Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Module 2: Leadership, Vision and Organizational Culture

This visual indicates where Leadership, Vision, and Organizational Culture fit in the Transition from Jail to Community model. This key system element is one of five that must be in place for the TJC model to work.

Leadership, Vision, and Organizational Culture

Welcome to Leadership, Vision, and Organizational Culture. This module focuses on the fundamental role of leadership, vision, and organizational culture in the success of your community's jail transition strategies.

“San Diego County has been working collaboratively with our criminal justice partners, county departments and community-based programs to develop and expand our reentry services. The ability to truly increase public safety and reduce recidivism requires everyone to implement and change existing systems to achieve the collective goal."

-Christine Brown-Taylor, MSW, Reentry Services Manager
San Diego County Sheriff's Department, San Diego, California

Before we begin, take some time to think about what being a leader and leadership mean to you. Often the word conjures up an image of a commissioner, chief, or captain who due to his or her administrative position has the authority to direct and influence others. This, however, is only one definition, and focuses more on a position of authority than on an individual's actions.

In this module, we offer a broader definition of leadership, one that fits the Transition from Jail to Community (TJC) model. For us, leaders are individuals, regardless of their position within an organization, who have the ability to provide the vision, leadership, and resources to empower people to go beyond what they thought they were capable of doing to build the organizational culture necessary to grow and sustain successful transition from jail to the community. Formal leadership is indispensable to the TJC effort, but informal leaders are also vital to successful TJC implementation and sustainability.

We also believe that leadership can be learned. Most people are not born leaders, but learn leadership behaviors through trial and error.

This module has six sections and will take between 15 and 20 minutes to complete.

The recommended audience for this model includes:

  • Sheriffs
  • Reentry coordinators
  • Community service providers
  • Probation officers
  • County commissioners
  • Pretrial services staff
  • Jail administrators
  • County board members
  • Criminal justice council members
  • Local stakeholders
  • Judges and Officers of the Court

This module also includes a list of resources throughout to help in the process.

Module Objectives

This module provides practical information to assist you in understanding the importance of having committed leadership with a vision and an organizational culture well-matched to implement and sustain practices consistent with the Transition from Jail to Community model in your community.

This module includes:

  • The characteristics of effective leadership
  • Creating and transmitting a leadership vision to others
  • Understanding your agency's organizational culture and how to guide it in the best interests of sustained TJC efforts

There are six sections in this module:

1. Leadership 101
2. TJC Leadership
3. Creating the Vision
4. Changing the Organizational Culture
5. Empowering Staff—A Decision-making Process Model to Manage Change
6. Terms Used in the Field

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • Explain how leadership affects the success of the TJC model.
  • Identify and engage local leaders in your community.
  • Understand the importance of leaders becoming local experts on the TJC model.
  • Create a shared vision and mission statement.
  • Elicit support among organizational leaders, formal and informal.
  • Identify the components of organizational culture that support change.
  • Develop tools to empower employees and stakeholders.
  • Understand the impact of stakeholder's organizational culture on the culture of the overarching system.

Download Module 2 in PDF format