I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Sam de Reya Chief Constable of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary. This short blog introduces and shares key highlights from this informative podcast chat.
Whether you’re an aspiring police promotion candidate, looking to join a force, or simply interested more generally in policing, it’s another valuable addition to Rank Success’s extensive series of podcasts featuring inspirational police leaders.
Listening to this exclusive free podcast chat you’ll gain perspectives on the vision, priorities and challenges for Hampshire Police, as well as valuable insights on a range of issues, including:
- Advice for aspiring individuals looking to develop into leadership roles
- Highlights and reflections from a distinguished career
- Challenges to progression of women into police leadership roles (men too!)
- Supporting officer wellbeing
- The importance of emotional intelligence in effective leadership
- Being values driven and leading with integrity
- Leadership styles and realising policing is a joint endeavour
- Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and lifelong learning
- Seizing opportunities along the way
- Leading on ethics and lots more…
I’d like to thank DCC de Reya for kindly sparing time from her busy diary to answer my questions for listeners. Here’s the episode if you just want to jump straight in, or read on for my thoughts and highlights:
A Full Policing Career
Sam joined policing in Northumbria, then served as a detective before moving to Devon & Cornwall Police. She progressed her career in D&C, ascending the ranks as Detective Inspector and Chief Inspector before promotion to Superintendent, becoming Head of Professional Standards, and then Chief Superintendent Commander for Devon BCU.
Appointed as Assistant Chief Constable (ACC) and then the Deputy Chief Constable (DCC) at neighbouring Dorset Police, Sam joined Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary in 2023.
As DCC, Sam is currently responsible for force performance and service delivery, optimising the potential and capability of the workforce, ethical and professional standards, force risk and audit, inspection activity and organisational learning. She is also responsible for holding ACCs and Assistant Chief Officers to account for operational delivery across the force, including planning, resourcing and delivering transformational change within the force’s allocated budget.
As a senior leader, Sam is a champion for equal opportunities and health and wellbeing in policing. She has been Vice Chair of the Trustee Board for Flint House rehabilitation centre in the last few years, committed to its help and heal mission.
For more context about Hampshire Police, here’s their latest PEEL performance report and key stats:
Developing into Leadership Roles
Sam shares a few notable highlights from her career, including memorable early arrests and of being a tutor constable. This solid early foundation has stood her in good stead for her career to date.
Promotion to Sergeant was a real highlight:
“When I was promoted to Sergeant, I thought that would be it for the rest of my career.”
Sam also alludes to working in child protection, safeguarding families and children by collaborating with partner agencies. Sam cites the skills learned and experiences gained then, as those she still uses now as DCC.
I asked Sam how her leadership approach had changed as she has gone through the ranks:
“…our people are the ones who go out and make policing work. That for me has always been incredibly important. So building high performing teams that have got the right skills, the right attitudes, the right focus I think has been there from being a Sergeant, right the way up through the ranks. But now, in my executive role as deputy, with all the spinning plates, is making sure everything connects, that there is clarity of purpose, that people understand their role, that they have the right skills and abilities… it’s still the same, it’s just on a bigger scale…”
Listen in for more of Sam’s approach to leadership and what she believes is critically important, especially recognising the importance of being a female role model.
On stepping up into a leadership role, Sam encourages taking a moment to just stop and think. Ask yourself: “What does that look like then?”
She alludes to coming up through the ranks and sometimes underestimating the importance of skills to be able to perform at that next level. Also the importance of mentoring, having supportive conversations, finding role models, looking at leaders you think you would aspire to be like, or picking the best from people you see as leaders.
Sam also suggests some additional questions you should think about asking yourself as an aspiring leader to help you develop and to recognise gaps you may have. “Just give yourself the space and time to do that.”
Promotion Confidence
Sam talks about challenges facing women, including returning to work after career breaks, how important it is to maintain support around career momentum and some of the things policing can do better to address aspects which impact not only on women, but males too. For example, flexible working, paternity leave and encouraging improvement to get this right, to better support families.
Speaking specifically around women police officers, Sam highlights confidence:
“What we’re finding in the organisation at the minute is that it is giving women the confidence to step into the space to say, ‘please go for promotion because we think you are ready’. What we’re finding is we are having less women at each of the ranks, so we’ve got less women stepping up and putting themselves forward. But when they do, they are more successful in the promotion boards. We are really lucky in Hampshire, we’ve got 50/50 male to female, but you get to Sergeant that goes down to 35% of women at Sergeant rank, Inspector it drops again and Chief Inspector it drops again. But then, these women that are going forward are being successful. So we just need to be really encouraging people at that front end to step forward and give it a go”.
Ethics, Comms & Media NPCC Portfolio
Additionally, we discuss Sam’s role as lead for the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) portfolio for Ethics, where she touches on ethical issues for policing to examine in more depth.
As a Chief Officer, Sam personally encourages ‘lifelong learning’, along with putting yourself outside of your comfort zone “because it’s the kind of thing that stretches you”. She alludes to recently taking on the NPCC lead for Comms and Media and then promptly being interviewed on the national news.
“That is me putting myself out of my comfort zone still, with 29 years’ service. So I think lifelong learning, really getting yourself to think outside the box, to broaden your horizons, whatever rank, grade or level you are at, it’s really important.”
As part of this ‘lifelong learning’, Sam describes a fantastic development opportunity she had, to attend a 10 week residential course in America at the National FBI Academy as part of her CPD. We also cover learning from failures, including when failing promotion boards.
Finally, as with all my podcast guests, I ask Sam, if you could travel back in time and speak to yourself as that new constable, knowing what you know now, what advice would you offer? Sam responds with humour and personal insights. Listen in to hear more.
Another Packed Episode, More Awaits…
So all in all, another full episode covering leadership insights, career progression tips and promotion development guidance. All of this has been freely given for you, from the perspective of a highly respected senior officer, who has served at every rank across four forces over the last 29 years.
If you enjoy these completely free leadership interviews, did you know you can become a subscriber today to the Rank Success Police Promotion and Leadership podcast for just £4.99 per month?
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Kind Regards, Steve
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