Leadership Lessons from Law Enforcement: Crisis Management for Technology Executives

From 2009 to 2025, while building engineering teams and leading technology transformations at Fortune 500 companies, I also served as an auxiliary police officer. Additionally, I served as Chief of Jackson County Rescue Squad for 7 years, leading technical rescue operations and serving as incident commander on complex multi-agency responses. This wasn’t a hobby—it was deliberate leadership development in the most demanding environments possible.

After founding and running a technology company, I completed law enforcement training in 2008, graduating top of my class. For the next 16 years, I served alongside career officers, led rescue operations as Chief, and commanded incidents like Paradise Falls where lives hung in the balance.

Most technology executives will never experience leadership under that kind of pressure. But the lessons I learned on patrol have made me a better engineering leader, a more effective crisis manager, and a calmer voice when production systems fail at 3 AM.

Why a Tech Leader Became a Cop

In 2008, after exiting Metrostat Communications, I had the opportunity to reflect on leadership. I’d built a company, managed P&L, and led technical teams. But I recognized gaps in my leadership development:

• Crisis decision-making: How do you think clearly when everything is on fire?
• People skills under stress: How do you de-escalate situations before they explode?
• Command presence: How do you project calm authority when chaos surrounds you?
• Discipline and accountability: How do you maintain standards when it’s easier to cut corners?

Law enforcement training offered something business school never could: leadership development in life-or-death situations. So I enrolled, completed training at the top of my class, and began serving as an auxiliary officer. I also took on increasing responsibility in emergency services, eventually serving as Chief of Jackson County Rescue Squad for 7 years.

For 16 years, I balanced multiple worlds: leading software engineers by day, patrolling streets as a law enforcement officer, and commanding rescue operations where lives hung in the balance. The contrast was stark, but the leadership lessons were universal.

Crisis Decision-Making: Clarity Under Pressure

Law Enforcement Lesson

In law enforcement, you don’t have the luxury of perfect information. A domestic disturbance call gives you fragments: raised voices reported, history of violence at the address, unknown weapons present. You respond anyway, making decisions in real-time as the situation unfolds.

The framework drilled into us:

1. Assess rapidly - What’s the immediate threat?
2. Prioritize safety - Officer safety, victim safety, public safety, suspect safety—in that order
3. Act decisively - Hesitation can be deadly
4. Adapt continuously - Situations change in seconds
5. Communicate constantly - Keep your partner and dispatch informed

You learn to distinguish between “urgent” and “important,” to triage rapidly, and to make the best decision with imperfect information under extreme time pressure.

Technology Leadership Application

When production goes down at 3 AM and revenue is bleeding, the pressure is real. But after responding to active incidents where lives were at stake, a production outage becomes manageable.

The framework translates directly:

1. Assess Rapidly

• What’s failing? What’s the blast radius?
• Is customer data at risk? Is there a security breach?
• How many users are impacted?

2. Prioritize Safety

• Data integrity first
• Customer impact mitigation second
• Root cause analysis third (after stabilization)

3. Act Decisively

• Roll back the deployment
• Activate the disaster recovery plan
• Scale up the redundant systems

4. Adapt Continuously

• The rollback revealed a database migration issue
• Shift to emergency read-only mode
• Execute the contingency plan

5. Communicate Constantly

• Status updates to stakeholders every 15 minutes
• Keep the team informed of decisions and rationale
• Document the timeline for post-incident review

Real Example: The Migration Crisis

During our $14M multi-cloud migration, we encountered an unexpected database replication lag that threatened to take down production. Years of law enforcement training kicked in:

• No panic - Maintained calm command presence that kept the team focused
• Rapid triage - Identified the critical path and non-critical paths
• Clear communication - Stakeholders knew exactly what was happening and why
• Decisive action - Made the call to pause migration, roll back changes, and investigate
• Team coordination - Every engineer knew their role and executed flawlessly

We resolved the crisis in 47 minutes with zero customer impact. The team later said my calm under pressure gave them confidence to execute.

De-Escalation: Turning Conflict into Cooperation

Law Enforcement Lesson

Most police work isn’t about enforcement—it’s about de-escalation. A mental health crisis, a neighbor dispute, a domestic argument—these situations require verbal judo, not physical force.

