There are two kinds of mistakes: mistakes of the head and mistakes of the heart. Mistakes of the head are calculated and willful acts of misconduct (and should really be called “on-purposes”). Mistakes of the heart are truly accidental where there is no malice or forethought.
“There’s a huge gap between a good person and a person of character, there’s an equivalently huge gap between ethics and courage.” – Gus Lee, Courage: The Backbone of Leadership
Following rules alone not only fails to inspire trust it leads to a culture of “compliance with the letter of the law” and finding “loopholes” to achieve the lowest level of compliance necessary to stay out of trouble. Rules, standards or laws will never set the bar high enough to draw out the excellence that can only come from character and integrity.
No, the good guys do not get a pass. How the abuse of truthfulness on Blue Bloods made me cringe.
It is important, but for a police officer it is not about customer service. It is about treating everyone with respect and with dignity. Having a customer that you might be required to kill changes everything. It is not about creating a feeling, it is about serving with integrity. That raises the bar well above mere “customer service.”