By P.J. Norwood and Frank Ricci
In this series, we are looking at leadership “fails” that undermine fire service leaders’ ability to command. Read the first three we covered in our previous article.
Frank Ricci: Command Presence: Increase Your Influence
4. Failure to Be Honest
Often those in leadership positions spend too much time telling others what they want to hear and not what they need to hear. A leader will earn more respect when they are straightforward and honest. There is no work-around or easy way out. This does not give you the green light to be rude and insensitive. You must still communicate empathy, but you must be honest. You can’t both be a boss and part of the rumor mill—this is setting yourself up for failure. Gossiping is part of the human condition, but when in a position of leadership, don’t get involved in the local gossip; instead, tell a peer you meet at FDIC International, where the names of those involved have no meaning. Conferences such as this are great places for unbiased advice, as well. Being a gossip will only undermine your own command.
5. Failure to Pass Along Your Knowledge
We frequently see chief officers who feel no one can do things better than they could. This is a two-sided problem; if the employees cannot complete items better than the officer, that suggests the latter has not passed on his or her education and experiences. Also, if the officer acts or believes he or she can do everything better than subordinates, your department will only survive on luck, not skill. As an officer, check your ego at the door. Just because you have collar brass does not mean you are the best at completing all tasks. Being humble goes a long way. Don’t show anyone your collar pins or say you are the boss; you will only make a fool of yourself. As Margret Thatcher said: “If you have to tell someone you’re a lady, your probably not.”
6. Failure to Hire, Promote the Best, and Provide a Road Map for Success
Have a clear vision for what you want your department to look like a decade or more from now and set standards for your people, both those you hire and those you promote. Create training programs that provide the information needed for people to gain the knowledge they require to be successful in their current roles. This builds the skills they need for future roles in the organization.
Does your fire department require different levels of education or certification for each exam? This breeds continuous professional development and allows members to build skills commensurate with new positions. Are your exams validated, based off merit, and free of discrimination to find the very best? Failing to ensure a fair process that can withstand legal scrutiny can lead to litigation costs and lose of morale. One mistake that is made is changing the reading list with every exam. Don’t we want our leaders to have a command of the material and encourage self-study?
In New Haven, Connecticut, the union and Chief John Alston’s office worked together to provide a standing reading list for all line ranks; if a book is updated within six months of an exam, the previous edition would be used on the exam. If the new edition came out before the six-month mark, then the new edition would be on the exam. If a book is going to be added or removed, the city and union will agree on the subtraction or addition.
7. Failure to Focus on the People
As we said, there are many aspects to being a fire service leader. You need to understand that your people are your greatest resources. They will make or break your department. Funding is a difficult aspect, but successful departments are focused on understanding their greatest resource, their people, and finding the funding to staff and train their people. Focusing on money more than people may give you more money in the long run, but it will alienate your people and may impact their ability to be effective. Make sure to recognize your members. If they didn’t want to be recognized, they would have worked for the CIA, not the fire department.
8. Failure to Have a Vision
You can’t get far if you start walking and continually change course based on the direction of the wind. You need to have long-range goals for your department and make decisions based on meeting those goals. You also need to effectively communicate your vision. True leaders provide a vision and build a consensus around that vision. Henry Ford once said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Just leading by consensus or by conducting polls is not leading, and soon it will betray your command. Balance is the key of understanding the needs of people and the needs of the organization.
9. Failure to Focus on Communication
Most organizational failures stem from communication breakdowns. There must be communication up and down the chain. If input is requested, honor that by providing feedback on the back end. For some people, getting their way isn’t as important as hearing the reasoning behind a decision that is contrary to the expectation.
Be willing to effectively listen to understand your employees. It is okay to pause to formulate a reply. Too often, leaders will have a subordinate come to them with a problem. As the leader, you may already know about the problem, know how you want to fix it, completely disagree, or have some other preconceived opinion. While the subordinate is telling you their side of the story, you start formulating your reply instead of listening to the entire message being conveyed. When you do this, you are discrediting the member discussing it and may miss key facts and information. As a leader, you must listen to all conversations without trying to figure out your reply first.
10. Failure to Follow Through
If you have expectations of your people to get things done, lead by example. If you are known for your great ideas and your lack of follow through, pretty soon people will stop listening to your ideas.
11. Failure to Plan
Do not let today’s problem bog you down. Focus on the big picture; the mission of your agency. Always look to improve the big items and many of the little issues will take care of themselves. Frequently, leaders forget or lose track of the big items because many of the big items take months or even years to accomplish. Because of the time it takes to deal with the big items, many focus on the short-term, smaller issues because they like to see some accomplishments. Worse yet, some take a large issue and rush though it without preforming their own due diligence. Nothing is on fire; take the time to develop a plan and work the plan.
P.J. Norwood is the director of training for the Connecticut Fire Academy. He retired as deputy chief from the East Haven (CT) Fire Department, and has served four years with the Connecticut Army National Guard. He is an FDIC classroom, workshop, and hands-on training instructor, Fire Engineering advisory panel member, and Fire Engineering Book and Video author of The Evolving Fireground: Researched Based Tactics and the “Tactical Perspectives” DVD Series. He also serves on the UL-FSRI technical panel for the study of residential attic fire mitigation tactics and exterior fire spread hazards on firefighter safety. He is a public safety education group advisory member for UL FSRI.
Frank Ricci is the lead author of Command Presence: Increase Your Influence, which will be released at FDIC International 2023. This is a must-read with some of the best contributors the fire service has to offer.
