Abstract
The Problem. Recent research has placed police officers at the upper end of the spectrum when job stress was measured. This study focused on the relationship between perceived officers' stress and perceived administrators' leadership styles. The study also investigated and identified harmful stressors in police work. Research Methodology. This study employed the use of a descriptive methodology. In order to answer the questions posed by this study, data were collected from a survey designed by the researcher. Police officers responded to a series of five-point-Likert-scaled questions having to do with personal information about their job, supervision and the organization, top management, and job stress. Two hundred and ninety three officers responded from ten separate police departments. The statistical treatment of the data obtained included percentages, frequency distribution, means, variance, standard deviations, and measure of dispersions of opinions. Findings. This study revealed that the perceived stress associated with police work was based on many factors. Those officers from departments who indicated dissatisfaction with their management did not indicate that they manifested more symptoms associated with stress than did those officers from departments who were accepting of their management. Harmful stressors were identified and measured. Fifty percent of the harmful stressors out of the top ten measured involved management. Finally, the study provided suggestions on how police managers could alleviate some of the officers' stress by altering management styles. Conclusions and Recommendations. The implications provided by this study should generate further research in the field of stress associated with police officers. The researcher would make the following recommendations: (1) Stress management training should be incorporated into the police science curriculum. (2) Stress management training should be available to any officer at any stage of his career. (3) Mandatory stress training should be provided for police managers to recognize symptoms of stress. (4) The development of a "stress profile" which would serve to provide indications of a potentially stressful individual. (5) Further research into "cumulative stress" that may be a factor in disease causation and stress retirement.