The CopDoc Podcast: Aiming for Excellence in Leadership

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 10 - Episode 175 
GUEST: Chris Hsiung, Undersheriff, San Mateo County Sheriff's Office, and Executive Director, The Curve
EPISODE SUMMARY:
Rank does not make a leader. That is the premise Chris Hsiung and I worked through in this conversation, and it shapes everything else we talked about.
Chris has spent more than 30 years in policing, most of it with the Mountain View Police Department, where he rose from patrol officer to chief. He now serves as Undersheriff with the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office and leads The Curve, a nonprofit he co-founded with Simon Sinek to help police leaders build cultures grounded in trust and purpose. We talked about what it actually takes to change a department's culture, and why that work starts with what leaders do, not what they say.
Chris put it simply: culture equals values plus behavior. A lot of agencies have values painted on the wall and printed on the cruiser. Few agencies have leaders whose daily behavior matches those words. We got into what happens when that gap goes unaddressed, why leaders need people who will tell them the truth instead of what they want to hear, and how Chris learned to lead by taking off the stars and getting into the jail, onto the ride-along, into the training room, alongside the people he was asking to trust him.
This one is for chiefs, sheriffs, sergeants, and anyone tired of waiting for a promotion before they start leading.
KEY TOPICS DISCUSSED:
Why rank grants authority but not leadership, and the difference between the two
Culture by design versus culture by default, and what happens when leaders leave culture to chance
How to build change from the middle of an organization by working with early adopters instead of trying to convince everyone at once
Why "everything is green" reporting should worry a leader more than it comforts one
What it means to get out of the office: riding along, training with your people, learning the job from the ground up
How Chris's own mistakes and uncertainty as a young leader shaped the leader he became
Why a healthy culture is one of the strongest recruitment and retention tools an agency has
INSIGHTS FROM THE CONVERSATION:
Chris made a case that leadership starts long before anyone pins on a badge or a stripe. Waiting for the title is the wrong strategy. He also pushed back on the idea that a leader can understand an organization from behind a desk. His answer to reading an agency's real condition was blunt: go find out for yourself, in person, without the rank showing.
On trust, Chris was direct about the danger of an organization where nobody tells the boss bad news. If every report comes back green, that is not evidence things are fine. It is often evidence people are afraid to say otherwise, and a leader steering by false readings will not see the iceberg coming.
He closed with a simple answer to a hard question: what should policing never stop doing? Caring. Everything else in this conversation, the culture work, the trust building, the willingness to admit mistakes, comes back to that one word.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR LISTENERS:
Audit the gap between your agency's stated values and your own daily behavior. That gap is your culture, whether you intended it or not.
Do not try to convince the whole organization at once. Find your early adopters and let their results do the persuading.
If everyone tells you things are fine, ask why. Build channels where people can safely tell you when they are not.
Spend time outside your office, in uniform-optional settings, doing the work your people do. You cannot lead what you do not understand.
Treat your own mistakes and uncertainty as material, not liabilities. Vulnerability, handled honestly, builds more trust than the appearance of having it all figured out.
ABOUT CHRIS HSIUNG:
Chris Hsiung currently serves as Undersheriff with the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office, a role he stepped back into in November 2025 to support Sheriff Ken Binder during a period of organizational rebuilding. He is a retired police chief with more than 30 years of public safety experience in the San Francisco Bay Area, most of it with the Mountain View Police Department, where he worked as a detective and SWAT team member before being appointed chief in 2020.
Chris is a founding board member and Executive Director of The Curve, a national nonprofit he co-founded with Simon Sinek and a network of police chiefs and sheriffs to modernize leadership development in policing. He co-chairs the IACP Human and Civil Rights Committee and holds board advisory roles with the University of Virginia Center for Public Safety and Justice, the Future Policing Institute, and the Crisis Ready Institute. He is a nationally recognized speaker and writer on organizational culture and adaptive leadership.

