The CopDoc Podcast: Aiming for Excellence in Leadership

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 10 - Episode 172
EPISODE SUMMARY
What happens when a police chief walks into his first department meeting and tells the staff, "I'm here to serve you — not the other way around"? For Chief Tom Wetzel of the University Circle Police Department in Cleveland, Ohio, that statement was not a slogan. It was a commitment he has carried through three decades of policing, from dispatcher to lieutenant to chief.
In this conversation, Tom shares a leadership philosophy built on servant leadership, dignity, and what he calls the "sweet spot" between accountability and motivation. He is direct about what he has seen: too many police departments creating more stress for their officers inside the building than on the streets. The politics, the gossip, the nitpicking, the heavy-handed discipline — it follows officers home, sits with them at the dinner table, and follows them to bed. He believes that is not just a morale problem. It is a leadership problem, and it is fixable.
Tom also discusses his book, A Cop and a Coffee Cup, a short, practical blueprint for police supervisors and leaders. The concept is simple: imagine a wise, seasoned officer sitting across the table from a young leader, with one cup of coffee and one shot to pass on what matters most. That is the book. It covers how to develop inspired and accountable officers, how to handle discipline with grace and discretion, and why the word "clemency" belongs in every chief's vocabulary. If you lead people in blue — or aspire to — this episode will give you a great deal to think about.
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: [email protected] 

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 [email protected]

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 9 - Episode 171
EPISODE SUMMARY:
Steve Morreale sits down with Captain Dr. Heather Glogolich of the NJIT Police Department in Newark, New Jersey, for a candid, deeply personal, and professionally rich conversation about what it means to lead in policing today. Heather brings more than 22 years of law enforcement experience, an EdD focusing on domestic violence and higher education, and a hard-won perspective on what it takes not just to survive in a male-dominated profession, but to thrive in it and bring others along.
Heather speaks openly about her journey from the Morris County Sheriff's Office to patrol officer, lieutenant, and now captain, including having to sue her agency to secure a promotion she had earned. Rather than letting that experience define her bitterness, she channeled it into a commitment to mentorship and transformational leadership. Her story is one of accountability, growth, and choosing to lead with love, even when the institution made that difficult.
The conversation ranges widely, from the real reasons women remain underrepresented in law enforcement leadership, to the operational risks of empathy, to why she believes the first day on the job should include leadership training. Heather challenges comfortable assumptions, pushes back thoughtfully on conventional DEI narratives, and delivers a message that will resonate with anyone trying to grow as a leader, regardless of rank, gender, or years on the job.
KEY TOPICS DISCUSSED:
How Heather's path from the Morris County Sheriff's Office to NJIT shaped her leadership philosophy
Women in policing leadership, the 30x30 initiative, and the real reasons representation remains low
Balancing being a great cop and a great parent without sacrificing either
Her personal experience as a survivor of domestic violence and how that shaped her doctoral research
The difference between sympathy and empathy, and why empathetic policing carries operational risk
Suing her agency to earn a promotion and what she did with the chip on her shoulder
Culture change within your sphere of control when you cannot change the whole organization
"Lead with love," servant leadership, and transformational leadership in practice
Why the first day on the job should include leadership training
How to mentor others while still seeking mentorship yourself, including her work with Simon Sinek's curve.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: [email protected] 

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 [email protected]

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 9 - Episode 168
What does it take to go from a dirt road in Northeast Texas to leading one of the most progressive police departments in the country?
In this episode of The CopDoc Podcast, Dr. Steve Morreale sits down with Dr. Lance Arnold, Chief of Police in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Lance calls his journey "dirt road to doctorate," and that phrase captures something essential about who he is: a leader who never lost sight of where he came from, even as his thinking about leadership grew more sophisticated, more deliberate, and more people-centered with every passing year.
Lance spent 20 years at the Norman, Oklahoma Police Department before taking his first chief's job in Weatherford, Texas, and then moving to Broken Arrow. Along the way, he earned an Ed.D. in organizational leadership and built systems for developing leaders from the inside out. He arrived at a deceptively simple conviction: the job of a leader is to create conditions for people to flourish. Not just survive. Not just get to retirement unbroken. Flourish.
This conversation is one of the most substantive explorations of police leadership development you will find anywhere. Lance and Steve dig into why leadership training rarely sticks when the culture does not change around it, why most supervisors manage fires instead of preventing them, and why "we tried that in 1995, and it didn't work" may be the most dangerous sentence in policing. Lance is direct about his own early failures, honest about what it took to grow, and clear-eyed about the gap between what most agencies say they value and what they actually build systems to support.
If you are a leader at any level who has ever felt like you were swimming against the tide, this one is for you.
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: [email protected] 

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 [email protected]

The CopDoc Podcast - Season 9 - Episode 167
What does it take to walk into four different agencies, each with its own culture and expectations, and lead effectively in all of them? Gina Hawkins has done exactly that — from the Atlanta Police Department where she came of age as a young officer, to Sandy Springs, Clayton County, Fayetteville, North Carolina, and now Cobb County's Sheriff's Office. Along the way she has learned that culture doesn't start inside the building. It starts with the community that either demands excellence or tolerates mediocrity.
In this conversation, Gina shares the hard lessons she picked up at each stop — managing stress that nearly broke her health, losing custody of her daughter the weekend the moving truck arrived as she headed to take command in Fayetteville, and still walking into that organization and pouring herself into the work. She talks about what it means to develop leaders, why women belong in policing at every level, and why the absence of universal standards for 18,000 law enforcement agencies is one of the most pressing problems in the profession.
This episode is candid, personal, and practical. Gina Hawkins doesn't give you theory — she gives you earned wisdom.
KEY TOPICS DISCUSSED:
How culture is shaped by the community before it is ever shaped by the chief
Leading through personal crisis while commanding a new organization
What it's like to be the outsider hired over the heads of internal candidates
The importance of women in policing and Cobb County's annual Women's Summit
Her experience on the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and why the lack of universal standards remains a critical gap
The role of transparency, accountability, and body cameras in rebuilding public trust
What retirement looks like when you can't stop serving
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: [email protected] 

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 [email protected]

Season 9 - Episode 166 - The CopDoc Podcast
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: [email protected] 

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 [email protected]