De-escalation techniques:

• Active listening - Let people vent; they need to be heard
• Calm tone - Your voice sets the emotional temperature
• Acknowledge feelings - “I understand you’re frustrated” disarms anger
• Offer choices - “We can handle this two ways…” gives control
• Find common ground - “We both want this resolved peacefully”

The goal is to move from confrontation to cooperation, from adversaries to partners solving a problem together.

Technology Leadership Application

Stakeholder conflicts, team disputes, and cross-functional friction are inevitable. Law enforcement de-escalation techniques work remarkably well in conference rooms.

Scenario: Executive Pushback on Platform Investment

A CFO pushes back hard on the $1M platform engineering investment: “We’re spending too much on infrastructure that doesn’t directly generate revenue!”

De-escalation in action:

Active Listening: “I hear your concern about infrastructure costs eating into margins. That’s a legitimate worry.”

Acknowledge Feelings: “You’re responsible for financial performance, and justifying infrastructure spend to the board is challenging.”

Calm Tone: Maintain measured, professional delivery even when challenged aggressively.

Find Common Ground: “We both want to maximize ROI and reduce waste.”

Offer Choices: “We can continue with fragmented infrastructure and rising costs, or invest now in platform engineering that delivers $14M in annual savings. Let me show you the financial model.”

The conversation shifted from confrontation to collaboration. The CFO became one of the platform initiative’s strongest advocates because they felt heard, understood, and presented with clear options.

Command Presence: Leading Without Formal Authority

Law Enforcement Lesson

As an auxiliary officer, I often arrived at scenes where I was the first uniformed presence. People look to the uniform for authority, direction, and calm. You must project confidence even when internally uncertain.

Command presence isn’t about rank—it’s about:

• Posture and body language - Stand tall, move purposefully
• Clear, decisive communication - “I need you to step back” not “Could you maybe step back?”
• Calm demeanor - If you’re calm, others calm down
• Consistency - Your word must be reliable
• Situational awareness - Always knowing what’s happening around you

You learn to lead without formal authority, commanding respect through competence, calm, and clarity.

Technology Leadership Application

Platform engineering teams often lack formal authority over application teams. You can’t order teams to use your platform—you must earn adoption through influence, credibility, and service.

Command presence for tech leaders:

Clear Vision: “We’re building self-service infrastructure that reduces deployment time from days to minutes.”

Calm Under Fire: When the platform has an outage, I’m the calm voice coordinating response, not adding to the chaos.

Decisive Communication: “We’re rolling back this feature immediately” not “Maybe we should consider rolling back?”

Consistency: Platform SLAs are non-negotiable. We meet them or we transparently communicate why we didn’t and how we’ll fix it.

Situational Awareness: I know which teams are struggling, which migrations are at risk, and where we need to provide extra support before being asked.

During the $14M migration, my command presence—developed over 16 years in law enforcement—kept stakeholders confident when technical challenges arose. They trusted that I had control of the situation even when the situation was complex and evolving.

Discipline and Accountability: No Shortcuts

Law Enforcement Lesson

Law enforcement demands absolute accountability. Every action is documented, every decision can be questioned in court, every shortcut can have catastrophic consequences.

You learn to:

• Follow procedures exactly - They exist because someone died when they weren’t followed
• Document everything - If it’s not written down, it didn’t happen
• Own your mistakes - Lying or covering up makes everything worse
• Maintain standards - Especially when tired, frustrated, or under pressure
• Prepare meticulously - Equipment checks, backup plans, scenario training

There’s no “good enough” in law enforcement. Discipline isn’t optional—it’s the difference between going home safe and not going home at all.

Technology Leadership Application

The same discipline applies to engineering leadership:

Follow Procedures Exactly

• Deployment checklists aren’t suggestions
• Security protocols aren’t optional
• Code review requirements aren’t bureaucracy

During our migration, we had a 47-step pre-deployment checklist. Every single step, every single time. No shortcuts, no “we’ll do it later,” no assumptions.

