Bravery as a cross-cutting meaning of the Standards of Management for the Criminal Justice System. The summary of a discussion session with the managers of the criminal justice system
How to “hold the ranks” now and in the future – institutionally, as a team, and individually,- that’s what we discussed together with the managers from the National Police, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the High Anti-Corruption Court, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Training Center for Prosecutors of Ukraine and the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption.
Be brave like Ukraine. This phrase now resonates with the whole world.
Our Armed Forces, institutions and Ukrainians demonstrate phenomenal bravery, courage, and resilience.
The strategies and tactics of this wartime have been and will continue to be the subject of analysis in various environments. At the same time, it is crucial to ensure that the energy and courage of the first weeks of war are converted into a systematic and sustainable capacity to develop and maintain institutions now and after victory.
The criminal justice system faces a new level of challenge — effective investigation of war crimes, interaction between institutions and real practical partnership, cooperation with international organizations and experts. The JustGroup team, together with managers practitioners from the criminal justice system, reflected on their experience and sought answers to the following questions:
- What is the experience of wartime criminal justice managers?
- What should be converted into future institutional capacity building and how?
- What are the support and development areas for managers of the system?
In Ukrainian context now, the ability to quickly develop and make managerial decisions is critical. The courage and ability of the decision-makers is key for everything.
Below are some insights, reflections and conclusions from this meeting. It is important that the issues we pondered become a common agenda for as many managers in public institutions as possible. After all, we have no right to fail – we must boldly build and strengthen institutions.
The slides from Oksana Semenyuk’s presentation who masterfully moderated the discussion are provided to illustrate the flow of the discussion.
How did Ukraine rise to respond to the challenge of the war and what does it teach the world? What leadership and management lessons can we already learn?
Ukraine teaches the world. Period. It is important for all of us to realize and recognize it.
The courage of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Ukrainians helped debunk many myths.
- About the reality of our world
In just two months, we noticed something that was ignored during many years.
- About our impotence in front of the system
For 60 days, Ukrainians have been demonstrating their strength and resilience in the “evil darkness.”
- About strong strategy of a powerful enemy
Ukrainians destroyed all plans of the aggressor and won time to mobilize forces.
- About the “Russian Empire and the great Tsar”
Illusion of the empire that the entire world was afraid of is destroyed with every day of war. The great army is nothing more than the orcs.
- About the unity and brotherly of the Slavic people
A brother is a human being. Russia is not a brotherly nation – moreover, there are not humans, they are NON-HUMANS.
- About the prosperity and standard of living
“Russian liberators” come from a poor country, with the population drinking to death. They are ready to risk their lives for stealing a kettle.
Researchers say that the most important lessons of leadership and management are the management lessons in wartime. Teamwork is best learned in times of war. The Armed Forces of Ukraine demonstrate a new organizational quality: the ability to act in a decentralized, networked manner with more authority at lower levels. This is about a partnership with management. Stronger partnership allows building sustainable models of interaction.
Management lessons from the Ukrainian army
- Extraordinary motivation – we are defending our land!
- Understanding the goals and small teams – understanding who is doing what
- Well-planned internal coordination
- Covering the backs of each other
- Partnership with leadership
Examples from the participants in our discussion show that this transformation is also taking place in public institutions at different levels – the leadership is there to work together with challenges, the speed of decision-making, operational communication and the reduction of bureaucracy – these are the lessons that can be consolidated for the future.
How to preserve and ensure sustainability of development of teams and institutions in the future?
The challenges facing Ukrainian public institutions during the war are also opportunities for institutions to transform and make a powerful leap in their development, to discard the superfluous elements, to optimize processes, to eventually understand what kind of human resource they really operate and what resource is enough.
The society has very high expectations of the Ukrainian justice system, and it is a challenge to meet them. The Ukrainian justice system will be facing this pressure for a long time. Along with that, the Ukrainian justice system received a unique opportunity – to restore public trust by achieving justice in war crimes. At the same time, managers realize that investigating war crimes and bringing the perpetrators to justice is a marathon. And it is important to prepare now for this work for the long term.
Trust to institutions (Fourth wave)
- Armed Forces of Ukraine – 71%
- President of Ukraine – 58%
- Volunteer organizations – 38%
- Doctors – 30%
- National Police of Ukraine – 20%
- Government of Ukraine – 20%
- Charitable organizations – 19%
- Church – 12%
- National Bank of Ukraine – 10%
- Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine – 9%
- Ministry of Finance – 6%
- State Customs Service – 4%
- State Tax Service – 3%
- Courts – 2%
- No organization of the above – 4%
Fourth wave of a public opinion survey – 4 April 2022. N=1,027 respondents
Survey was conducted by Gradus Research by the respondents completing the questionnaire in the app panel.
High-quality institutional cooperation, openness and willingness to interact for the sake of efficiency of the system as a whole are critical more than ever. It is important to look at the experiences of colleagues around, exchange experiences and learn from each other. This should become a sustainable inter-institutional practice.
The criminal justice system has access to unique international expertise. At the current stage, this is a powerful reinforcement. And now it is important to consider how to preserve the expertise of fresh views and fresh minds for the system and institutions; how to convert expertise brought to Ukraine into the capacity of Ukrainian institutions.
What are the challenges that a criminal justice manager faces in wartime? What management approaches help bring yourself and teams back to working rhythms and ensure efficiency?
War is a risk of losing capable teams, so we have to find effective ways to support them. For this, it is critical to provide meaning and purpose to teams and team members. “Why? For what?” is a filter that has become paramount in how the team and individual employees perceive the messages and tasks set by the managers.
Right now, the value of each person in a team is especially strong, and the meaning of “seeing a person” has a brand new depth.
What should be the next change in every of us?
Each and every of us had this question in their minds after the discussion was over. After all, we have no right to fail.
We believe in the power of such bold conversations – sincere, open, high-quality discussions. And they strengthen the role of managers in the criminal justice system as those who make decisions, create space for changes, can encourage and inspire others by their example.
To continue strengthening the role of managers in the system, we launched a series of webinars with well-known business coaches on how to support and develop teams, how to set up synchronized processes, how to set goals and focus on them in the environment of total uncertainty.
Soon, we’ll be publishing the Management Standards that we started discussing last summer. Click here for a video record of the discussion Criminal justice system: different floors – one roof.
