I have long said that to the extent I have any wisdom, that most of it is the consequences of my mistakes and my abundance of scar tissue. This article reflects both, and my speculation is that much of what I say will resonate with most of the readers as well. While not a new medical reality, the fact that our population is aging and that many older people remain in positions of responsibility, coupled with an explosion of memory care facilities has caused this topic to have increased visibility on our personal and professional radar screens. In my circle of friends and colleagues, this has become a significant factor in our personal lives and in many of our workplaces.
For this article, I will use the term cognitive decline to describe various behaviors associated with varying degrees of confusion or memory loss. I certainly do not have the ability to discuss the various medical conditions that cause of contribute to the cognitive decline. I am the consummate layman on medical issues.
For me personally, the last couple of years have placed some serious challenges related to persons in cognitive decline on my plate, one involving a decades long dear friend and the other a wonderful non- profit organization that I have long coveted and been associated with. In both instances, there was an appreciable delay in recognizing the reality of cognitive decline, and an increase in the severity of the consequences because of the delayed recognition.
The first involved a retired career federal investigator. He was a man of considerable means, a collector of weapons and historical memorabilia and a person with a well-deserved reputation of repetitive corny jokes. As someone who was close to him, I was among the last to recognize the cognitive decline; no doubt influenced by years of hearing foolish jokes and because I was involved solely in social activities, without exposure to his actions in financial or detailed types of interactions. When I recognized the condition, with the help of others, I spent quite a lot of time wrestling his car and driving privileges away from him, trying to identify and resolve some really bad financial transactions, and finally finding and removing the many firearms from his home following a near catastrophic accidental discharge. Within days we were able to get him into a memory care facilities and within several months he passed away. I remain saddened and ashamed of my delay in recognizing my dear friend’s condition.
The second situation involved a wonderful non-profit organization where I have a decades long history of affiliation. Because of long personal and professional associations with the president and the chief financial officer (CFO), and the fact that most of the trustees are busy people with other careers, the board pretty much deferred to the actions of the president and the CFO without questions, both of whom had some level of cognitive decline. I am once again ashamed to acknowledge that, up until the last couple of years, I was among the trustees who had our heads in the sand. Although it took a couple years of digging, insisting, interviewing and ultimately gaining control of financial records, the Board ultimately determined that the president and CFO had long been making financial decisions, many of which were really bad, without knowledge or approval of the Board of Trustees, which the by-laws mandated. Add to this situation a greedy trustee who covertly ingratiated himself with the above duo to provide unnecessary or inflated services, and the fact that the president’s daughter whom he had hired to perform some administrative services, gradually stole a considerable amount of money from the organization via her father’s organizational credit card.
Unfortunately, as I look back on my law enforcement and military careers’ I now see more clearly several situations where cognitive decline may well have played a role, not only involving troublesome behavior on the part of leaders but also contributing to the decreased diligence of members of the organizations. Although I’ll save those situations for subsequence columns, I can reflect on several law enforcement support councils where cognitive decline, greed, weak oversight and mischief came together to create very problematic situations for the agencies. The only thing worse that a troublesome situation is a troublesome situation that we ignore and fail to learn from. Not having seen much on the cognitive decline topic in the law enforcement arena but recognizing that it is becoming a major issue in all professions, I offer the below described expensive lessons on this topic. While seemingly simple and obvious, the issue of cognitive decline becomes more recognizable when the several factors are viewed collectively. I wish that I had possessed the following knowledge and perspectives earlier in my career.
RECOGNIZING AND ADDRESSING COGNITIVE DECLINE
Is Cognitive Decline Restricted to Older Persons?
No, but the reality is generally that as we age, the likelihood of some degree of cognitive decline increases. In the event of behaviors consistent with cognitive decline by younger persons, don’t rule it out but also be sensitive to other factors, such as weak training or flawed leadership.
Is Cognitive Decline Easily Recognizable?
No, and that is among the reasons why it is such a difficult issue to recognize and address. A reality of life, quite aside from medical cognitive decline, is that as we all age there are predictable factors involved, such a slowing down a tad, oftentimes spending additional time spent in reflecting on issues, and my favorite; occasionally stumbling with names. Being able to distinguish between the normal aging process and impactable cognitive decline is near impossible, because we all decline with age; it is just a matter of when and to what degree! This transition period is often referred to as mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
What are the Recognizable Signs of Mild Cognitive Impairment?
Behaviors, often self-acknowledged by the individual, where there is some slippage in the memory function or slight delays in processing some information, but changes which realistically are not serious enough to adversely impact daily life or usual activities.
What are the Recognizable Signs of Mild Cognitive Decline?
As a person advances in cognitive decline, the symptoms may include forgetting things more often, missing planned events, interruption in trains of thought, “drifting” in conversations, difficulty in conversations and following instructions, and some flawed decisions.
What are the Impediments to Recognizing Cognitive Decline?
A person is cognitive decline, who exhibits the above symptoms will be recognized by others with whom him or her is in contact. In my experiences, the biggest factor which stands in the way of recognition is persons who actively work to conceal the decline from others. This can take several forms, such as a member of a family organization, a long-term secretary or a loyal employee. Most often however, again based on my experiences, the concealment is for selfish reasons by persons or employees who may lose positions, accounts, contracts or organizational standing if the person in decline is relaced in the organization.
There is no shortage of historical examples of persons or organizations who have worked hard, and often effectively in concealing the serious cognitive challenges of prominent individuals. Without discussing partisan bias, the most recent example of the serious concealment of cognitive decline has been with the president of the United States, where millions of persons were denying what they were observing based on partisan politics. A classic example for the law enforcement profession was the decades-long director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who in later life ruled with a bizarre manner through several presidential administrations.
Organizations for Which Cognitive Decline is Particularly Critical?
The issue of cognitive decline is a factor in every organization, but more conspicuously so in some special instances. Some of the occupations where the recognition of cognitive decline result in immediate actions include the airlines for pilots, medical associations for physicians, the federal government for air traffic controllers, and financial institutions for investment personnel.
RECOGNITION & COURAGE
In its simplest form, leadership involves recognizing and solving problems, and the issue of dealing with a key person who occupies a position of responsibility and who appears to be declining cognitively puts these skills to the test, along with perhaps the most critical skill of all; COURAGE. Those of us in positions of responsibility have the right but more importantly the responsibility to create and maintain appropriate workplaces, and I can think of few factors more important than the intellectual and behavioral stability of leaders.
I am hard-pressed to think of a more challenging task than addressing and resolving the issue of a leader in cognitive decline, especially if he or she is your boss, BUT YOU HAVE TO DO IT! There is no instruction manual for this task, and every approach may be fraught with pitfalls, but that it where good judgement, interpersonal relationships, professional credibility organizational skills, finesse, courage and common sense are all likely required for an appropriate resolution.
There is a reason for gold watches and emeritus designations!
Good Luck!
Keith Bushey retired from the Los Angeles Police Department as a commander, from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department as a deputy chief, and from the United States Marine Corps Reserve as a Colonel. Other law enforcement experience includes having served as a Los Angeles County deputy sheriff, a State of California deputy game warden, and as the Marshal of San Bernardino County. He is an instructor emeritus for the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Association and has lectured and written extensively in the areas of leadership, management and ethics. His entire eight booklet Leadership Series is in the public domain and may be downloaded without cost from KeithBushey.com.
Appeared American Police Beat November 2024.