Review of Enterprise and Management Studies Vol. 1, No. 2, June 2014 16 BEYOND TRANSACTIONAL AND TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP INTO THE DOUBLE HELIX: A CASE-STUDY OF BLENDED LEADERSHIP IN POLICE WORK Andrew Fisher andrew@bluelocust.org David Weir dweir@runbox.com John Phillips phillij@hope.ac.uk Abstract The argument advanced in this paper is that the virtues of a transformational approach to leadership in police service have been overstated at the expense of neglecting an intrinsic ingredient of effective leadership which is recognised at the street level by operational police people. We suggest that transformational leadership has been privileged over transactional leadership to the detriment of an understanding of effective leadership. A blended approach might offer something realised, and recognised, in a more tangible sense. We approach this topic by way of a case study of a leader who has been regarded as highly effective but whose operating style does not seem to fit the clear categories of leadership theory. The police chief depicted in this case study presents an interesting study in effective leadership in that he offers bipolar indeed multiple perspectives on the transactional and transformational leadership debate: his behaviours can be seen depending on the perspective of the viewer to be either predominantly transactional or transformational, as distinctly one rather than the other, or they can be seen as existing on a continuum, or, for the discussion here, as being inescapably intertwined and interdependent, one on the other, like the double helix of DNA. Keywords Double Helix Leadership; Transformational leadership; Transactional Leadership; Police. Introduction For many years the police have been a focus of concern for theorists of leadership and practitioners alike. The International Association of Chiefs of Police reviewed this field in the following bold terms: “Perhaps the biggest challenge facing police executives of the 21st