Summer 2025

Stronger Together: A Leadership Community

TDCJ is comprised of over 36,000 dedicated correctional professionals who strive each day to uphold the mission of the agency. From our correctional officers to the support staff that keeps our facilities up and running, TDCJ is filled with individuals who take the initiative to lead their teams and the agency toward success.

To accomplish this, the agency developed two programs that bring senior staff and mid-level managers from across the agency together to create new relationships and foster current ones - Focused Leadership Conference (FLC) and the Emerging Leaders Course (ELC).

“To meet the mission of TDCJ, it requires every piece of TDCJ to work toward that goal. No one division has more importance than the other. Sometimes it is easy to get siloed into our divisions and departments. We are a very large agency, so you must break that down and have an appreciation and respect for what your peers do,” Executive Director Bryan Collier said.  “That’s part of the process for both of those programs. It helps you learn what all those other individuals and divisions do and why their work is just as important as your work. It takes every piece, whether it’s a big division or a small division. If we don’t all work together, we don’t get where we need to go as an agency.”

Focused Leadership Conference

The FLC was developed by former executive director Brad Livingston and Collier, who was serving as deputy executive director at the time, with the first cohort taking place in Marble Falls in 2009. The program uses various methods to help team build, including exercises that have participating staff lean on each other for guidance and knowledge.

“We do put a lot of pressure on them while they’re in the program, but we also give plenty of support. It’s a high-pressure environment designed to really test them and help grow their leadership capability,” Collier said. “They lean on each other to help get through the program and develop a strong bond and that bond doesn’t go away. That bond continues.”

Another component of the program is developing a personal leadership plan. Susie Gunnels, deputy ombudsman director, said developing the plan allowed her to self-reflect on her leadership path and opened her eyes to how she can continue to grow in her leadership journey.

“During the FLC I was told, ‘create a leadership plan; it will keep you accountable.’ Since then, I realized the value of the plan and setting goals to work on. I started with a self-assessment and identified my biggest regret was leaving Sam Houston State University as a 21-year-old junior. I quickly began taking the steps necessary to re-enroll and now I’ve graduated,” Gunnels said. “Focused Leadership taught me the value of prioritizing my leadership plan, as well as the growth and development of others.”

Chief of Staff Rachelle White participated in the program in 2022 and said her biggest takeaway was hearing directly from senior leadership on their personal leadership journeys, lessons they’ve learned and the vision for the future of the agency. It’s an experience she said truly impacted her as she progressed in her career.

“The experience reinforced that leadership is not just about position. It’s about presence, purpose and people. FLC was pivotal in shaping how I see myself within the agency. It helped me understand that my voice and perspective matter,” White said. “It also created opportunities to build meaningful relationships with peers across divisions and roles, and those connections continue to enrich my work today. In my current role, I strive to promote a practice style that is collaborative, adaptable to change and focused on serving the State of Texas with excellence.”

Emerging Leaders Course

Employees in mid-level supervisory positions, not only lead their teams toward accomplishing their department goals but also assist their supervisors in fulfilling their goals, as well. For individuals in those roles, the ELC is where they can learn new leadership skills while enhancing their current skill set.

“I think historically we haven’t gotten our people into leader development experiences early enough. A lot of times when you do that, people create bad habits and are kind of set in their ways. It can be hard to break those. I think it’s important to start talking about good leadership earlier than we have been, and Mr. Collier recognized that there was a need for this development for mid-level managers,” Training and Leader Development Division (TLDD) Deputy Director Charlene Ellis said. “That mid-level group is one of the hardest levels of leadership to hold especially in an organization this large. In mid-level management, you are sandwiched between the front-line staff and having a good idea for the work they do, while you are also the go-to for higher-level leadership for solving problems in the daily operations. I think giving them something like this and investing in them early goes a long way.”

ELC was created by Ellis and TLDD Director David Yebra at the request of Collier in 2019. After many planning sessions, the new ELC was presented to Collier, and in 2021 the first cohort was selected.

Over the last four years, ELC has been a leading program within the agency for mid-level managers. Individuals chosen for the course are selected by their respective division directors to participate in the six-month program, which consists of virtual and in-person sessions, as well as one-on-one mentoring.

As part of the program, participants are paired with a division or department director who serves as their mentor during and after the course. In each session, individuals participate in activities and discussions that allow them to network and gain meaningful perspectives from their peers and agency leaders.