RESOURCES MENTIONED:
The Curve (thecurve.org)

Hey there! Send us a message. Who else should we be talking to? What topics are important? Use FanMail to connect! Let us know!
Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com 

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 10 - Episode 174
Guest: Terry Dwyer, J.D. – Professor, Author, & Playwright
In this episode, Dr. Steve Morreale sits down with Terry Dwyer, J.D., a professor at Western Connecticut State University and a retired New York State Police investigator. Terry shares insights from his diverse career stretching across the Navy Reserves, corrections, the court system, state policing, legal practice, and creative writing. They dive deep into the differences between leadership and management, police culture, systemic issues facing women in law enforcement, and the trauma that impacts officers and their families.
Key Takeaways
The Foundations of Corrections: Terry strongly believes every police officer should spend time working in corrections first. It builds crucial, real-world communication and de-escalation skills by forcing you to manage difficult situations entirely with your words.
Leadership vs. Micromanagement: A disturbing shift in modern policing culture is the rise of the "liability-first" mindset. Exceptional supervisors lead by establishing trust and giving their professionals autonomy, whereas poor managers default to punitive micromanagement and "dog-piling" charges onto struggling officers.
Secondary Trauma & The Family Unit: Law enforcement trauma isn't just about active gunfights; it is cumulative. Terry emphasizes that the true partner riding through the career's highs and deep lows with an officer is their spouse, highlighting his 42-year marriage to his wife, Joan.
Culture and the 30x30 Initiative: Discussing his background representing female officers in harassment suits, Terry notes that police culture can be intensely insulated. He underscores the importance of the 30x30 Initiative (aiming for 30% women in policing by 2030) and notes that a department's culture is purely dictated by its top leadership.
Featured Works by Terry Dwyer
Book: The Badge Between Us: Duty, Marriage, and Family – Part memoir, part true crime, and part love letter to his wife, exploring the unseen weight a police family carries.
Play: Depositions – An MFA thesis play premiered at the Grand Fringe Festival, based on his qualitative research and legal cases surrounding sexual harassment and the experiences of female police officers.
Upcoming Project: A true-crime book detailing a 50-year-old cold case involving a missing young Black man whose remains were finally identified in 2024, focusing on a dedicated detective who investigated it into his retirement.
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Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com 

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 10 - Episode 174
Unlock the secret to transforming police leadership from the front lines. Dr. Robin Engel shares how dedicated research and real-world experience are reshaping police training and community trust—yet the journey is anything but easy.

In this powerful conversation, Robin reveals how her personal history fuels her relentless drive to improve policing—highlighting pivotal moments like her role in Cincinnati’s reform after a tragic officer-involved shooting. You’ll discover her innovative approach to data-driven policing, the critical importance of first-line supervisors, and why understanding and empowering the backbone of police organizations can prevent crises before they happen.

We break down:
How accreditation standards and evidence-based practices guide meaningful reform
The role of a national consortium, CAPS, in strengthening frontline supervision across diverse agencies
Why a police officer’s most vital asset is the support from their superior, and how training gaps undermine safety and morale
The surprising insights from body cam analysis, AI, and administrative data that actually improve decision-making in the field
Robin’s leadership lessons on uniting community, academia, and police during moments of crisis
There’s a stark warning here: neglecting frontline supervisors and evidence-based strategies leaves departments vulnerable to the chaos of the next crisis. Conversely, building a culture of continuous learning and local leadership means resilient, safer communities. Robin’s heartfelt story of overcoming skepticism and her unwavering commitment to impactful reform is an essential listen for anyone determined to make policing better.

Perfect for police officers, administrators, researchers, and community advocates eager to innovate and bridge the divide between theory and practice. Robin Engel, a renowned professor at Ohio State University and a leader in policing reform, exemplifies the power of knowledge turned into action, making this episode a vital blueprint for meaningful change.

