The 2014 NATO summit in Newport and Cardiff was one of the most high-profile recent events to be held in the UK. Close to 200 national leaders attended, as well as 4,000 delegates and officials from around 60 countries.
Anthony Moyle CMgr MCMI, chief inspector with South Wales Police
South Wales and Gwent Police forces combined to deliver the event, which presented a unique set of pressures, as well as putting huge demands on resources. As a local manager within South Wales Police, Anthony Moyle CMgr MCMI played a important role, making sure that daily police business was maintained within one command area.
“The eyes of the world were focused on our force area,” says Anthony who was then an acting inspector and is now a chief inspector with South Wales Police. “I distinctly remember having to draw on all my leadership skills and experiences.”
What helped him in particular were the self-awareness and reflection techniques that he’d learned during various stints of management and leadership development in his career.
“Having the ability to understand my own pressures as a leader helped me to better manage others,” says Anthony. Because he had the tools to tune into his own personal thoughts and feelings, he was more confident in helping team members deal with their own.
These habits of self-awareness and reflection also kept him calm and methodical. “Leadership can put a huge burden of responsibility on you; it can feel lonely. But through this period my focus was always on business-as-usual principles.”
Despite some local criticism of road closures and other security measures put in place, the summit was deemed a success for both police forces.
The eyes of the world were focused on our force area. I distinctly remember having to draw on all my leadership skills and experiences. Having the ability to understand my own pressures as a leader helped me to better manage others
Anthony Moyle CMgr MCMI, chief inspector, South Wales Police
Leading through today's challenges
Fast-forward to today, and the cost-of-living crisis is affecting staff and officers, says Anthony. The pressures of energy, food and interest rate rises won’t just have an impact at home; they’ll feed through into staff morale and people’s ability to do their jobs to their best ability. All this should focus the minds of leaders, he says.
“I’ve already started to reflect on how I can limit the effect of these issues within my teams,” says Anthony. “That means drawing on all my learned experiences of managing through adversity.” Specifically, he’s looking at how he can enable staff to work smarter. “Policing is unique in that we still need to deliver an emergency service and therefore we need people in work, however, we do have capacity to alleviate some of the pressures on the workforce.” Some of the assistance includes financial signposting, police “blue light cards” that offer financial discount rewards to emergency services, ongoing organisational work to locate officers closer to their home addresses, car-sharing and flexible working arrangements.
To achieve this means establishing strong interpersonal communication and understanding what Anthony calls “person-specific problems.” These could be childcare or caring responsibilities, or specific challenges with travelling to the workplace. “We must care about individual needs.”
The journey to Chartered
Becoming Chartered is relatively new within policing, so achieving Chartered Manager status in April 2022 was an “exceptionally proud” moment.
Anthony Moyle CMgr MCMI, in a meeting with his colleagues at South Wales Police
The CMgr process consolidated qualities that Anthony had – such as self-awareness and reflection – but it’s also opened his eyes to how the whole organisation could benefit. “Despite working full-time in a critical role, I’ve put myself in a position where I can evidence to others that we can still develop ourselves and obtain professional accreditation.”
Anthony continues to push his own continuous professional development, and he’s insistent that his team get every opportunity to develop themselves, too. “If either I or my team don’t feel they have sufficient knowledge, or support in their decision-making ability then I would personally consider that a failure on my part as a leader.”
More from CMI
- Is it time to start your journey to Chartered? Check out the pathway
- All Reflection resources from CMI’s Career Development Centre (CDC)
- Go deeper with CMI’s Developing Resilience learning path: Discover how to develop your innate ability to adapt to stress and bounce back from adversity
- Go deeper with CMI’s Communication learning path