Every single one of us who has ever had a job knows the rules. If we stop performing our jobs, and we don’t or can’t improve, ultimately we will be held accountable by our employers and asked to move on.

Those are the rules we live by.

Top managers in city government should not be entitled to their own set of rules in which they can continue on indefinitely even if they are no longer performing their jobs well. Particularly when it comes to our top managers, our loyalty must be to the community these well-compensated department heads are hired to serve, not just to the individuals themselves.

In the case of Police Chief Greg Suhr, who has now been police chief for over five years, we have preliminary reports from an independent panel of judges that he has been unable over those five years to change a culture in the San Francisco Police Department that undermines the ability of the police to serve every community.

We see the dangerous results, with community members organizing against the department. To make our city safer, we need our community to cooperate with the police, not to become so alienated that they are taking to the streets to protest against the police and the chief.

We have a city in conflict over the role of the police chief instead of one united to addressing our shared challenges. Rather than working together to improve training for officers, provide needed reforms or respond to the spike in property crimes, the city establishment has circled the wagons.

We have to move forward, and to do that we need new leadership.

The hard reality is that one of the most important jobs a police chief must perform is to earn and keep the trust of the public. To lower crime the entire community must be involved. If the chief can’t work with the community, then he or she simply can’t succeed.

For those of you who don’t know Greg Suhr, let me say he is a highly dedicated public servant who has served this city for over 30 years. I have no trouble thanking him for his service, and I think almost everyone who knows Greg well would agree he is a skilled and caring professional.

But this isn’t about Greg. This is about the hard reality that if, after five years of trying, he can’t change a negative culture, then we can’t seriously expect him to succeed now, particularly when the community is so deeply alienated.

This is what would happen to you in your job. Certainly that is particularly what happens to any well-compensated leader. If the Apple CEO stops selling products, he will be asked to move on. When politicians stop listening to their constituents, they are asked to move on by the voters.

That’s the way it works — for everybody seemingly but top brass in San Francisco, where there is a culture of protecting “the city family.”

Well, what about your family, and all the families of San Francisco who deserve Police Department leadership that is trusted in every neighborhood?

There cannot be one set of rules for those in the City Hall establishment and one set for everyone else.

In the modern era of San Francisco, police chiefs have served an average of just over three years. Chief Suhr has seen his fifth year in office marked by a scathing independent report about the culture in his department, rising property crime and widespread protests against his leadership.

It is time to initiate a comprehensive search for a new chief who can win the respect of officers and the public.

Jane Kim is a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.