11.1 Leadership?

In chapeter 11, we discussed the effectiveness of leadership. We learned that having skills in communication was an important element in becoming an effective leader. Last Thursday, the leader of the Palo Alto Police Department, Police Chief Lynne Johnson, found out how important that is. According to the San Jose Mercury News, she was at a Town Hall meeting on Thursday discussing a string of Burglaries that had occurred in the City over the last few weeks. After the meeting, she spoke with a television reporter and said (in the interview) that she had instructed her police officers to question African-American men as part of the investigation. This comment led the NAACP, and other community members to complain about her comments, saying that it sounded like racial-profiling. On Monday night she communicated an apology to the council as members of the public called for her ouster.