OFF SCRIPT: The Blue Light Blur #28

Leadership after the uniform

When rank makes leadership easier to hide behind

Leadership with the uniform was easier in some ways.

Not always better. Not always healthier. But easier to understand, because the structure was visible. Rank, role, epaulettes, command, title. Everyone knew where they stood, or at least they thought they did.

I always hated being called “sir”.

When I became an Inspector, that became part of the territory. It still felt strange. Uncomfortable, even. When I left policing, I carried some of that mindset with me for a while. Anyone senior to me could easily become sir or ma’am by instinct, which does not always sit comfortably in a private organisation. It can make people feel awkward, because the relationship to hierarchy is different.

Outside policing, the rank, file, semi-discipline and associated power games around status are far less visible. That does not mean politics disappears, but it does mean authority has to sit somewhere else.

It cannot simply rest on the shoulder.

Rank, role and real command

The firearms world taught me something important about leadership long before I fully understood it.

In that environment, rank is often secondary to role.

That may sound counterintuitive inside a rank-based organisation, but on a deployment with a command structure in place, the function matters more than the rank. The person performing the role carries the authority of that role. It makes decision-making clearer. It makes command cleaner. It prevents confusion when the pressure is high.

Not everyone liked that.

I met my fair share of senior ranks who struggled when I was a Constable Operational Firearms Commander and they were being directed by someone technically lower in rank. There were moments of metaphorical foot-stamping, moments where the badge on the shoulder seemed to matter more to them than the structure everyone was meant to be operating within.

Those experiences shaped me.

Being an Operational Firearms Commander as a Constable was probably one of the most important and influential parts of my leadership career. I was equal in rank to many people around me, and lower in rank than others, but greater in that moment in knowledge, training and responsibility.

That forced me to learn the art of communication.

The skill of negotiation.

The confidence to trust my own ability.

When you have rank behind you, the culture does some of the work for you. When you do not, you have to lead properly.

When rank gives you a voice, until it does not

Rank did earn me a voice.

I will not pretend otherwise.

The higher I moved, the more I was allowed to speak. Or at least, the more visible permission I was given to speak, provided the context was right and the reflection looked good on the organisation.

There were moments where I was invited into conversations about neurodivergence, especially around Neurodiversity Celebration Week. I could be wheeled out, presented, asked to speak and held up as evidence that the organisation was listening.

But outside those moments, the fight to have a voice remained very real.

Conversations that could happen on a stage were sometimes reduced to hushed discussions in cafeterias. The public message and the private appetite did not always match.

That is where rank became complicated.

It gave me access.

It gave me visibility.

It gave me a certain permission to speak.

But it did not always create genuine influence.

When the role turns hostile

By the time I left policing, my relationship with rank had changed.

I still remain proud that I achieved Inspector. I will never pretend otherwise. It mattered, and I worked hard for it.

But I also said, often in frustration while searching for a way out, that becoming an Inspector and taking the Chief Firearms Instructor role was the worst decision of my policing career.

I stand by that in a very specific way.

Not because the role itself had no value. It did. Not because I was incapable. I was not. In fact, I know I was good at it.

But the moment I placed myself on the path to the Chief Firearms Instructor role, I stepped into a world where the politics became deeper, sharper and more personal than I had expected. The parts of policing I had always struggled with became the pool I was swimming in.

And a voice like mine, one willing to ask awkward questions, make difficult decisions and hold conversations others did not want to have, was not always the favoured approach.

I watched people change in those circles.

Some people I had deeply respected became more distant as they climbed higher. More career-orientated. More detached from the people their decisions affected. I remember saying openly to my own team that if I ever started acting like I had forgotten them, they had my permission to bring me back down to earth.

I never wanted to become so focused on my own career that people became stepping stones, examples, or useful links to be hitched to a promotion.

But I saw more and more of that happening around me.

Folding the uniform away

When I handed over my epaulettes and folded up the uniform for the final time, I was not entirely sure what the un-uniformed leader would be like.

That uncertainty was real.

Without the rank, without the title, without the authority attached to the role, would people still listen?

Would my experience still count?

Would I still have weight in a room?

Those questions did not disappear the moment I left the building.

But then I stepped into a new role, in a new environment, and found myself occupying a curious middle ground. The leadership skills I had taken with me fitted more naturally than I expected.

They had not vanished with the uniform.

They had simply changed setting.

Leadership in other rooms

The same thing happened during the production of MASKS.

