The edited work is a plea for an organizational sociology-based leadership concept that consolidates important approaches using the police as an example and documents their applicability in both theoretical and practical terms. The police represent an interesting field for discussing leadership issues because they are characterized by comparatively steep hierarchies while also exhibiting complex leadership situations that can hardly be addressed by the hierarchy itself. Additionally, the police have an official leadership system known as the "Cooperative Leadership System" (KFS), which claims to serve as a guiding principle and a binding course of action. The KFS originated in the 1970s and is shaped by instrumental solutions that draw on both classical motivational approaches and an unreflected supervisory function.