A questionnaire was administered to 543 first-line supervisors, managers, and senior law enforcement executives (including 100 chief executive officers), and 11 chiefs of police, in 1991. It was designed to measure the intensity of five modes of thinking: synthesist, idealist, pragmatist, analyst, and realist. Most of the respondents showed strong pragmatic, analytic, and realistic tendencies. These modes of thinking, while essential for operational and day-to-day decisionmaking, lack the innovativeness characterized by the synthesist and idealist modes. All 11 police chiefs showed a strong concern for their departments as open to internal and external input, but only three took an integrative, futuristic approach to planning. In an ideal situation, all modes of thinking would be covered, but such is not an easy order, given the natural tendency of decisionmakers to seek like-minded people. As a person is promoted within the system and the nature of the work changes, different modes of thinking become appropriate. 9 endnotes