BY THOMAS S. NELSON
For many years, the fire service has struggled with the development of new officers and the transition from firefighter to company or line officer. Tradition has held that firefighters who have distinguished themselves from their peers in firematic skills, written testing, personal development, and organized assessments are to be selected for promotion. Throughout the process of advancement preparation, leadership training is limited to National Fire Academy (NFA) courses, such as the Leadership and Managing Company Tactical Operation series, and other NFA and Federal Emergency Management Agency courses. This process also involves front seat and acting time with the respective agency. Although these experiences offer key information on management, counseling, and decision making, little formalized training about what leadership really is and how we can learn from our brothers in the Armed Forces is presented. Over the years, it has been impressed on us that the fire service is a heritage-rich, paramilitary organization. However, little has been done to show the correlation between the military and the fire service.
We in the fire service can be more proactive in addressing matters of leadership and the differences between management and leadership. Some believe that the two are one and the same. Hopefully, by the end of this article, I will show that they are two different, but necessary, components in officer development and that there must be a balance between management and leadership for a company officer to succeed.
First, I must first define management and leadership and answer these questions: How is the fire service a paramilitary organization? and What can we learn from the parallels between the two organizations?
THE DEFINITIONS OF MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP
In Webster’s II New Riverside dictionary, management is defined as “the act, practice, or process of managing; an executive skill.” This describes the skill a company officer must possess to guarantee equipment and personnel readiness. In this aspect of management, the station officer must be able to ensure compliance with department directives and standard operating procedures (SOPs). This can be further described as “oversight of the processes of daily operations.”
Webster’s does not offer a definition for leadership but does define lead as “to conduct along a way; guide.” Although this gives a rudimentary idea of what leadership is, if we were to look to the United States Army’s Field Manual 22-100, “Army Leadership,” we would find an insightful definition of leadership: “influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improve the organization.” This definition can be distilled into three words; purpose, motivation, and direction. As each station officer receives the newest members to the shift, it is paramount that the members be “shown the light” relative to their being an integral part in the overall success of the organization as well as be mentored into becoming productive members of the department.
THE FIRE SERVICE AND THE MILITARY
The parallels between the military and the fire service are evident in the manner in which both services conduct daily business. We can isolate four key factors that link both these organizations: communications, hierarchy of command, SOPs and directives, and span of control. Since there are so many similarities between the fire service and the military, it is only logical that we learn from leadership and management philosophies developed and implemented within the military.
All of the above mentioned factors are taught to U.S. Army personnel enrolled in the Non-Commissioned Officers Education System (NCOES). The NCOES is designed to train soldiers from the “ranks” in the art of leadership. Although each of the services has a version of this system, leadership training is essentially the same with minor variations for service-specific doctrine.
Communication model. During leadership development training, effective communication skills instruction teaches each participant the communication model, which involves a sender, the message, the medium used to transmit it, a receiver, and feedback. As information is received, to ensure understanding, the receiver is asked to respond or to acknowledge receipt to the sender. Whether it is a memorandum, a face-to-face conversation, or radio traffic, feedback is required to prevent misunderstanding and to let the sender know that the message was received as it was intended. It is essential that the trainee understand that communications flows two ways. This is true on the fireground as well as on the battleground.
Hierarchy of command. As soldiers advance in technical and tactical proficiencies, they are given greater responsibility over material and personnel. Soldiers are taught early on that as their assigned responsibility grows, they are held more accountable both up and down the chain of command. Leadership involves knowing the hierarchy of command. Everyone must answer to a boss, and that boss has his boss. In training, future noncommissioned officers are taught that two things should be foremost in their minds, accomplishing their mission and the well-being of their charges. Your people are your most valuable resource, but don’t forget that just as they are accountable to you, so are you accountable to them. Make sure they have the right training and equipment to do the job as safely and as effectively as possible.
Directives and standard operating procedures. Guidelines and written methods of conducting business are prevalent in most structured organizations. The military has taken to the practice of developing directives and standard operating procedures to a Zen-like level. There are manuals and regulations on everything from how to march to how, when, and where tactical assaults are to be conducted. If you don’t know how to do something, then somebody hasn’t given you the regulation on it. Each step in a soldier’s daily life is described in various stages of detail in writing. In the fire service, recruits are drilled on the basics of the profession, the traditions of the organization, ethics, and professionalism, and the basic knowledge of what our mission is and how we get the job done. The fact remains, however, that guidelines and procedures are necessary to facilitate the smooth functioning of the organization.
Span of control. When we look at how the military organizes its soldiers into functional units, we see that the Armed Forces have long used the principle of span of control. At its smallest element of the squad to the largest organizational element of an Army, the key numbers remain fairly constant at three to 11 members under a commander. Although the military does increase the number of elements any one person can effectively command and the fire service maintains that three to seven persons is ideal, the principles are consistent. When viewed from a fire department perspective, the concept of span of control remains the same from a single-engine response to the largest of emergency responses. We still have the optimum number of persons or elements reporting to an individual during the course of the incident. Much credit for the development of the incident management system (IMS) has been given to the U.S. Forest Service, but the military has functioned under a diverse form of IMS since its inception.
When viewed from a mission-based perspective, the military is driven by three things: victory through attrition, destruction of enemy equipment and manpower, and occupation of enemy territory. Each member of the Armed Forces supports this mission directly or indirectly. The traditional mission of the fire service is life safety, incident stabilization, and property conservation. In contrast to the military, each member is to be committed to these goals but to reduce or prevent loss of life and property.
THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO
Now that we have seen what the definitions of management and leadership are and how the fire service and armed forces parallel each other in core aspects, it is important to differentiate between management and leadership. Some may say that the two are interchangeable, but it is important that their differences be clearly established.
