Until Washington crossed the Delaware, the triumph of the old order seemed inevitable. Thereafter, things would never be the same again.
                                                                                               ―  David Hackett Fischer, Washington's Crossing

​The Crossing

A suite of three two-day courses offered throughout the year and around the country targeting the most important aspects of influence and leadership at every level of your organization.
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Three Cs of Leadership:
Character, Competence, & Conviction
 
No one ever woke up and asked themselves, “What does it take to be an average leader? What can I do today to be completely mediocre?” The course begins with the real question, the real objective of entire program: What does it take to be a great leader?
 
We offer the Three Cs of Leadership as the broad path towards great leadership: Character, competence, and conviction. Without the three Cs, credibility cannot be established. Without credibility, your words and deeds lack meaning and sincerity. At best, you will achieve compliance from employees. At worst, you will encounter open contempt and defiance leading to both individual and organizational failure. Conversely, credible leaders get more from their people than they ask. Employees feel valued and appreciated. Most importantly, employees are inspired beyond compliance to actual commitment to the organization.
 
We will discuss the three Cs from a wide variety of viewpoints offering new perspectives on age-old concepts. For example, should motivation be the leader’s main purpose or is there something more powerful? Does charisma add or detract from effective leadership? Do great leaders build power or give it away? Do followers want confidence or humility from their leaders? Just how important is authenticity, honesty, and integrity in the workplace? How important is your passion, enthusiasm, and vision? Through engaging facilitation and discussions, group breakouts and share-backs, presentation of latest research on a variety of relevant  topics, and the use of real-life successes and failures, we discuss obstacles and paths to establish and sustain credibility with those who look to us for leadership. 
        
 
Expanding Your Influence:
​Understanding Self, Others, & Context
 
A central premise of the course is the leadership moment…a moment of potential influence where we can make a difference in someone’s life. Sometimes these moments last just a minute while other times they last hours, days, weeks, and longer. The best leaders embrace opportunities to lead, and they lead different people and different situations differently. They understand each of us perceives and responds to our  environment (and our leadership) in unique ways. An exploration of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is a key theme of the course.

While no specific formula or prescription exists to make a great leader, the best leaders understand true influence best occurs with the confluence of the right leader behaviors given the specific needs and lens of their followers in specific yet fluid contexts. Understanding how each of us perceives our environment and our individual roles relative to that environment offers a powerful first step in expanding our leadership capacity. Learning to recognize the nuances of myriad contextual influences in the moment and developing the wisdom to know which leadership behaviors are best suited for that context offers a dramatic step two towards expanding our capacity for great leadership.

The majority of this class is dedicated to the DISC Behavioral Model and subsequent self-assessment (DISC 17 Behavioral Assessment) developed by the CPLE International. All of us are interested in discovering more about ourselves and others. Our natural curiosity of the world clearly applies to our role in it and the ways we respond to it. DISC is a behavioral model developed by Dr. William Marston in the 1920s intended to identify and categorize how we respond to our environment and each other. The strength of the model rests not only in its ability to measure and categorize observable behaviors but also in its capacity to provide the necessary information for each of us to exercise more flexibility with a variety of people and situations. DISC offers a powerful and unique way to understand people as a context.

If better communication, lessened conflict and tension, and significant expansion of your leadership and influence sounds valuable, you will love this highly engaging, life-changing course. Our newly released textbook (Perception: Understanding Human Connectivity thru the DISC Behavioral Model) and validated self-assessment (DISC 17) will be provided to each student.

     
Crisis, Communication, & Decision-Making:
Leading Ethically in Turbulent Times

The most successful organizations have strong, engaged leadership at every level. They value the role of individual leadership but appreciate the power of teams and alliances to accomplish great things. They are driven by a powerful and positive vision with an unyielding culture of excellence in all they do. And they appreciate the power of organizational culture and the influence leadership and culture have on one another. They value transparency and communication. Every decision, every leadership intervention is grounded in honesty, integrity, and trust. 
 
We begin the course with certain assumptions:

* All successful encounters, all successful organizations, are built on relationships,
and those relationships are built on trust, credibility, and integrity.
* Doing the right thing, making the right decisions, and communication in both word and behavior,
is critical to building and maintaining credibility within and external to our organizations.
* Doing the right thing is not always easy. Even knowing what the right thing to do is can be difficult.
* Our words, our actions, our decisions are constantly judged and have a broad impact on our relations with others and our communities, particularly in times of crisis, volatility, and uncertainty. 