Facilities Division Director Ron Hudson, who serves as a mentor in the program, stated programs such as ELC are vital to up-and-coming leaders because it helps them see not only their strengths but weaknesses. It’s a quality that he said is important for new leaders to develop.

“I think it’s very important for those to identify what their weaknesses are early on in their leadership growth. When you get into a director’s role or a manager’s role, it is important to be able to identify others’ strengths and weaknesses, so when you begin developing your leadership team you surround yourself with those that can help your team excel,” Hudson said.

Ellis explained how the course is continuously evolving from cohort to cohort to fit the needs of each individual and class. This allows the lessons and discussions to be tailored to the areas the particular class wants to grow.

“We usually see there are different types of people in the class. There are some from day one that are on the edge of their seat, and we see complete engagement, and others who are quiet the first couple of sessions,” Ellis said. “People take in information in different ways, and we believe that we’re putting out information that everybody in this agency can benefit from. We’re doing good things and are making a difference.”

A 2024 cohort graduate and Parole Division Section Director Brian Phillips said the course allowed him to take the leadership skills he gained in the military and continue to build on them through hearing from agency leaders and interacting with his classmates.

“The perspectives of not only senior leaders but also those of my classmates opened my eyes to an entirely new vista regarding leadership. I saw the similarities of the challenges I had been privy to in my previous career, but more importantly, Ms. Ellis, her staff, and my peers helped me see the differences,” Phillips said. “I came to realize, leadership is not finite, but fluid in nature, albeit grounded in a common foundation. This piqued my interest, and I became excited about the prospect of learning again.”

“The fresh leadership perspective and the innovative tools I acquired in Emerging Leaders have enabled me to become a stronger Section Director,” he continued. “More importantly, I am now able to pass those amazing principles on to my staff, which sets the stage for improved productivity, efficiency and the essential ability to meet loftier goals. I’ve also seen a marked improvement in morale and retention – which is an amazing thing! Although these accomplishments are a collaborative effort between myself and my staff (with all credit going to them), I truly believe the catalyst to this pathway was Emerging Leaders.”

Another 2024 cohort graduate and Office of the General Counsel Program Supervisor Melissa Wiggins said the course taught her to be more open-minded and empathetic towards her team members and to be as hands-on as possible. She contributes her overall growth as a leader to her fellow ELC classmates and her mentor, Chief Operations Officer Bobby Lumpkin.

“The lessons I learned in this course were amazing and very informative but my classmates, my mentor and the speakers I met during this course were the best takeaway. I know that I can reach out to many of my classmates and get good advice or guidance in almost any situation. I also know that I can reach out to my mentor, Bobby Lumpkin, and he can provide me with much-needed information and direction as I grow in TDCJ,” Wiggins said. “It has opened my eyes to the fact that I need to be more aware and more involved in what everybody is doing, or if someone is struggling, trying to find the best solution to help them. I feel like this course has helped me open up to my team and hopefully let them know that they can always come to me whenever there is something they need or a problem they may be having.”

The true impact of the ELC is participating individuals gain a better understanding of what it means to be a leader through constantly learning from the course and also their fellow participating staff members. At the end of the course, participants not only walk away with the knowledge to better lead their teams, but with a whole new understanding of togetherness and support within the agency.

“People can feel when it’s personal to them. I have been through several leader development classes but most of it was someone talking at me. Adults learn by doing and I think with leadership, a lot of people don’t understand how to practice doing it. By just practicing how to be a leader, I think that makes more of a difference than anything,” Ellis said. “I think allowing them to practice techniques and having the facilitated discussions make a big difference. Everyone can talk through issues with their peers and gain different perspectives. You are also walking away understanding you’re not alone and that we’re all in this together.”

When it comes to the future of the agency, Collier emphasized the need to develop more programs such as the Focused Leadership Conference and Emerging Leaders Course. As TDCJ staff collectively work toward accomplishing the 2030 Vision, he said it’s imperative that staff at all levels are able to build their leadership skills.

“We need to continue to expand leadership opportunities, our goals have to include that we’re going to build the best leaders we possibly can in state government, and I truly believe TDCJ has the strongest leadership of any agency in the state of Texas. I feel confident that our people can lead through things that most people can’t imagine having to lead through, but at the same time, building on those skills and on the experience of our team is what I think we have to be focused on. I think what we have is good, but not adequate for 2030. We must continue to expand and broaden those leadership opportunities for the agency and those people that are up and coming in the agency at all levels,” Collier said. “Our focus will continue to be expanding those programs between now and 2030 and beyond.”