The effect of formal leadership training on the leadership styles of police field trainers

This ex post facto causal comparative based study examined if any relationships existed between the attendance of the Supervision Level 1 training course held at the Atlantic Police Academy and the leadership style profiles of police field trainer attendees. Two biographically matched samples of 35 field trainers (trained and untrained), from the Maritime provinces, were given the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ 5X). The 26 returned surveys were used to determine the leadership profiles along 3 leadership style domains: transformational, transactional and laissez-faire (Bass & Avolio,1997). The results were examined using a matched sample t test (25 df, .05 alpha) to determine the degree of differences between the two groups. No statistically significant differences were found, but the direction of the differences were consistent with previous research showing that leadership styles can be positively affected by training (Bass & Avolio, 1997). The laissez-faire score (1.782) approached statistical significance. Discussion of the need for future research in this area of police education.