‘I’m not a dictator, but equally I’m probably not a pushover’: A case study of the critical qualities and behaviours of a police supervisor in supporting officer well-being

This article used a qualitative case study design to try to understand the critical qualities and behaviours of a supportive police supervisor in relation to police officer well-being. Data were collected from three officers (one police constable, one detective constable and one detective sergeant) who investigate rape offences in a large urban police force in England.

Data consisted of 10 in-depth semi-structured interviews with participants, personal notes written by the participants and 39 documents that related to supervisory support and officer well-being. Abductive thematic analysis was used for data analysis because this allowed not only the use of a codebook, but also gave the flexibility of improving the themes based on the participant contributions. The study identified three main themes – being supportive, trust and being competent – and ten sub-themes – importance of welfare, being present, being open and approachable, pride, being humble, feeling valued, being passionate, awareness, being balanced and being trained. Although not generalisable, the findings give an insight into some of these critical qualities and behaviours that led to a supportive relationship between a supervisor and their team (supervisees), which helped maintain these officers well-being. It is hoped that this research can be used to start a discussion on the importance of supervisors in supporting officer well-being in policing, and be further developed to support all officers, particularly those working in high-risk roles such as rape investigation.