On a film set, leadership looks very different from command in a firearms deployment. There is no epaulette to point at. No rank to lean on. No formal authority that makes people listen because the structure demands it.

But leadership was still there in me.

Not as a hollering, shouting, performative voice.

Not as manipulation.

Not as ego.

More as a calm presence when decisions needed making. Confidence in action when something had to happen. Fairness and levelness when the pressure was lower and the room needed to breathe.

A film set has its own pressures. Time, people, locations, weather, sound, kit, permissions, personalities, expectations, money. Problems move quickly. Decisions need making. People need someone to steady things without making themselves the centre of the room.

That was familiar.

Different world.

Same leadership.

Neurodivergent leadership

My AuDHD has always shaped how I lead, whether I understood that fully at the time or not.

There are strengths in it.

Pattern recognition.

Speed of thought.

Moral courage.

Directness.

The ability to see inconsistencies others may step around.

A low tolerance for empty lip service.

A need for things to make sense beyond the surface-level explanation.

Those traits helped me in firearms. They helped with paperwork, planning, detail, decision-making, rationale and justification. They helped me survive challenges and produce work that stood up to scrutiny.

I remain honoured to have been the UK’s first openly autistic and ADHD Chief Firearms Instructor. It is a role I never thought I would be able, or perhaps allowed, to undertake. The cynic in me has sometimes wondered whether I was simply too far along the process to be turned away by the time diagnosis entered the picture.

But I also know the truth.

My neurodivergent traits made me good at the job.

Not without difficulty. Not without cost. Not without extra processing load. But good.

The harder side

There are harder edges too.

I can be blunt.

I can miss cues.

I can appear colder than I intend.

I can become frustrated when people avoid obvious issues, especially when the avoidance causes harm. I can struggle with hypocrisy. I can overthink, replay and push too hard when something feels unresolved.

The difference now is awareness.

I know those things about myself.

That means I can check myself. I can be corrected by trusted people. I can allow the people around me to remind me when I need to adjust my delivery without abandoning the point.

That was true in policing when I had the right people around me.

It remains true now.

Neurodivergent leadership is not about pretending every trait is easy for others to receive. It is about understanding the strength, managing the impact, and refusing to confuse difference with defect.

The Problem Child

When I speak openly in keynotes or workshops, I am not job-bashing.

That matters to me.

Anyone who has read this series will know there is frustration. There is disappointment. There are things I still believe should have been different. But I have also allowed myself to accept that twenty-one years of service cannot be erased or tainted by a compact period of negativity.

The teams I led and commanded remain with me through the memories of achievement. The people, the deployments, the training, the laughter, the pressure and the responsibility all still matter.

That is why my work through The Problem Child is not about dwelling on battles.

It is about learning from them.

It is about showing what a different thought pattern can bring.

It is about holding up the uncomfortable mirror without needing to smash it.

Leadership after the uniform is not about asking people to agree with me. It is about creating the kind of conversation that allows discomfort to become useful.

Useful discomfort

If my talks and workshops do anything, I hope they add a little useful discomfort into the room.

For some leaders and managers, perhaps that means recognising how quickly challenge can be mislabelled as difficulty. For some peers, perhaps it means thinking again about the people they have dismissed as awkward, intense or too much.

But more importantly, I hope it empowers those who feel silenced to stand a little taller.

Because leadership is not only about those at the front of the room.

It is also about the person who notices something is wrong and finds the courage to say it.

It is about the person who asks the awkward question when silence would be easier.

It is about the person who refuses to become grey simply because grey is more convenient for everyone else.

Still leading

I am living proof that a title, rank, role and plaque are ultimately words and letters.

They may open doors.

They may grant authority.

They may make people listen more quickly.

But they are not the whole measure of leadership.

Strip them away, and any real leader should still be able to lead in some form. In armed deployments. In live incidents. In investigations. On film sets. In business. In transition. In conversations where someone needs a little more courage than they arrived with.

I still lead.

I still command.

I still inspire.

And I am still capable, even as a Mister rather than a Sir.

Mirror moment

If your title disappeared tomorrow, what part of your leadership would still remain?

Not the authority people have to acknowledge.

Not the role they are told to respect.

Not the badge, lanyard, rank or job description.

The part that is still there when all of that is removed.

That is the work I now explore through The Problem Child: neurodivergent leadership, useful disruption, self-trust and the courage to challenge with evidence rather than ego.

If your organisation needs a different conversation about leadership, neurodivergence, challenge and culture, explore The Problem Child keynotes and workshops.