On Knoxville Chief Paul Noel's leadership and why he won't be blowing things up at KPD

New Knoxville Police Chief Paul Noel is clear about this: He's not a reformer, he's a fixer and he intends to be here the rest of his career.

It's an important distinction, especially in the world of policing, where "reformer" carries a certain connotation: chiefs who expend so much political capital tearing apart departments that they have to leave after the reform is finished.

There's plenty to fix for Noel, who started the job June 13. And he's wasted little time getting to work.

There are the symbolic fixes, such as insisting command staff wear uniforms.

There are the substantive fixes, such as changing hiring rules so he can fire deputy chiefs at will and seek out replacements for those positions from outside the department.

And then there are the shots across the bow, like the fiery statement Noel sent out publicly after he found out about two officers in the same day who had been arrested out of town for drunken driving and hadn't told commanders.

"Quite frankly, I am furious and at a loss for words,” he said in a statement sent to Knox News and other media outlets. “The alleged actions of these officers run in complete opposition to our mission and values as a department. Effective immediately, we are suspending the police powers for both officers and they will be reassigned from the Patrol Division to an administrative assignment as we continue to gather information. We will work swiftly to comprehensively and definitively handle this matter.”

The department's issues, which included holes in leadership and a growing list of legal troubles for officers when Noel arrived, have required Noel's instant attention.

He recently closed a lengthy investigation into racism coverup by the command staff that had slogged on for over a year – firing a lieutenant and suspending a captain in the process.

These early actions have quickly brought to light his leadership style and, seemingly, his desire to set a tone for the department. It’s something he's put a lot of thought into.

“Everything that I'm doing is letting people know, either internally or externally, why we're doing certain things, decisions that we're making. ... So, I think it's very important internally and externally, to let people know that that type of behavior here, there will be consequences for those actions," he recently told Knox News.

Should Noel blow it up?

Knox News spoke to leadership experts, both inside and outside of law enforcement to get a sense for steps leaders can take in new, unruly environments and what makes them successful in the long term.

Steve Joiner is the dean of the College of Leadership and Public Service at Lipscomb University and an expert in conflicted organizations. He has no ties or insights into KPD or Noel but said it’s not uncommon for organizations under stress to develop what he called “loot behavior,” meaning members are doing what they know and will likely be resistant to changes with a somewhat bunker mentality. This is true in hospital settings, a field he’s familiar with.

Joiner shared broad strategies about leadership in troubled organizations and what can happen in each.

Blow it up

• Pros: It’s not fun, but sometimes the only way to fix deep-seeded problems is for the new leader to come in and make large, sweeping changes.

• Cons: “When you blow it up ... lots of people die,” Joiner said symbolically. The carnage in the organization oftentimes blows up the leader, too, and he or she ends up being there only a short time before someone else is brought in.

Slowly instigate change

• Pros: Bit by bit, you can implement change by entering new blood into the organization. People and systems adapt as you go along.

• Cons: Depending on the situation, Joiner said, it could take a while and the leader will need patience, something that may be in short supply from the public or from an elected mayor.

Be a leader with gravitas

• Pros: This leader can get employees to follow him or her even if they aren’t sure where they’re being led solely because the leader is so highly respected and/or has the gravitas to pull it off.

• Cons: The kind of person you’d follow anywhere into any situation is incredibly rare, Joiner said.

Ronal Serpas is a career officer who served as police chief (or in similar positions) in Nashville and Washington state. In 2010 he left Nashville to run the New Orleans Police Department, his hometown, a job he held for four years. He’s currently a professor at Loyola University where he teaches criminology and justice.

The rule of thumb, he said, is to make changes — whether they're related to leadership or structure — in the first 90 days, but not to go too fast. If you do, people will think you’re being told what to do. But if you wait too long, people will think you can't make decisions.

"When someone hires you from out of town to be the police chief, they expect change. ... No outside chief is appointed to do the status quo and slowly make their changes, that’s not what it’s about."

But, he added, coming in like a wrecking ball is easy. Changing things with a long-term vision is the key.

Joiner agreed and said a smart leader entering an organization with problems will come in and implement easy solutions.

“Go in and do some things pretty quickly, low-hanging fruit stuff that’s very visible so that the critics feel like something’s happening," he said. "They’re real changes, but they may not be the heart of the problem ... but you go in and do some things."