As people are trained within the corporate world to move from a labor role into one of a supervisor, the company takes care to ensure that they are trained in the principles and theories of management. The most commonly taught management theories have at their core the belief that people are motivated by how they perceive their needs for security and survival are being met by their employers. As individuals are identified as being eligible for promotion into supervisory roles, each individual undergoes some introspection on how this move will affect him. The administrators also realize this; candidates are expected to continue to evolve their mindset into one that places the organization first and maintains the bottom line. Managers are trained in the policies and procedures that uphold these goals.
A manager is expected to ensure several things occur as a course of normal business. Primary is to make sure the product being produced is of the expected quality. Much of this task involves interacting with the employees, making sure that members of the shift are present each day, tools and equipment are available and functioning, goals for the work day are laid out and understood, mandatory training is attended, and upper management’s questions or concerns on operations and compliance with company guidelines are answered. When things fail to meet the expected outcome, those responsible are dealt with, the problem is corrected, and business continues.
To many of us, this sounds like the typical life of the station officer, and many similarities can be drawn from the aforementioned examples. On many levels, we train our first-line supervisors in current management techniques and procedures. In doing so, we provide our departments with top-notch managers who ensure the required tasks are addressed and completed. The region we should study and address is how to develop front-line officers who can motivate, inspire, and cultivate subordinates to reach their maximum potential. To this end, we must ask ourselves, “Are leaders born, or are they trained?”
As mentioned earlier, the key points to remember when discussing leadership are influencing, motivating, and directing. One of my earliest memories of life in the Army is of some short, ill-tempered drill sergeant’s telling our assembled platoon of recruits, “You can either be a stud or a dud. A stud will not only learn the basics of the business and give everything to achieve them but will also try to live up to the ethics and spirit of a soldier. A dud will do just enough to keep under the radar. Which one you decide to be will start from this moment. My job is to teach you not only these skills but to act as an example of them for you.” The lesson I learned from this warm fuzzy moment is that anybody can tell you the right way to do the job, but a leader lives the job.
HOW CAN WE DEVELOP LEADERS?
Unlike the fire service, the military has developed a specific system of training leaders. Once a person has met the standards in regard to education, proficiency, and physical fitness, members are selected to attend specialized training in soldier care, leadership traits, counseling, and administrative procedures-all designed to provide the skills and knowledge to take care of their charges. Students at various noncommissioned officer academies are taught the characteristics and proficiencies of leadership. Once the students have graduated, they must compete against persons within their specialty for promotion. This provides an equal, yet stringent, system for a soldier to advance to sergeant through sergeant major. Such a system could benefit the fire service as well. By tailoring it to the needs of our profession at the local, regional, and national levels, we develop officers who understand that we must lead our subordinates if we are to provide quality service to the public.
Some of you may be saying to yourself, “I didn’t join the military; I joined the fire department. This yo-yo wants to change us into an Army clone.” This is not the case. I’m just suggesting that we can learn leadership development techniques from an organization that succeeded over the past 260 years in cultivating individuals who exhibit specific character traits and competencies on a consistent basis. You know the kind we are talking about, those who do just enough to meet the requirements but go no further. They may be great firefighters and administrators, but they fail to light the passion of the job within their subordinates.
TURNING MANAGERS INTO LEADERS
How can we change these people from managers into leaders?
• Acquaint them with the traditions and heritage of the job. It is best to do this as soon as a new member is assigned to the station. Present the history of the company; show how proud you are to be a member. When sitting around the supper table, have one of the house veterans tell a brief story of some incident or former member of the company. Constantly relate to the rookie or new house member fond memories of your time in the station. This display of knowledge about and pride in our brothers and sisters who worked with us can get the new member to want to know more about them.
• Learn all you can about the new member, and take the time to teach him about his role in the station and the way things should be done. Probies should have their heads in the books and spend some time learning the apparatus, district, directives, tools, and tactics.
Never miss an opportunity to spot-check them. While doing this, you have a great chance to hear about their family, goals, and motivation. As time goes by, they will feel like family members and will go that extra mile to support the family. When with them, be an example of the firefighter they should be. When they look to you for advice, training, or direction, be concerned for their well being and willing to give them advice. When they make the occasional mistake, don’t be too quick to criticize. When you see the mistake, quickly correct it, tell them why the action is a mistake, show them how to do it correctly, and have them do the task again. On-the-spot correction is a powerful tool in training new and old members alike and prevents new mistakes from becoming old habits.
• Place your charges’ well being before yours. I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen supervisors spend most of their energy covering up for themselves instead of protecting their shift’s interests. Make sure your people have all the tools and training they’ll need to face the “Beast.” Encourage them to go beyond the basic level of training and to take advanced classes in survival, operational techniques, and rescue. When working an incident and it’s time to take a break, make sure your people are cared for before you relax. If your team is called on the carpet in relation to something they were instructed to do, you need to be ready to go the distance to protect them. Sometimes leadership means you have to take one in the chin to make the team stronger.
By motivating people to go the extra mile to learn more about the job and themselves, influencing them to make sound decisions and take proper decisive actions, and providing them with direction and purpose that inspire them to make the department the best it can be, we can teach them to be not only good followers but also good leaders.
Remember that managers manage a task, but leaders lead the way. ■
■ THOMAS S. NELSON, SFC, has been in the fire service since 1997 as a volunteer and a career firefighter with Hanover (VA) Fire & EMS, where he assisted in the Training Division and was assigned to Engine 11. He was a member of Richmond City Fire and Emergency Services before joining Hanover Fire & EMS. He is currently mobilized as part of the Virginia Army National Guard, where he is a platoon sergeant.
