From Officer to Leader: Rethinking Leadership Development in Security

Every day, security professionals step into situations that require more than vigilance. An officer at a shopping mall defuses a heated argument before it turns violent. A shift supervisor guides a team through an unexpected power outage. A site manager comforts employees rattled by a workplace threat.

These are moments of leadership. Yet too often, the security industry trains officers to follow post orders, not to lead. The result is a workforce strong in compliance but underprepared for the complex, people-centered demands of modern security operations.

As part of my doctoral research in organizational leadership, I studied how leaders develop in high-reliability, high-stress environments. My findings confirmed what many of us in security already know—leadership is forged through lived experience, not just classroom training. The lesson I carry forward, and one of the most important takeaways I can share, is this: At its heart, leadership is about learning, and when you quit learning, you quit developing as a leader.

Why Leadership Development Matters in Security

Security has evolved dramatically in the past two decades. Once defined narrowly as “observe and report,” today’s security professionals are expected to:

Serve as ambassadors of safety and professionalism
De-escalate volatile situations
Manage access to critical infrastructure
Partner with law enforcement and emergency services
Reassure employees, visitors, and clients in moments of uncertainty

These responsibilities demand leadership at every level, not just from managers. A frontline officer may have seconds to make a decision that protects people, property, and organizational reputation.

Unfortunately, many organizations promote skilled officers into supervisory roles without preparation. Strong guards suddenly become shift leads—expected to manage people, coach performance, and communicate with clients—often without any prior leadership development. The predictable outcomes include burnout, inconsistent service, and dissatisfied clients.

Other high-reliability fields like aviation and emergency medicine have recognized that leadership training is not optional but essential. Security must follow suit.

Common Pitfalls Holding Security Back

Before exploring solutions, it’s worth naming the pitfalls that keep the security industry from developing leaders:

Promotion without preparation. Technical skill as an officer does not automatically translate to people leadership.

Overemphasis on compliance. Too many supervisors are measured only on audit scores or incident reports, not on how they grow their teams.

Unclear career pathways. Without structured leadership ladders, officers see a limited future in security and leave.

Minimal reflection. Busy shifts mean little time to process what happened or learn from it.

These pitfalls are solvable, but they require a shift from treating leadership development as optional to treating it as mission critical.

The Building Blocks of Security Leadership

What does effective security leadership look like? Research and practice point to three essential building blocks.

Core traits. Integrity, adaptability, empathy, and accountability earn trust from clients and teams alike.

Critical skills. Clear communication, situational awareness, conflict management, and decision-making under pressure are the skills that allow leaders to act effectively in high-stakes environments.

Mindset shift. Moving from following orders to leading people is what transforms officers from compliance enforcers to culture builders.

These three building blocks are best developed not through one-time training modules but through lived, guided experiences.

Experience-Driven Leadership Development in Security

Security is an industry of moments. A crowd begins to surge at a stadium gate, a patient’s family grows agitated in a hospital waiting room, or an employee dispute escalates in a corporate lobby. In those moments, leadership is not theoretical, it’s lived. And lived experiences can be the most potent drivers of leadership growth.

In my doctoral research, senior leaders repeatedly emphasized that their greatest lessons came not from formal leadership courses, but from the challenges of real-world leadership itself. Successes and failures alike became teachers.

But not all experiences are created equally. Some provide rich growth opportunities, while others barely make an impact. A routine shift with no challenges may do little to stretch an officer. In contrast, being thrust into a tense workplace situation or tasked with leading peers for the first time can fundamentally change how someone thinks about leadership.

The difference lies in two factors:

Challenge level. Experiences that push leaders just beyond their comfort zone, without overwhelming them, create the most learning.

Processing. Experiences that are paired with feedback, mentoring, or reflection turn into lasting lessons, while unprocessed experiences risk being forgotten or even reinforcing poor habits.

Security work illustrates this well. A course on conflict resolution can teach various conflict resolution concepts. Breaking up a real fight in a crowded retail environment and debriefing afterward with a supervisor teaches confidence, composure, and communication far better than any PowerPoint presentation.

Stretch Assignments: Leadership Laboratories

In my study, leaders described the value of being pushed into stretch experiences—assignments that felt just beyond their comfort zone but not unsupported. For security organizations, this could mean:

Asking an officer to act as shift lead for a week,
Assigning a rising supervisor to brief the client after an incident, or
Rotating staff through different posts, such as from patrol to dispatch to customer-facing roles.

These stretch assignments are not just tasks; they are deliberate leadership laboratories, giving officers opportunities to experiment with authority, decision-making, and accountability.

