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"Leaders who have demonstrated or characterized themselves as confrontational, authoritative, demanding, aggressive and straightforward have always created conflict for me without justification other than resenting those qualities in a leader and deeming them to be those of a “workplace bully”. Alignment with those who exhibited or demonstrated forward thinking, positional consensus builder, single minded and personable, makes me feel like I am in their element and causes me to related to them more closely than the former. Finally, there are many leadership styles that come to mind based on my exposure to leadership seminars and training sessions. The magic is to find the right combination for the right person at the right time of their career choices.
One must ask, what exactly does a warden do and how do you prepare for such a most complex job. First and foremost before you take this long journey to becoming a warden or leader, ask your self honestly, do you enjoy working in corrections? Do you enjoy the work and efforts put forth in providing prisoners opportunities to rehabilitate themselves and prepare themselves for a successful return back to society? Secondly are you prepared to work endless hours until the task at hand is completed and ready for your signature and blessing to the top managers? Lastly, one must ask the question “do I enjoy managing people?” needless to say, these questions must be answered yes and it must follow up with other questions such as do enjoy long working hours and be held responsible for the lives of several thousand people including staff and visitors. Are you effective in the administration in ensuring all prison administrative and operational issues are handled in the appropriate and timely manner? Are you aware which standards and expectations are required in order to meet the agency’s potential of their top executive at the facility?
Outlining expectations could result in an ever growing list such as the following but certainly not limited to such tasks at hand best described as scheduling work assignments for the prison staff without favoritism or nepotism; developing and implementing training program for prison staff to develop a career track for future upcoming leaders; evaluating the work performance of prison staff; developing and implementing security measures for the prison using reasonable and logical measures that actually apply to the job at hand; managing the prisoners according to Departmental policies and procedures, laws and regulations applied to the correctional setting; orientation of new prisoners; developing and implementing educational programs for prisoners without compromising security; maintaining records of prisoners, staff, and facility and resolving conflicts inside the prison that range from food or medical issues to gang and other violent concerns that threaten to disrupt the facility any time of the day. . Since this position is so politically disposed, it is often said the educational and work experience requirements can be waived in return for a faithful lap dog or “yes” person. Unfortunately, this choice of appointing less qualified individuals is still politically inclined to occur and will continue to hamper the dreams of those employees working hard to attain the mere recognition it takes just to be considered for such an executive position when the opportunity comes knocking on the door..
One must ask, what exactly does a warden do and how do you prepare for such a most complex job. First and foremost before you take this long journey to becoming a warden or leader, ask your self honestly, do you enjoy working in corrections? Do you enjoy the work and efforts put forth in providing prisoners opportunities to rehabilitate themselves and prepare themselves for a successful return back to society? Secondly are you prepared to work endless hours until the task at hand is completed and ready for your signature and blessing to the top managers? Lastly, one must ask the question “do I enjoy managing people?” needless to say, these questions must be answered yes and it must follow up with other questions such as do enjoy long working hours and be held responsible for the lives of several thousand people including staff and visitors. Are you effective in the administration in ensuring all prison administrative and operational issues are handled in the appropriate and timely manner? Are you aware which standards and expectations are required in order to meet the agency’s potential of their top executive at the facility?
Outlining expectations could result in an ever growing list such as the following but certainly not limited to such tasks at hand best described as scheduling work assignments for the prison staff without favoritism or nepotism; developing and implementing training program for prison staff to develop a career track for future upcoming leaders; evaluating the work performance of prison staff; developing and implementing security measures for the prison using reasonable and logical measures that actually apply to the job at hand; managing the prisoners according to Departmental policies and procedures, laws and regulations applied to the correctional setting; orientation of new prisoners; developing and implementing educational programs for prisoners without compromising security; maintaining records of prisoners, staff, and facility and resolving conflicts inside the prison that range from food or medical issues to gang and other violent concerns that threaten to disrupt the facility any time of the day. . Since this position is so politically disposed, it is often said the educational and work experience requirements can be waived in return for a faithful lap dog or “yes” person. Unfortunately, this choice of appointing less qualified individuals is still politically inclined to occur and will continue to hamper the dreams of those employees working hard to attain the mere recognition it takes just to be considered for such an executive position when the opportunity comes knocking on the door..
