Evidence Leadership Group

Look, I need to tell you something about leadership that nobody wants to say out loud. It’s heavy. And I don’t mean the meetings or the paperwork or even the politics. I mean, the weight of knowing that when your deputy is hurting, when someone attempts suicide, when a family is getting evicted, or you’re serving the papers—you carry that home. Sheriff John D. B. Carr sat down with us for an authentic conversation and didn’t sugarcoat any of it.

Here’s a guy who graduated first in his class and wanted the streets. Instead, they put him in the courthouse. He was mad about it. But that courthouse assignment taught him more about building cases, working with prosecutors, and understanding the system. Sometimes the thing you don’t want is exactly what you need. That’s not a cliché. That’s just how it works when you’re paying attention.

Sheriff Carr spent 26 years going through every level of the Prince George’s County Sheriff’s Office. SWAT, domestic violence, school resource officer, internal affairs. He didn’t skip steps. He didn’t chase promotions. He learned. And when he became sheriff, he hand-picked his executive staff based on one thing: a servant heart. Not résumés. He would ask if they genuinely wanted to serve people or just collect a check. Some of them couldn’t handle it. That’s the part nobody talks about—the cost of caring.

He told us about Sheriff Melvin High, his mentor, who gave 40 years to public safety and passed away before he could retire. That loss gutted him. It made him realize that if you’re doing this job right, you can’t do it long. You have to pour into the people coming behind you because they’re the ones who’ll carry it when you can’t anymore.

So let me ask you—are you leading because you want the title, or because you’re willing to carry the weight? Be honest.