Hey there! Send us a message. Who else should we be talking to? What topics are important? Use FanMail to connect! Let us know!
Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com 

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com

Hey there! Send us a message. Who else should we be talking to? What topics are important? Use FanMail to connect! Let us know!
Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com 

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 10 -  Episode 173
Guest: Chief Ryan Johansen, Apex Police Department, Apex, North Carolina
Most police chiefs walk into a new department and tell people their vision. Ryan Johansen asked questions and took notes for 90 minutes with every single one of his 200 employees. One-on-one. No agenda. Just listening.
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Chief Ryan Johansen of the Apex Police Department sits down with Dr. Steve Morreale for a wide-ranging conversation on what it takes to rebuild a police department's culture, restore officer confidence, and lead with both conviction and humility.
Ryan came to Apex, North Carolina about 15 months ago after five years as chief at the San Bruno Police Department in California, just south of San Francisco. He made the move with his wife and family, driven by a desire for a different environment and a chance to do something meaningful. What he found was an agency with purpose-driven officers who had pulled back on proactive policing, and a community watching crime numbers rise as a result.
He walked in with a clear belief: most of what ails policing starts inside the organization. If officers are treated as numbers, managed through policy, and punished more than developed, it shows in how they treat the public. Johansen flipped the model. He spent 90 minutes one-on-one with every one of his 200 employees, asking questions, listening, and taking notes. He made clear that the org chart runs the other way: everyone in the building, including him, exists to support the officers answering calls.
The conversation covers a lot of ground. Ryan talks about his early days at the San Diego Police Department and what he learned by leaving a 3,000-officer agency for a 50-officer department in San Bruno. He talks about taking the chief's job in San Bruno just two days before Covid lockdowns, and then navigating George Floyd and the calls for reform that followed. He describes walking into the Apex roll call room, tattoos and all, introduced only as "Ryan, from California," and what he said to a room full of officers who weren't sure what to make of him.
He and Steve dig into the managing versus leading debate, the difference between policy and culture, the false safety of no-pursuit policies, and what servant leadership actually looks like when it's time to discipline someone. Johansen is candid about the tension between institutional pressure and personal courage, and why he believes most police chiefs live in fear of the average three-year tenure rather than leading the way their people deserve.
This is a refreshing, honest conversation with a chief who isn't performing. He says what he believes. And the people around him are proving it works.

KEY TOPICS COVERED
Career path from San Diego to San Bruno to Apex: what each stop taught him
Why he believes policing "breaks good humans" and what he is doing about it
The recruiter's words that brought him to Apex ahead of schedule
What a real listening tour looks like: 90 minutes, one on one, with every employee
Managing versus leading: where chiefs spend their time and why it matters
The discipline dichotomy: development versus documentation
Command and control culture and its effects on officers in the street
Extracting a vision versus dictating one: how to earn genuine buy-in
AI in policing: low-risk value versus high-risk shortcuts

Hey there! Send us a message. Who else should we be talking to? What topics are important? Use FanMail to connect! Let us know!
Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com 

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 10 - Episode 171
In this episode of The CopDoc Podcast, Dr. Steve Morreale sits down with Christian Quinn, retired Fairfax County Police executive and founder of Fulcrum Innovations.
Christian traces his path from Massachusetts summer police officer to one of the technology leaders in one of the nation's largest county police departments. The conversation then dives into the rapidly changing world of artificial intelligence in policing.
Steve and Christian explore:
How AI is already affecting police operations and investigations.
Why agencies need governance, policy, and training before deploying AI tools.
The risks of deepfakes, synthetic media, and digital evidence manipulation.
How leaders can use AI responsibly to improve efficiency without surrendering critical thinking.
What police executives should be doing right now to prepare their organizations for the future.
Key takeaway
This is a candid discussion about the opportunities, blind spots, and ethical challenges that come with AI in public safety. If you lead people, manage policy, or are trying to understand what AI means for policing, this episode offers practical insights from someone who has been on both the operational and technology sides of the profession.
Hey there! Send us a message. Who else should we be talking to? What topics are important? Use FanMail to connect! Let us know!
Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com 

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com