Document Everything

• Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) for every major choice
• Runbooks for every operational procedure
• Post-incident reviews for every outage
• Migration logs documenting every change

Own Your Mistakes

• When I made a miscalculation that delayed the migration by two weeks, I owned it in the exec meeting
• Explained what went wrong, why, and how we’d prevent it
• Built credibility through accountability, not perfection

Maintain Standards

• Platform availability SLAs are non-negotiable
• Code quality standards don’t drop during crunch time
• Security reviews happen even when we’re behind schedule

Prepare Meticulously

• Every migration had a rollback plan tested in staging
• Every deployment had multiple “abort and rollback” checkpoints
• Every on-call rotation had comprehensive runbooks

The discipline I learned in law enforcement made me a better engineering leader. Zero-downtime migrations don’t happen by accident—they happen because of rigorous discipline and accountability.

Team Coordination: Trust Under Fire

Law Enforcement and Rescue Lesson

In law enforcement, you learn to trust your partner with your life. When responding to a call, you coordinate silently—hand signals, eye contact, understood roles. Your partner covers the door while you approach. You provide cover fire while they move. Your lives depend on this coordination.

As Chief of Jackson County Rescue Squad for 7 years, I took this to another level. Technical rescues involve coordinating multiple teams—rope rescue technicians, medical personnel, law enforcement, fire departments, sometimes helicopters. As incident commander on operations like Paradise Falls, I coordinated multi-agency responses where every team had different training, different equipment, and different procedures—but one mission.

You learn:

• Clear role assignment - Who’s primary, who’s backup, who’s covering the flank
• Multi-agency coordination - Different organizations, different chains of command, one incident command structure
• Constant awareness of your team’s position - Never lose track of your people, especially in technical rescues
• Nonverbal communication - Sometimes silence is tactical, sometimes hand signals are all you have
• Immediate backup - When your team calls for help, you’re already moving resources
• After-action reviews - Debrief every significant operation, learn continuously

Technology Leadership Application

The $14M migration required coordination across 15+ application teams, platform engineers, SREs, security, networking, and database teams. The same principles applied:

Clear Role Assignment

• Platform team: migration tooling and infrastructure
• SREs: monitoring and rollback procedures
• Application teams: testing and cutover
• Security: validation and compliance
• Everyone knew their lane

Constant Awareness

• Daily standups with all teams
• Shared Slack channels with real-time updates
• Migration dashboard visible to everyone
• No surprises—if someone was blocked, everyone knew immediately

Immediate Backup

• When an application team hit a blocker, platform engineers paused their work to help
• When platform team needed security approval fast-tracked, security reprioritized
• “All hands” mentality—we succeed or fail together

After-Action Reviews

• After every migration phase, we held retrospectives
• What went well? What could improve?
• Update runbooks and procedures based on learnings
• Continuous improvement, not blame

The trust and coordination I learned in law enforcement translated directly to coordinating complex, high-stakes technology initiatives.

People Skills: Reading the Room

Law Enforcement Lesson

In law enforcement, you learn to read people instantly. Is this person scared or aggressive? Intoxicated or mentally ill? Cooperative or planning something?

You learn:

• Body language matters - Clenched fists, avoiding eye contact, fidgeting all mean something
• Listen to tone, not just words - “I’m fine” said aggressively isn’t fine
• Cultural awareness - Different communities, different norms, different approaches
• Empathy under stress - Even when arresting someone, treat them with dignity
• De-escalate the person, not just the situation - Address fears, anger, confusion

Technology Leadership Application

Engineering teams are people, not resources. Reading emotional states, understanding motivations, and addressing unspoken concerns is critical leadership.

Team Member Struggling

• Observation: Normally engaged engineer is quiet in standups, missing deadlines
• Reading the room: Not laziness—probably overwhelmed, burnt out, or facing personal issues
• Law enforcement approach: Pull them aside privately, ask open-ended questions, listen
• Outcome: They were struggling with imposter syndrome on the platform team; we paired them with a mentor

Stakeholder Resistance

• Observation: Executive keeps asking the same questions about migration risks
• Reading the room: Not skepticism—they’re scared of career risk if migration fails
• Law enforcement approach: Address the fear directly: “What’s your biggest concern?”
• Outcome: We created executive-level risk dashboard with clear mitigation strategies; resistance turned to support

Team Conflict

• Observation: Two senior engineers avoiding each other, terse in code reviews
• Reading the room: Personal conflict affecting team dynamics
• Law enforcement approach: Separate conversations, understand both perspectives, mediate
• Outcome: Architectural disagreement turned into healthy debate; established decision-making framework

The people skills I developed in law enforcement—reading situations, understanding motivations, building trust—made me a significantly better engineering leader.

