The CopDoc Podcast: Aiming for Excellence in Leadership "Standing in the Gap: Gina Hawkins on Culture, Women in Policing, and What Standards Really Mean"
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
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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 stephen.morreale@gmail.com