Enhance RCMP leadership culture

Update

National Leadership Programs are leading the design, development and implementation of a National Mentorship Program. The pilot program that ran in British Columbia, Manitoba, and Newfoundland and Labrador is completed. Mentee pilot participants were employees who identify as one of the employment equity groups, as well as the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities at the Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Inspector and civilian employee equivalent levels.

The National Mentorship Program will be a standardized, formal mentorship program aiming to provide timely, relevant and individualized learning opportunities for all employees. The program will build on the established national headquarters mentorship program and use program best practices and lessons learned. The program is now being finalised and will launch officially once all approvals have been obtained.

A leadership learning toolkit was launched in January 2024 to support providing ongoing interactive leadership development opportunities throughout an employee's career. This resource supports all employees in building and enhancing their leadership skills. The toolkit helps a variety of learning styles, offers various guides, job aids, and information, and links to developmental courses, programs and workshops. It is updated regularly.

Additional activities focused on modernizing leadership in the RCMP are outlined in the RCMP's response to the Mass Casualty Commission Recommendation P.59 - RCMP Management Culture. These include improved transparency of officer and executive staffing opportunities, addressing systemic barriers that affect career progression for women and marginalized communities, and continued improvements to the Officer Candidate Process.

The Officer Candidate Process modernization pilot project launched April 2024. It includes the assessment of character leadership at various stages in the officer candidate selection process—from the cover letter and references to the interview. Along with assessing competencies, the process now looks at who the candidate is as a person as well as their leadership readiness. In addition to the process candidates becoming skilled in character leadership, all board members receive training on character leadership and how to assess it.

Update

The Character Leadership training in the Cadet Training Program has been expanded from one to three sessions so that, upon completion, cadets possess greater self-awareness, identify connections between character and the RCMP core values, and are able to understand how positive character benefits operational policing.

The Management Development Program now contains Character Leadership training and requires participants to work on developing their character, as well as bringing Character Leadership back to their workplace. Character Leadership has also been incorporated into the Executive Officer Development Program for new RCMP executives, as well as the RCMP's Executive Development in Policing program and the Canadian Police College.

Leadership learning resources are now available for employees at all levels through Foundations of Leadership course offerings online. Two cohorts of Character Leadership Ambassadors have been trained. These ambassadors have access to a curated library of resources, including an online, comprehensive and interactive guide called Cultivating Character.

The next steps involve incorporating Character Leadership into the Officer Candidate Process for aspiring commissioned officers and making the Cultivating Character resource guide widely available for all employees.

Update

Enhancing RCMP leadership is critical to advancing the RCMP's modernization agenda and is a foundational support for culture change. Character leadership training is being rolled out across the RCMP at all levels.

Modern and inclusive leadership practices will provide the foundation to enable progressive work across the RCMP, including implementing the Vision150 and beyond: RCMP strategic plan, addressing external reports and recommendations on culture change, embracing the renewed RCMP core values, and implementing the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and Gender-Based Analysis Plus requirements.

In January 2022, the RCMP formally established the Character Leadership Advisory Services team to support positive leadership development across the organization. As part of their work, in February 2022, Character Leadership training was integrated into the cadet training curriculum.

The RCMP is also working with Ivey Business School to create and implement a leadership development plan for the Leadership Program in partnership with Canada Border Services and Revenue Canada.

Update

Five RCMP employees were trained by the Ivey School of Business in Character Leadership. Part of their mandate is to raise awareness of Character Leadership (CL) across the organization, to create CL content for the RCMP and to provide internal advisory services on ways the RCMP can embed CL into various policies and procedures.

The RCMP is continuing to develop and roll out more products and training to support CL and its greater implementation across the organization. A dedicated unit was established in December 2021 and a few of the upcoming pilots include a Leadership Character module in the Manager Development Program, anticipated to be launched in February 2022, and a self paced "Introduction to Character Leadership" course for employees slated to be launched in March 2022.