The Uncommon Leadership Edge

Most technology executives develop leadership skills through business school, mentorship, and on-the-job experience. Those are valuable, but they rarely include:

• Making split-second decisions with lives on the line
• Managing crisis situations where there’s no “pause button”
• Maintaining absolute discipline when exhausted and under pressure
• Coordinating teams in high-stakes, rapidly evolving situations
• Reading people to de-escalate conflicts before they explode

For 16 years, I deliberately put myself in situations that demanded these skills. I graduated top of my class in law enforcement training because I treated it as serious leadership development, not a hobby.

Bridging Two Worlds

People often ask: “How did you balance technology leadership and law enforcement?”

The truth is, they reinforced each other:

Law enforcement and rescue leadership made me a better tech leader:

• Calmer during production crises
• Better at de-escalating stakeholder conflicts
• More disciplined in processes and documentation
• Stronger command presence in executive meetings
• Improved people skills and emotional intelligence
• Multi-agency coordination skills translate to cross-functional team leadership

Tech leadership made me a better officer and Chief:

• Systems thinking applied to community problems and rescue operations
• Data-driven approach to patrol strategies and resource allocation
• Process improvement mindset for procedures and training programs
• Mentorship skills for training newer officers and rescue technicians
• Strategic planning for budgets, equipment, and organizational growth

All three roles demanded leadership under pressure, clear communication, team coordination, and unwavering accountability. The skills were universal; only the context changed.

Lessons for Technology Leaders

You probably won’t become a police officer or rescue squad chief (and that’s fine). But you can adopt the principles that make emergency services leadership effective leadership development:

1. Seek Pressure, Don’t Avoid It

• Volunteer for the crisis projects
• Lead the high-stakes initiatives
• Take on the “impossible” transformations
• Growth happens outside your comfort zone

2. Develop Decision-Making Frameworks

• Practice making decisions with incomplete information
• Learn to distinguish urgent from important
• Build mental models for rapid assessment
• The framework matters more than the specific decision

3. Master De-Escalation

• Most conflicts can be defused before they explode
• Listen first, speak second
• Acknowledge feelings before presenting logic
• Turn adversaries into partners

4. Project Command Presence

• Calm demeanor under fire
• Clear, decisive communication
• Consistency between words and actions
• Earn respect through competence, not title

5. Embrace Discipline

• Follow procedures even when inconvenient
• Document everything
• Own mistakes immediately
• Maintain standards under pressure

6. Build Trust Through Coordination

• Clear role assignment
• Constant communication
• Immediate backup when teammates need help
• After-action reviews for continuous learning

Conclusion

Leadership isn’t about titles or org charts—it’s about who people trust when everything is on fire.

For 16 years, I served as an auxiliary police officer, and for 7 of those years as Chief of Jackson County Rescue Squad—not because I wanted second careers, but because I wanted to become a better leader. I wanted to learn crisis management from people who do it at the highest stakes. I wanted to develop command presence under real pressure, not simulated exercises. I wanted to understand how to lead when there are no second chances. As Chief, I had to make budget decisions, strategic plans, and organizational improvements while also commanding technical rescue operations.

That experience made me the technology leader I am today. When I led a $14M migration with zero business impact, when I built platform teams that transformed organizational velocity, when I navigated complex stakeholder dynamics—the lessons from law enforcement and rescue operations were there.

Crisis management isn’t theory for me. It’s 16 years of responding to emergencies as a law enforcement officer, 7 years as Chief of a rescue squad commanding multi-agency operations, making decisions under pressure, and bringing people home safe.

That’s leadership depth most technology executives can’t claim. I didn’t just volunteer—I was Chief. I didn’t just respond to incidents—I commanded them. And it makes all the difference when the pressure is on.

Interested in discussing crisis management, leadership under pressure, or bridging law enforcement principles to technology leadership? Connect with me on LinkedIn to continue the conversation.