This will help build trust, show that he or she is improving things and, just as important, it could keep critics at bay until longer, deeper changes can be implemented.

“What doesn’t work is coming in and saying, ‘I’m new leader, line up behind me and we’re all going to be different,’” he said.

Getting started

When Noel was promoted to overseeing the New Orleans Police Department’s sex crimes unit in 2010, the department was in the beginning stages of what would end up being one of the largest U.S. Department of Justice consent decrees in history. The feds investigated alleged pattern of civil rights violations and other misconduct by the department.

Particularly concerning was an overflowing backlog of untested rape kits, which became one of Noel’s top priorities.

Around this time, Tania Tetlow was leading Loyola Law School’s domestic violence clinic. Soon after Noel was promoted, she was interviewed by a local TV station about the department which, she said, only aired her criticisms, not her hopes that things would soon be better.

Noel called her the next day. His response surprised her.

“I thought, well he’s going to yell at me because I would understand that and he did the opposite,” she told Knox News. “He said, ‘I just want to reach out because I need all the help I can get to make this better and would love to partner with you,’ which was such a gracious, unusual attitude to take when he could have felt very criticized.”

It was a similar experience for Earl Williams, a community leader who helped run a Christian nonprofit in the city's 2nd District. When Noel was promoted to commander of the district, Williams said he reached out immediately, promising to be accessible and that the officers under his command would have the same level of customer service as Southwest Airlines.

Noel was true to his word, Williams said. "I’d be shocked if he doesn’t do a very exemplary job (in Knoxville)."

Tetlow, who eventually became president of Loyola and recently became president of Fordham University in New York City, said Noel was a skilled leader because he knew the levers to pull to inspire and get the best out of his team. The consent degree demanded change, but Noel was one of the leaders doing it correctly, she said.

“You can do the box-checking version of compliance, and then you can do the real transformation work. He was part of the latter,” she said.

Williams said Noel's strength was being able to identify and promote young leaders within the department, including new Chief Shaun Ferguson, who Noel mentored and helped promote early in his career.

What we’ve seen so far

Noel doesn’t see himself as a reformer even though he’s made his expectations for the department clear. He’s also spoken a number of times about wanting to be in Knoxville long term, even that he could retire here.

Some of the changes he's already implemented are simple. Blowing things up won't work here, he told Knox News.

Still, he was provided a good opportunity to take care of low-hanging fruit recently when officers Adam Parnell and John Morris were arrested in separate off-duty incidents on charges of drunken driving.

In a strategy strikingly different than his predecessor, Chief Eve Thomas, Noel made a public example of the men, calling them out and reprimanding them for their alleged behavior.

Thomas had ample opportunity to publicly reprimand officers for misconduct, but almost always opted instead to handle discipline in house, if at all. She almost never commented publicly about an officer’s misbehavior.

Not Noel.

He got right to the point after the drunken driving arrests in a staff-wide email that was obtained by Knox News.

“I cannot begin to express the magnitude of my frustration and disappointment,” he wrote. “These types of incidents not only erode public trust and credibility, but they also reinforce the negative stereotypes of law enforcement and undermine the strides that the profession has made to overcome that perception."

He said he was frustrated with how long it took the appropriate personnel to be notified of each arrest, something that, he said, would be addressed immediately.

"Police are members of the community, we get an authority from the community," he told Knox News recently. "So, if we're going to be vested with that authority to make those decisions, to enforce laws, it's important that we uphold the same laws as well (and) to let everybody know across the board that we're not going to put up with that type of behavior."

Separately, Knox News exclusively reported Noel fired Lt. Lance Earlywine and suspended Capt. Don Jones for their roles in covering up complaints of racist harassment within the department.

More: KPD chief Paul Noel fires lieutenant, suspends captain over cover-up of racist harassment

Police investigators found Earlywine violated the department’s truthfulness policy and Jones violated the harassment policy.

In a message to the department announcing the punishment, Noel stressed accountability, particularly accountability among the command staff.

“This is not a decision that I made without great thought and consideration,” he wrote in the email obtained by Knox News. “We can recover from most mistakes, take the appropriate action and move forward. Unfortunately, truthfulness is not one of those mistakes. As police officers, we are held to a higher standard. One of those standards is to tell the truth, no matter how much it hurts, at all times.”

Tyler Whetstone is an investigative reporter focused on accountability journalism
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knoxville Chief Paul Noel quick to set new tone for department