SXMElections.com

St. Maarten – Around twenty team leaders and acting team leaders of the police force received on Friday certificates for the leadership course they took last summer. David McGregor, the senior trainer at the UTS Training and Development Center (TDC), issued the certificates.

The officers learned the technicalities of leadership and the structure of communication skills, and how to manage and support their team members into making their working days as productive and challenging as possible.

TDC, the management team of KPSM and, from a distance, Angela Dekker of USONA, the organization that financed the management development training congratulated the graduates. Dekker could not attend the ceremony, because she was in Curacao.

McGregor said that the group had first arrived as cynical and hardened officers, with many years of service, and yet they opened their hearts quickly to the spirit of good leadership and motivational management. McGregor said that he saw changes in the personality of most officers, who started to appreciate that their staff are people who need to be developed, encouraged and validated.

“These officers now have the tools to bring out the best in their team members. During the course it became somewhat of a competition to get the highest grades on the tests that the officers were taking almost every week,” McGregor said.

The trainer concluded that the police force is criticized often – bad news always receives more publicity than good news. He learned from talking to his students that they have put themselves on the line on many occasions and that the many hours of extra work are never publicized and appreciated as they should be.

McGregor asked the graduates to continue in their efforts to make the people of St. Maarten proud of the men and women they lead and of the service they provide. “Only as we develop others we permanently succeed.”