The Transferability of Experiences

Experiences, whether positive or negative, are transferable. A leader may watch a poor supervisor mishandle a client interaction and think, “I will never lead that way.” Or they may see a peer step up during a crisis and quietly note, “That’s what good leadership looks like.” In both cases, the real power comes from the ability to carry those lessons forward and apply them in different contexts.

In security, this transferability is critical. An officer who learns patience in defusing a workplace conflict may later apply that same skill when managing a crowd at a stadium. A supervisor who reflects on a mistake during a client briefing may use that lesson to guide how he or she communicates in an entirely different setting. Leadership is not about isolated incidents; it is about building a bank of experiences that can be drawn upon whenever the situation demands.

This is why engaging with peers is so important, especially when it comes to leadership. When security professionals share their stories of both success and failure, they make their experiences available to others. A single lesson learned on one shift can ripple outward, guiding the decisions of colleagues across different sites and situations. In this way, transferability turns individual growth into collective development and strengthening not just one leader, but the team as a whole.

Reflection: Turning Experience into Wisdom

Experience alone is not enough. Without reflection, experiences are just events. With reflection, they become leadership lessons.

For security organizations, this means building reflective practices: after-action reviews, mentorship conversations, and self-assessment tools that help officers process what they have been through.

Reflection is crucial in the aftermath of when things went wrong. Some of the most powerful insights from my research came from leaders describing their own failures. Mistakes, while painful, often became turning points in professional development. Leaders who missed an observation, mishandled a situation, or made a poor judgment under pressure later cited those failures as the moments that taught them humility, accountability, and resilience.

But here’s the key: Failures only became learning experiences when the organizational culture allowed it. If mistakes are met only with punishment or silence, then people retreat, hide their errors, and miss the chance to grow.

That’s why organizations must deliberately create a culture where mistakes are viewed as opportunities for reflection and learning, not just grounds for discipline. In my doctoral research, I found that when leaders are encouraged to analyze what went wrong, discuss it openly, and apply lessons moving forward, their growth accelerates dramatically.

Organizational theorist Ron Westrum described this kind of environment as a generative organizational culture, one where information flows freely, collaboration is encouraged, and errors are seen as valuable data for improvement. In contrast to punitive cultures that suppress growth, a generative culture empowers officers and supervisors alike, turning setbacks into leadership lessons.

For the security industry, this means reframing failure not as a weakness, but as part of the developmental journey. A missed radio call, mismanaged client interaction, or delayed response doesn’t have to end in blame. Instead, it can spark reflection, mentoring, and improvement, building leaders who are wiser and more resilient for the future.

Five Practical Steps for Security Organizations

How can companies put this into practice?

Create structured leadership pathways. Lay out what it takes to move from officer to supervisor to manager so everyone knows what growth looks like. Include the training, certifications, and experiences needed at each step. When people see a clear path forward, they are more motivated to learn and stick with the organization.
Invest in mentoring. Match newer leaders with experienced ones who can offer honest advice and share what they have learned along the way. Mentors help others grow faster and avoid common mistakes. Keep it simple—set regular check-ins and focus on practical lessons, not paperwork.
Recognize leadership behaviors. When someone steps up to coach a coworker, solve a problem, or show initiative, call it out and thank them. Recognition can be as easy as pointing it out in a meeting or sending a quick note of appreciation. People repeat what gets noticed, so make sure what you notice builds the culture you want.
Make reflection part of the routine. After a call, project, or busy day, take a few minutes to talk about what went well and what didn’t. Keep it open and judgment-free—everyone can learn something. Over time, this habit builds stronger teams and better decision-making.
Turn mistakes into lessons. When things go wrong, focus on learning, not blaming. Ask “What can we do differently next time?” instead of “Who messed up?” That mindset builds trust, encourages honesty, and helps the whole team improve together.

These steps transform leadership from an afterthought into a deliberate organizational strategy.

The future of the security industry depends on leaders who can inspire confidence, act decisively under pressure, and grow teams that clients trust. Compliance alone will not get us there.

My research indicated that the best classrooms for leadership are the shifts, incidents, and stretch assignments that security professionals experience daily. When paired with reflection and mentoring, these experiences build leaders who are not only effective in emergencies, but also resilient, empathetic, and future-focused.

We cannot afford to promote officers into leadership without adequate preparation. Instead, we must be intentional: We must treat every experience as a leadership lesson, every officer as a potential leader, and leadership development as central to the mission of security.

The industry doesn’t just need more guards. It requires more leaders.

Source: ASIS Online

Image: Freepik