Communications—debriefing skills

This chapter highlights the importance of a leader’s debriefing skills in police operations. It explains that debriefing amounts to a feedback session and the role of leaders in the debriefing procedure. Moreover, failing to debrief any event, and especially significant events, is unwise given the loss of valuable experience and learning that may occur. Neglecting to debrief helps to maintain the status quo while debriefing opens the way to doing things differently, more economically and better. After a debriefing session, the leader may have to take some remedial action to correct continuing operational faults. The chapter notes that critical self-analysis and constructive feedback can help leaders realise whether they did well in the debriefing session.