60 Minutes of Game: Career Excellence for Law Enforcement

The Playbook They Wished They Had Sooner: Empowering Women in Law Enforcement

By Sheronda D. Grant | *wearestrongenough.com

Last week, I stood in a room full of women in law enforcement. I delivered a session I had been building for months — not just as a course, but as a calling.

The session, titled 60 Minutes of Game: Career Excellence for Law Enforcement, was built around a simple but honest premise: every play that moves your career forward has a game designed to stop it. We covered both sides — the excellence plays you should commit to and the unethical games that can derail them.

I decided to create this course after reflecting on my own experiences in the profession. I had faced a person who actively attacked me and harmed others using advanced workplace manipulation tactics. I wanted to create a playbook for those who want to do their jobs without playing these games. If unethical games are played against them, they should be able to protect themselves.

What the Course Covers

The course is structured around four quarters. Each quarter addresses a dimension of career excellence — the games that come for you when you practice it, and ways to protect your reputation.

Quarter One: Taking Initiative

Nobody owes you a career. The officers who advance are the ones who own their development, build visibility with decision-makers, and claim credit for their work. This quarter also covers what happens when you do — credit grabbing, strategic positioning, and the gotcha game — and how to counter each one.

Quarter Two: Embracing Challenges

Growth happens at the edge of your comfort zone, not inside it. This quarter discusses stretch assignments and visibility opportunities that build careers. It also addresses the games designed to stop ambitious officers: being set up to fail, slow-rolling, death by a thousand cuts, and the double standard.

Quarter Three: Helping Others

Leadership is not a title — it is a practice. This quarter explores what it means to invest in people, open doors, and share knowledge. It also names what controls access and blocks development: gatekeeping, pecking order enforcement, and Queen Bee dynamics.

Quarter Four: Overcoming Workplace Toxicity

This is where most attendees needed to spend the most time. We named the conditions that allow toxicity to thrive, the forms it takes specifically for women in this profession, and a framework that maps out what a coordinated attack and sabotage campaign looks like. This quarter closes with a framework for how to respond: Recognize. Respond. Refuse.

Every quarter has the same structure: the excellence play, the games that come for you when you start winning, and ways to protect yourself against them.

What Happened in That Room

When the session ended, women approached me one after another. They shared their experiences — hostile work environments, isolation, being undermined, and being targeted. Some had been dealing with these issues for years. One woman even expressed that she sought counseling due to the actions taken against her. Another shared how challenging it was to deal with toxicity from other women.

The phrase I kept hearing was: I wish I had this information sooner.

That statement landed differently than I expected. Not because it surprised me — I have been in law enforcement for 24 years and have lived or witnessed some of what those women described. It resonated because it confirmed something I already believed: the information exists, but the access does not. People are going through experiences that could be named, contextualized, and navigated — but no one gave them the framework to do it.

No one gave me that framework either, so I built it — hoping to provide tools and strategies to protect one’s mind, work, and reputation as they serve their communities.

Why This Work Matters

I want to be honest about something. Delivering this session was not just a professional milestone; it was personal.

I developed the 60 Minutes of Game framework from my own career — the positive plays that served me, the games I had to learn to recognize, and the strategies I built while navigating this profession. But this is not just my story. Over 24 years, I observed what happened to others — colleagues who were targeted, undermined, and pushed out. I learned from those experiences as well. Every lesson in this framework, whether lived or witnessed, was earned.

I did not have a course like this when I was coming up. I had mentors who poured into me, experiences that shaped me, and enough faith to keep going. But I did not have a structured system. Now, there is one.

It is not theory. It is not generic leadership content. It is a framework grounded in what may happen inside some law enforcement organizations — the culture, the politics, the toxicity, and the excellence that is still possible in spite of it all.

“Authority is assigned. Influence is earned. This work is about learning how to build both.”

What I Want You to Know

If you are experiencing unethical games in the workplace, know that you can overcome them. You are important, and you belong in this profession. There are strategies to navigate these challenges without losing yourself in the process.

If you have been through it already — if you recognize the landscape your peers described — then you know how much it would have meant to have someone hand you a map. That is what this platform is. A map.

The women who came to find me after that session, and those who continued to talk about it later, reminded me who this course is for.

If you are strong enough to be a woman, you are strong enough to be a cop! You deserve every tool that helps you remind yourself of why you belong in this profession — to yourself and to everyone watching.

If any of this resonates with you, join the waitlist at wearestrongenough.com/60-minutes-of-game.

— Sheronda D. Grant