We devote a significant amount of time to ethical decision-making across a variety of settings. Each student receives Decision Point: Real-life Ethical Dilemmas in Law Enforcement, a textbook of sorts comprising 27 real-life scenarios and outcomes sure to help each of us better recognize, appreciate, and ultimately address the many considerations and consequences (intended and unintended) surrounding moral choices faced by police officers every day. We look at the use of force, constitutional issues surrounding the 1st and 4th Amendment, loyalty and duty, discretion, diversity and discrimination, crisis, and so many other topics…all in the context of making moral choices towards strengthening bonds within our individual relationships, our organizations, and our communities. Taught primarily through story-telling, real-life challenges, and a powerful, contemporary case study, this class promises to be both practical and engaging culminating with mechanisms and thought processes to help students make the best decisions possible in today’s divisive, dynamic, an uncertain climate. 
 
Audience  
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The Crossing courses are designed for anyone in your agency who influences others. 

                                                         
​                                                         ​Costs

The CPLE understands most of our participants represent public safety organizations with limited budgets and resources and a strong commitment to a sense of fiscal responsibility to their communities. 
We organize our classes around two models or a combination of the two.

  • Model 1 is based on individual registrations. The CPLE and host agency offer the program with open registration. Individual student tuition is $445.00 for each course. 
  • Model 2 is the single contract. An organization, association, or local, state, or federal government agency contracts with the CPLE to fund the event. Please contact us to discuss pricing as single payer arrangements are individual based on a variety of variables such as location and number of students.
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​We’ve also recently added an optional online component to the Crossing Program. After each of the Crossing courses, students will be able to complete an online leadership class with the CPLE at no additional cost. Complete the requirements at your own pace over two weeks and print your certificate! 

We know your budget will be pleased as well as your sense of value with the level of instruction and overall experience you will have.


Individual Registration (Model 1)
 
If you are interested in hosting the program, please email us at [email protected], and together we'll decide which of the two models represents your best interest.
If you're interested in attending an open-enrollment course listed below, reach out to pre-register for the event. Once the course has reached the minimum number of attendees, you will receive an email from the CPLE stating the course status has moved from
Class - Tentative to Class - Confirmed. 

You will not be invoiced until the class status is Confirmed. ​As a nonprofit organization, we prefer checks as opposed to credit/purchase cards to avoid associated fees. However, we understand purchase cards are preferred by many individuals and agencies, which is perfectly acceptable. ​If you are able to submit payment via check, our mailing address is:

CPLE International
4080 Monticello Avenue
Suite 18-1 #126
​Williamsburg, Virginia 23188

If you choose to pay via purchase or credit card, please select the Pricing & Registration button below.
Our secure, online registration process allows for easy payment. ​You will receive a confirmation email upon final completion of the registration.
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* Please do not pay by check or card until you have received an email from the CPLE
confirming the course status as Class - Confirmed.


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What Participants Are Saying About the Crossing Program!

Sergeant Katie Bonilla
​Passaic County Sheriff's Office
​Every now and then, a law enforcement officer will come across a training course that will resonate with them throughout their career. I can honestly say these wonderful instructors relayed their messages about leadership and what it means to be a great leader. They incorporated their life experiences into the training and brought it down to a personal level, regardless of whether the interaction was positive or negative. They gave us what we needed as leaders in our quest for greatness. They stressed the importance of credibility and possessing the right leadership framework to be effective. I believe they offer a training program that will assist you in growing and evolving as a leader, and I highly recommend taking as many of the courses in the Crossing Program as you can.
​One of the best investments you will ever make in your profession.  
I was forced to come to this class by my agency, and I did not want to be here! But I was pleasantly surprised and thoroughly enjoyed the class!!!!!
I thought leadership came natural to me. I thought it was common sense. This course completely changed my view and forced me rethink everything.
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Dave and Jeff provide training that facilitates open discussion on real world challenges that supervisors face while trying to exemplify leadership. I look forward to attending future training from the Center for Police Leadership & Ethics.

The conversational style was amazing. I took more notes during this class than I ever have. Highly recommend this course to other leaders.
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Jeff and Dave did an outstanding job working together to present the material. They were both extremely knowledgeable in their respective areas and did a great job supporting the topics with their own personal leadership successes and failures.
​Great class!
So inspirational. They really made me think deeply about the topics and my leadership. I was constantly challenged throughout the entire course.
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An intensely different approach to leadership education.

I felt like the entire class was designed specifically for me. Just being promoted to Lieutenant, almost every topic we discussed was something I am dealing with right now, or I see coming around the corner. Passionate, competent instructors completely avoiding death by PowerPoint. GREAT course! 

Unlike anything I have ever attended. Outstanding!