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FALL | 2025
The People Behind the Badge: How Brookhaven PD’s Leadership Development Programming Balances Technical Skills and Emotional Intelligence
By Brandon Gurley
Fall | 2025
In Summer 2023 and Spring 2025, articles published in this very magazine chronicled the Brookhaven Police Department’s intentional efforts to shift its leadership culture—from one that traditionally emphasized tactical proficiency alone to one that prioritizes both operational competence and emotional intelligence. That evolution wasn’t symbolic. It was structural. It reshaped how supervisors were selected, how they were trained, and how they led their teams.
"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others."
By 2025, Brookhaven’s promotional model reflects a significant maturation of that vision—one that other agencies may find both practical and necessary in a time where modern leadership requires more than rank, tenure, or technical mastery. It requires empathy, self-awareness, and relationship management versus simply resource management. It requires, in short, emotional intelligence (aka EQ).
Building the Framework: A Balanced Assessment Model
Brookhaven’s 2025 Sergeant and Lieutenant promotional processes were intentionally designed to reflect a dual focus on technical readiness and people leadership. At the foundation was a partnership with PAS Consulting Group, a respected third-party firm specializing in public safety promotional assessments. Candidates participated in rigorous exercises that evaluated key dimensions essential to supervisory performance, including:
- Community Relations
- Critical Thinking and Planning
- Incident Command Tactics and Strategy
- Leadership and Supervision
- Oral and Written Communication
- Interpersonal Skills
Each of these competencies was evaluated through carefully curated role-play, scenario analysis, and written exercises, ensuring a consistent, unbiased, and realistic measure of leadership aptitude in real-world conditions.
"You don’t lead by hitting people over the head—that’s assault, not leadership."
Yet Brookhaven knew that technical performance alone could no longer define who led their teams. Policing is increasingly relational. So, while PAS provided a reliable evaluation of what candidates could do, another tool was needed to assess who they were when under pressure, in conflict, or guiding others through adversity.
C3Leadership and the EQ-i 2.0: Measuring the Intangible
For the first time in 2025, Brookhaven incorporated emotional intelligence assessments into the promotional process. The department partnered with C3Leadership, a trusted Georgia-based firm experienced in facilitating the EQ-i 2.0, a scientifically validated tool designed to measure leadership-related emotional intelligence.
The scoring structure for promotions was rebalanced as follows:
- Assessment Center (PAS Consulting Group): 50%
- EQ-i 2.0 Emotional Intelligence Assessment: 30%
- Chief’s Interview: 20%
"What really matters for success, character, happiness and lifelong achievements is a definite set of emotional skills – your EQ – not just purely cognitive abilities."
The EQ-i 2.0 framework evaluates individuals across five composite areas:
- Self-Perception
- Self-Expression
- Interpersonal
- Decision-Making
- Stress Management
Within these, specific traits like Emotional Self-Awareness, Empathy, Emotional Expression, and Interpersonal Relationships provide insight into a candidate’s ability to lead—not by authority, but by trust.
In one anonymized case, a Lieutenant candidate demonstrated standout scores in these areas:
- Emotional Self-Awareness (132) – Showing deep understanding of their emotional landscape and ability to regulate under pressure.
- Emotional Expression (129) – Communicating with authenticity and clarity, creating psychological safety in team settings.
- Interpersonal Relationships (119) – Building lasting, trust-filled relationships both inside and outside the department.
- Empathy (123) – Effectively reading and responding to the needs and perspectives of others.
These are not merely soft skills. They are leadership force multipliers. In a profession where the stakes are high and public trust is fragile, they are often what separates influence from resistance, and resolution from escalation.
Retention as a Result: The Turnover Story
One of the most measurable outcomes of Brookhaven’s leadership approach is found in its retention data. In 2024, the department recorded a 4.5% turnover rate—well below national averages. As of August 2025, that figure is even lower at 4.2%.
This is not coincidental. By promoting leaders who understand people, listen actively, and coach supportively, the department has fostered an internal culture rooted in trust, psychological safety, and career development. Equally important, the emphasis on emotional intelligence and people skills extends beyond the workplace—helping leaders strengthen personal relationships, improve communication at home, and maintain a healthier work-life balance. The result is not only a more engaged and resilient workforce, but individuals who are better equipped to thrive both professionally and personally.
"Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence."
These aren’t just good stats—they’re outcomes. And those outcomes are rooted in emotionally intelligent leadership.
Emotional Intelligence in the Field: 2024 Operational Results
Brookhaven’s 2024 Annual Report offers concrete examples of what emotionally intelligent leadership looks like in practice—not just on paper.
- Property crime dropped by 36%, including a 64% drop in larceny.
- Arrests declined from 2,960 in 2023 to 2,707 in 2024—while calls for service increased to over 71,400.
- Citizen satisfaction following interactions reached 94.5%, as measured by post-call surveys.
These numbers reflect a department that is not just active, but intentional. Rather than relying on volume-based enforcement, Brookhaven emphasizes strategic intervention, proactive community engagement, and empathy-led responses.
"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
The department’s team regularly attends homeowner meetings, school events, and community gatherings—not as a PR strategy, but as a cultural practice. The belief is simple: policing is a people business. If supervisors aren’t equipped to lead people, they’re not ready to lead at all.
Leadership as a Continuous Commitment
Brookhaven doesn’t view the promotional process as the finish line. Leaders are expected to grow others and that means ongoing development in mental health, policing best practices, and human-centered leadership. To that end, the department conducts annual reviews of use-of-force data, demographic trends, internal complaints, disciplinary patterns, and agency satisfaction scores. The goal is to reflect, correct, and coach.
"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."
This cultural expectation has created a leadership pipeline in Brookhaven that is diverse, emotionally grounded, and performance driven.
The National Lens: Why EQ Is Gaining Ground
Brookhaven’s approach is consistent with a national trend. Across sectors, emotional intelligence is increasingly recognized as a key differentiator in leadership effectiveness:
- According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 84% of employees believe emotionally intelligent managers reduce workplace stress and increase performance.
- A Harvard Business Review study found that leaders with high EQ are 60% more effective and lead 20% more productive teams.
- Organizations that invest in EQ-based leadership development report 15–25% lower turnover.
In law enforcement, where human dynamics are often the most volatile variable, those figures are not academic—they are essential and impactful.
Looking Ahead: A Blueprint for the Future
Brookhaven PD’s promotional assessment model offers a potential blueprint for agencies seeking to future-proof their leadership structures. It is built on a simple but powerful belief: technical skills and emotional intelligence are not competing traits, they are complementary. A great officer may understand the law, the tactics, and the policy. A great supervisor knows how to guide others through them.
This philosophy extends beyond the police department. The City of Brookhaven has incorporated this level of people-leader development across the entire organization, standing firm in the conviction that investing in people directly translates into the exceptional level of service provided to the community. Within the police department, the development of people skills and emotional intelligence has progressed to the point where EQ is now formally assessed as part of the promotional process, as described earlier in this article.
These EQ competencies are also incorporated into regular performance conversations, with supervisors using one-on-one reviews to reinforce continuous growth. Looking ahead, Brookhaven PD plans to embed EQ assessments directly into its annual performance review process, ensuring that emotional intelligence remains a measurable, ongoing component of leadership rather than a one-time requirement for advancement.
Through its collaboration with PAS Consulting Group (https://pasconsultinggroup.com/) and C3Leadership (https://www.c3leadership.org/), Brookhaven has created a process that is evidence-based, human-centered, and results-driven. Other agencies can adopt these principles to strengthen service delivery by cultivating leaders who not only excel technically but also connect with, inspire, and support their teams.
By continuing to measure success not solely by crime reduction, but by how leaders serve their people, Brookhaven is building a department others will look to—not because of its badge, but because of its belief in the people behind it.
In Brookhaven, we are Better Together.
Chief Brandon Gurley
Chief Brandon Gurley brings more than 26 years of law enforcement experience to his role as Chief of Police for the Brookhaven Police Department, where he has served since the department’s inception in 2013. Appointed Chief in September 2022, he has led the agency through a nationally recognized shift toward emotionally intelligent, people-focused leadership. Chief Gurley holds a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice and a Master of Interdisciplinary Studies in Criminal Justice from Georgia State University. He is a graduate of the Northwestern University School of Police Staff and Command and the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program.
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