A review of Sheriff Joe’s recent statements in a federal class-action lawsuit reads more like a ‘how-to’ for celebrity CEOs.

Not even 20 pages into his deposition, you realize the Toughest Lawman in the Milky Way has missed his true calling. For all his law enforcement prowess, where Sheriff Joe Arpaio really excels is as a management wizard. A smidgen of imagination, and you can picture Arpaio’s face crowning the business book aisle at Borders, his latest title – I’m thinking Who Moved My Constitution? or maybe Good To Be Indicted? – there beside Stephen Covey’s newest tome.

Then, like the One Minute Manager guy, Ken Blanchard, the sheriff can transition into academe. Who wouldn’t want an executive MBA from the Joseph M. Arpaio School of Business Excellence? Hello, Fortune 100 gig. Hello, C-level salary. As Arpaio himself puts it, “I kind of look at myself as the CEO of the Republic or Coca Cola, what have you, and I have been a manager for many, many years in the federal system, too.” Who better to emulate, right? You’re already humming “Beauty School Dropout” from Grease, I’m sure. As for studying management, Arpaio-style, read the deposition our top cop gave in December, in a federal class-action lawsuit accusing the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office of practicing racial profiling in its hunt for illegal immigrants. The nine hours of repartee between Arpaio and the plaintiffs’ lawyer David Bodney plays like a Sheriff Joe greatest hits medley, with Bodney rubbing Arpaio’s face in some of his more egregious quotes to the press and portraying the sheriff as a disconnected, isolated bureaucrat, uninterested in whether his nearly 4,000 employees view and police our county’s streets mostly through the prism of race.

The lawsuit names five plaintiffs of Latino descent (all of whom are either American citizens or in this country legally). The five don’t seek monetary damages, but instead seek to scale back Arpaio’s “crime suppression sweeps” and his other illegal immigrant hunts, which the plaintiffs believe involve stops that lack probable cause. As the suit tells it, to be brown is to be suspect in the eyes of Arpaio’s men.

With all of this in mind, Arpaio’s management skills are worthy of a review, pop-quiz style. How do your management skills compare to the sheriff’s?

Question 1: Many top-level CEOs write autobiographies. Most use ghostwriters. When asked about the second of your two life stories, you should:

(a) Argue that you were misquoted. (b) Tell folks, “In fact, I haven’t even read the book.” (c) Utter the immortal line, “Everybody that writes books don’t agree with what is in the book. You do know that. We try to do as accurate a book as possible, but sometimes it doesn’t come out that way.”

The answer is (d) all of the above.

Question 2 concerns delegation: Assigning tasks to others is a must for the busy chief exec. The problem is, you then have to follow up with subordinates to make sure they’re doing their jobs. “Closing the loop” can result in reams of paperwork and, even worse, time-consuming conversations with your employees. There’s a better way. When faced with allegations of gross misconduct and alleged racism, forget actually asking questions. Instead, you:

(a) Tell the lawyer suing you, “I don’t have the facts of that situation.” (b) Explain, “Well, I am sure my staff is very knowledgeable about those situations, and our lawyers, and justice will prevail.” (c) When asked who on your staff you assigned to investigate the charges, ignore the question and say, “Well, I am sure they know – they realize about the lawsuit, and I am sure that we have competent legal representation I have confidence in, so that’s something they’re looking into.”

Again, under the Sheriff Joe curriculum, the answer is (d) all of the above.

Like a lot of celebrity CEOs, you’ll be asked to give speeches to the community – a great chance to build your company’s brand and network. Question 3: When it comes to these speeches, you should:

(a) Tell someone asking for a copy, “Well, the big secret is, I don’t prepare speeches. If I don’t have a speech, I can’t keep copies of it.”

(b) Tell a VFW hall crowd that includes at least one member of a racist-extremist group, “I appreciate your support. You’re on the right track. You’re doing what you should be doing.” (c) When asked if your nearly 4,000 employees might see or read about your speeches in the news, explain, “Never thought of that. Not a bad idea. But I never thought about my employees reading the… they don’t read the newspapers. I don’t even think they watch TV.” (d) Tell a lawyer suing you, “A lot of times I get my best shtick from my Chihuahuas, Pepe and Lupita. They’re hilarious… and they’re both in the country legally.”

Fooled you that time. The right answers are (a), (b) and (c). Though, if I had told you it was (d), and that the sheriff claimed he could talk to the animals – in Spanish – would you have doubted me?

Another management issue you’ll confront is the need for communication. With 4,000 employees, the press needing your time, and nearly 4 million constituents, the deluge of e-mails, texts and calls can be overwhelming. Question 4: “How should you handle 21st-century communication?”

(a) Tell folks looking to reach you, “I don’t have computers or e-mails.” Instead, “I have a 40-year-old Smith Corona typewriter.” (b) Asked if you have a computer at home, say, “My wife does. But I don’t know how to work it.” (c) Asked about your cell phone skills, say, “I just have a cell phone just to dial.” (d) Confuse the hell out of a PHOENIX magazine columnist, who can’t imagine why anyone has a cell phone “just to dial.” You nailed it: It’s (d) all of the above again.

Finally, management often requires copious amounts of record keeping. Say, for example, your company is in the business of pulling over large numbers of drivers, provoking some of them to sue you. You might be tempted to record the details of these traffic stops – especially the ones that don’t end in arrests – as proof that your subordinates are following company policies, like, uh, the U.S. Constitution.

Don’t bother. Or, at the very least, make sure you can’t answer Question 5: “How much do you know about what your street-level employees are doing when they come in contact with (and sometimes arrest) the public?”

(a) Explain that while you know who ends up in handcuffs, “I don’t believe we keep a record of those contacts we make during the operations.” (b) When accused your employees might be singling out people based on skin color, say, “I would hope that you would take the – take the word of a – my officials that work for me and my deputies.” (c) Asked how your people enforce discretionary rules, like stopping folks for cracked windshields, say, “Every day the – our deputies enforce all the laws. I don’t know how many – how they invoke discretionary reason why not doing it, but I – I don’t have statistics how many cracked windshields we have, but I do know my deputies enforce all the traffic vio – laws.”

One last time, it’s (d) all of the above. But you knew that by now, because you get the core principle of this school of management. It’s leadership by detachment, the sort of abdication that leads to the chambers of a federal grand jury. It’s how dynasties fall and public confidence crumbles. It’s how you become a caricature of everything good you once stood for – an in-the-flesh memorial to the “three monkeys” school of doing business: See no evil. Hear no evil. Speak no evil.

Maybe we’ll etch that sad phrase on the door of the Arpaio school of business. Or, someday, on the lawman’s tombstone.