Read the book. It is not all it's cracked up to be. Do not be misled by the title. Only half of the book is about prison and only about 20 pages is dedicated to ADOC. I was disappointed; poorly written and even worse editing. We're paying over 10 cents a page for an autobiography that is flat.
On a brighter note, there are a few pages in this book that touches on prison and prison politics that are true and exact, but that was the only interesting aspect of this book.
Pass it by, not worth 17 bucks.
That last paragraph is dead on. It seems, at least outwardly, that the best way to get ahead in DOC is not to know what you are doing, but rather to know what your superiors want you to do.
You are right about your review;we talked to the author and he admitted his mistakes were frequent and not very well edited. He explained the publisher didn't explain the editing process and found out he didn't pay for the service but it was too late and it was left as is. He did write a second book with the same title and its more in depth on ADOC and recent and past events. He boxes with the administration and retired in April after saying enough is enough on ADOC politics. (he did say he took the editing service this time around to make it better)and losing money on the whole deal.. Maybe second time around is better for all??
Excerpt from new book WH2- Corruption upsets the balance of the environment and creates lower levels of accountability by those in power. An agency ruled by the governance of its department orders and polices compromises its mission through corruption and falls under the guise of taking an oath for public trust and public administration of public funds. The fact is corruption compromises the rule of law and leads to mistrust and dissention within the agency. Corruption within a state agency undermines economic development by generating considerable distractions and inefficiencies. Under the disguise of transparency, agencies remove costly and lengthy regulations to better and covertly allow them to be bypassed for their own personal greed. Where corruption inflates the cost of business, it also distorts the playing field, shielding. Corruption also lowers compliance with construction, environmental, or other regulations, thus reducing their responsibility to our taxpayers and lowering the quality of government services and infrastructure, resulting in mass increases of budgetary pressures on government to maintain the overall scope of services. Corruption facilitates environmental destruction. The impact of this is social rights on workers are less protected as violations of labor unions by rules and compromising actions by both parties infringe on the correctional workers’ safety and productivity. Disabling the power of the individuals, the agency dominates and rules their domain with illegitimate power gained from the branches of legitimate powers. Government officials with strong tendencies toward the theft of power or true rule can undermine their own agencies’ gains and impose a negative and detrimental impact on their employees work conditions. It is reasonable to comprehend that offering financial or other types of bribes or under-the-table benefits to those willing to be a part of this type of corruptive behavior results in the selling off of the social’s and department’s culture for their own gains One must be careful to trust to not engage or be manipulated into these various types of manifestations. Corruption, as it will impact a present danger for the employee’s health and safety, discredits certain institutional values or destroys individual and professional relationships. One must be careful to trust others and anticipate not engaging or be manipulated into these various types of manifestations of corruption as they will impact a present danger for the employee’s health and safety, discredit certain institutional values, or destroy individual and professional relationships.
A couple of days later, he came back into my office and snickered and advised me Mr. Ryan made it clear although it was getting to be close to Christmas he was not going to get a double Christmas package from him; thus, it was clear I would not be going to Lewis with him. Referring to the Lewis complex as the place of “a box of broken toys,”he explained to me how this complex became so problematic and how we failed to prepare ourselves to run it effectively, sharing with me his vision on how the department had not planned or predict the need to prepare our future leaders in the culture that existed at the Lewis complex, which has,no doubt, the most complex culture of them all.(excerpt)
hello all, I added 33 more pages on ADC to give the readers a little more insight on the way CO's work and conditions as well; never intended to be perfect I tried to realistic. The second book is political and has 80 per cent ADC and 20 per cent NM.. Enjoy.. I revised the first book based on giving our officers their money's worth as I noticed it was not worth the price.. hope you give me another shot at reading the revised completed after July 30th
I wrote the first review that slammed your book. HOWEVER...you have redeemed yourself in part 2; Very well written and true in every aspect. Sir, I commend you on your candor about our department. Wasted Honor 2 is a must read for every CO all the way up to the director, he might learn a thing or two about good leadership. Thank you for the book and all it's honesty.