Richard Goold
Serving as a frontline response officer with the Metropolitan Police in South London showed me from the inside what the job asks of people: the pace, the weight of what you carry home, and the trust you place in the person beside you. The job also means living with risk, both to your own safety and of making a split-second decision in good faith, only for it to be judged later by someone with time and hindsight on their side. That experience changed how I think about leadership.
On response, what stayed with me most was how many brilliant colleagues felt trapped. Some loved the job too much to picture anything else. Some were leaving through injury or ill-health, or because of what the work had taken out of them. Some were facing a misconduct process and assumed every door had closed. Almost all of them underestimated what they had to offer.
Before joining the police, I spent most of my working life in consulting and leading teams, helping organisations through change. The part I valued most was recognising potential in people, supporting them to progress and opening doors they had not known were there. That has taught me that much of what the job teaches carries further than people expect, and how to help them see it and find the words to say it.
