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Every team has rockstars, and there are many types: the hard chargers, the high producers, the ones who pick up the calls and diligently work complex cases with fastidious precision. They rack up stats and recognition.
And then there’s the glue — the type of team member who doesn’t just elevate their own performance, but everyone else’s.
I recently saw a Wall Street Journal piece highlighting the idea of the “glue employee” — the person who isn’t always the loudest or flashiest, but whose absence is immediately felt. When they’re gone, everything feels harder. When they’re present, the team just works better.
For a police squad, this isn’t just corporate lingo tossed around in a boardroom. It happens in departments across the world as a necessary survival skill. In policing, the deck is often stacked against us. We need every advantage we can get, and that means personnel who are true lynchpins. These key players and their crucial talents may be operating under the radar.
What “glue” looks like in police work
Glue officers and supervisors don’t chase credit. They don’t dominate the room. They smoothly — and sometimes subtly — hold things together when stress, fatigue, cynicism or change start pulling teams apart.
Pause and reflect. You can likely think of names and faces of people who did this in a variety of ways and through different personality traits.
It’s the sergeant who hears a half-baked idea in a briefing and pauses. They don’t shut it down — the easy, traditional autopilot route — but instead think through how it could work. They balance real talk with open-mindedness. They “catch” the idea, open the room for discourse and toss it back to officers to build collaboratively.
It’s the records specialist who challenges easy negative narratives with ownership instead of eye-rolling. Who replaces “this direction is (fill in with PG-13- or R-rated vulgarity)” with curiosity: What part of this can we control? How can we run with this and make it meaningful? They consider options and elevate them into opportunities.
These are the people in our agencies who can transform energy like alchemists. They take toxic muttering and apathetic tones and channel them into practical stoicism and pragmatic “same team” thinking. Energy is contagious. They disrupt the corrosive and multiply the constructive.
Where glue shows up day to day
Glue behavior often appears in routine, easily overlooked moments. It is mission-critical that mid-level and senior leaders recognize it and support its growth:
- When an officer asks a clarifying, non-confrontational question in roll call that creates psychological safety for others to speak.
- When a dispatcher senses rising stress on the radio and intentionally slows cadence, sharpens clarity and stabilizes the moment.
- When a supervisor frames a debrief as learning, not judgment, and reinforces that egos get checked at every rank.
- When a peer quietly coaches a teammate spiraling in self-criticism, grounding them in perspective and growth.
- When a squad member shuts down gossip with calm authority: “That’s our squadmate. Coach them up if there’s an issue, or you’re part of the problem.”
These actions rarely make performance metrics. They don’t show up in arrest counts or clearance rates. However, when they’re missing from teams, leaders notice more conflict, more burnout, more miscommunication and more emotional drag among the ranks.
Elevate the “stickiness” of positive culture
Common leadership principles underline the need to support and recognize the behaviors you want to see more of. Glue employees consistently:
- Pause instead of react, asking questions that keep conversations productive rather than shutting them down.
- Build bridges through empathy and consistency, earning trust that quietly spreads across the team.
- Reduce friction proactively, smoothing communication and workflow before small issues become operational failures.
- Reinforce the “why” behind decisions, helping others stay oriented during change.
- Mentor informally, elevating others out of care and initiative — not obligation or rank.
Ironically, because they’re competent, trusted and stabilizing, these people are often overloaded. They get pulled into everything. They become the default fixer — either directed or self-deployed. Because the nature of their work is often informal and intangible, their burnout or withdrawal can be difficult to notice. That can lead to disengagement, lower-quality team discourse and brittle communication and morale.
What to do
This isn’t a call for leaders to become the glue themselves. It’s a call to identify, protect and cultivate it — to inspire and help build the next generation of leaders.
Ask
Who is my go-to designee — my “Swiss Army officer”? The employee who can handle any curveball, take on any project — no matter how unexciting — and still deliver reliable, effective results?
Who is the person who always gets the recruit or civilian rider in a pinch? Who do I choose to fill in for acting-role duties? Who is the person everyone wants on their team because they make groups better?
Assess
Am I unintentionally overloading them because they’re reliable? How much do they have on their plate beyond their assigned duties and ancillary assignments? How many teams, boards and committees are they participating in — everything from UAS operator to peer support to software trainer to crowd control unit to honor guard?
What are they doing beyond those lists in volunteer groups, passion projects and unofficial efforts various parts of the department have tapped them for?
Acknowledge
Bring in your glue employee. Often, these are the people who only need quick direction before they’re off to the races. Personally recognize their dedication and output. Sit down and praise their resolve, resilience and reputation.
Find ways to officially recognize them with commendations when applicable, and include concrete language in evaluations: team player, reliable, game-changer, adaptable, mission-focused, effective leader and advocate for healthy culture.
Act
Invite conversation about what they need. Be ready for them to say “nothing.” Offer framing like: If I could give you something — personnel, resources, funding, fewer obstacles or less interference — what would help most?
Determine their tasks and responsibilities. Itemize them. Help rank which are most demanding, which are the biggest departmental needs and which matter most personally to them. Identify whether the plate is overloaded and, if something has to go, what that should be.
Consider giving them time to think through these prompts so you can revisit them together with more clarity. Then put on the hybrid hat of home renovator and teammate. Help decide what needs to be removed, what can be reassigned and where outside support may be needed.
Beyond projects, create regular dialogue not only about their pain points, but about where they see problems within the organization. These trusted boots on the ground are often closest to both the problem and the solution. Give them the microphone and take good notes so their insight doesn’t go nowhere. Ignoring it only magnifies problems and widens cracks in the organizational foundation.
Making it stick
Sometimes the most impactful leadership move isn’t creating a new initiative. It’s recognizing how to guide, sponsor, mentor and promote the instrumental team players already doing the work.
By working through these frameworks, leaders can identify, support and rebalance the burdens placed on key personnel. By bringing them into the process, you create voice, ownership and collaboration. You avoid taking away work they care about while reinforcing that the goal isn’t questioning whether they can handle it all — it’s helping them stay balanced and effective for themselves and the team.
Teams don’t fall apart all at once. They unravel when dedicated stabilizers stop holding the line. Good leaders notice before that happens, support their key players and remove barriers to the positive influence they cultivate.
If we as organizational leaders don’t identify, elevate and grow their influence, we allow cultural backslides. By recognizing the glue in our teams, we can cement healthy, impactful cultural habits throughout the ranks — habits that will grow and stick. (Dad joke intended.)
Continue the discussion
- Who are the “glue” people in your agency, and what specific behaviors make them indispensable to team culture and performance?
- Are dependable employees in your department unintentionally carrying too much because leaders know they’ll always deliver?
- What can supervisors do to better recognize and protect employees whose biggest contributions don’t appear in traditional performance metrics?
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT SERIES
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