must be chosen based on intent, not emotion.

The world was not always like this. Compliance was forced without reasoning or explanation at almost every level, from school to policing. It is a method that worked well with Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao Zedong. That type of control requires tyranny to back it up.

When every rule in school is enforced and that authority doesn’t exist in the community because the machinery required to maintain it simply doesn’t exist, you can’t maintain law and order. You have to practise the art of convincing people to buy into your philosophy somehow, or make a plan to force them to follow your rules.

The “forcing” approach requires a lot of resources and very flexible laws in relation to human rights. Dr Blake’s approach of identifying the offenders and raiding them into custody or hiding has worked, and it is required.

Going forward, if society should change, there will be less of this type of policing because there will be fewer offenders.

A lot will depend on how leadership — from schools to Government — will modify their approach to create this society that will comply because they want to, not because they are forced.

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