The CopDoc Podcast - Season 10 - Episode 173

Guest: Chief Ryan Johansen, Apex Police Department, Apex, North Carolina

Most police chiefs walk into a new department and tell people their vision. Ryan Johansen asked questions and took notes for 90 minutes with every single one of his 200 employees. One-on-one. No agenda. Just listening.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Chief Ryan Johansen of the Apex Police Department sits down with Dr. Steve Morreale for a wide-ranging conversation on what it takes to rebuild a police department's culture, restore officer confidence, and lead with both conviction and humility.

Ryan came to Apex, North Carolina about 15 months ago after five years as chief at the San Bruno Police Department in California, just south of San Francisco. He made the move with his wife and family, driven by a desire for a different environment and a chance to do something meaningful. What he found was an agency with purpose-driven officers who had pulled back on proactive policing, and a community watching crime numbers rise as a result.

He walked in with a clear belief: most of what ails policing starts inside the organization. If officers are treated as numbers, managed through policy, and punished more than developed, it shows in how they treat the public. Johansen flipped the model. He spent 90 minutes one-on-one with every one of his 200 employees, asking questions, listening, and taking notes. He made clear that the org chart runs the other way: everyone in the building, including him, exists to support the officers answering calls.

The conversation covers a lot of ground. Ryan talks about his early days at the San Diego Police Department and what he learned by leaving a 3,000-officer agency for a 50-officer department in San Bruno. He talks about taking the chief's job in San Bruno just two days before Covid lockdowns, and then navigating George Floyd and the calls for reform that followed. He describes walking into the Apex roll call room, tattoos and all, introduced only as "Ryan, from California," and what he said to a room full of officers who weren't sure what to make of him.

He and Steve dig into the managing versus leading debate, the difference between policy and culture, the false safety of no-pursuit policies, and what servant leadership actually looks like when it's time to discipline someone. Johansen is candid about the tension between institutional pressure and personal courage, and why he believes most police chiefs live in fear of the average three-year tenure rather than leading the way their people deserve.

This is a refreshing, honest conversation with a chief who isn't performing. He says what he believes. And the people around him are proving it works.

KEY TOPICS COVERED

• Career path from San Diego to San Bruno to Apex: what each stop taught him
• Why he believes policing "breaks good humans" and what he is doing about it
• The recruiter's words that brought him to Apex ahead of schedule
• What a real listening tour looks like: 90 minutes, one on one, with every employee
• Managing versus leading: where chiefs spend their time and why it matters
• The discipline dichotomy: development versus documentation
• Command and control culture and its effects on officers in the street
• Extracting a vision versus dictating one: how to earn genuine buy-in
• AI in policing: low-risk value versus high-risk shortcuts

Hey there! Send us a message. Who else should we be talking to? What topics are important? Use FanMail to connect! Let us know!

Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com

Website: www.copdocpodcast.com

If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com