BY CHASE N. SARGENT
“You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.”
-Ken Kesey
“The firefighter of today is the potential chief of tomorrow.” How many times have you heard that? If chiefs are tasked with creating and communicating vision and providing leadership in the fire service, then the American fire service is doing a very poor job of creating tomorrow’s leaders, and this failure is creating a snowball effect throughout departments. Today’s fire service is creating a leadership gap from which many departments may not recover for decades. As we lose our ability to create leaders and continue to create and reward “manager/politicians,” we risk the ability to develop future leaders and create a deadly spiral that will ultimately affect our personnel, our service delivery, our organizational core values, and the entire organizational culture.
The ability of a chief officer to effectively lead, not manage, comes from a combination of factors. Certainly, all of us are in some way creatures of our environment. As we are promoted through the ranks, we bring with us a range of management experiences, tradition, mentoring, and operational experiences that create our foundational reference. With such knowledge, skills, and abilities, we are able to draw inferences and make decisions about issues we face.
Additionally, we are molded by our educational experiences, formal and informal, technical and managerial. While it is important for a chief officer to obtain a formal degree, it is just as critical for a chief to obtain technical training relative to his job and his subordinates’ jobs. As a chief’s job changes, so does the need for additional training. The ability to effectively lead is directly dependent on your credibility with subordinates and peers. There is no faster way to lose your credibility than failing to obtain and maintain the knowledge, skills, and abilities required of your job and to understand the jobs of your subordinates.
It is interesting that the failure to effectively create leaders with management skills can be attributed to both organizations and individuals. Individuals at the top of any organization must recognize chief officers as a resource that must be developed, mentored, and used as a conduit to receive and filter cultural perspectives from the field. Organizations, on the other hand, must create an environment and culture that provide the necessary training, mentoring, and growth needed to develop tomorrow’s leaders.
This phenomenon is progressing faster than we would like to think and is created by a number of identifiable and correctable factors. It is not difficult to visualize a fire service a decade from now that considers all chief positions as managers and report writers.
Certainly, the level of chiefdom that you obtain in your organization is directly proportional to what you can and must do to effectively lead. The responsibilities and job functions of a battalion officer are much different from those of the chief or deputy chief. However, the leadership development curve begins long before these individuals ever become chiefs. The molding and developing of chief officers begin when they walk in the department as rookies and truly begin when they receive their first promotion to company officer.
This common bond ties all chief officers together in their ability to effectively lead or to simply manage or create a career path dedicated entirely to themselves, the so-called “I syndrome.” The “I syndrome” can be found at every level of chief officer right up to the chief of department: It is typified by an individual who does what is necessary to advance his career at the expense of others. It is also expressed in chief officers who forget to “lead by remembering what it was like to follow” and who fail to take care of their stakeholders-the firefighters. Then there’s the chief officer who refuses to “question or invite dissent,” because rocking the boat, being outside the mainstream, may jeopardize his ability to progress rapidly through the ranks.
Have you ever heard a chief of department or a chief officer say “I’m just not a people person”? When I hear that, a red flag goes up. The fire service is all about people-leading people, helping people, and living with people.
LEADER VS. MANAGER
Let’s examine the difference between a leader and a manager. It has been said, “Managers do things right, but leaders do the right thing.” Management skills include budgeting, data gathering, report writing, planning, and a myriad of other tasks. Management is a valuable and necessary skill for a leader, for without it he will fail. However, most pure managers do not possess leadership skills. It can be surmised that leaders can manage, but managers cannot necessarily lead. You can manage time, you can manage money, you can manage materials, but you cannot manage people!
The essence of leadership is the ability to create vision, to instill in people a “fire in the belly” and a desire to do great things. Here is the real paradox about leadership: No great leader leads for himself or for an organization. A leader’s drive and charisma are in direct relation to his belief in a vision, a path to walk, and a destination at which to arrive. And so it is with subordinates: They do not follow an individual; they follow a vision created by the individual leader. This applies to all ranks and levels in the organization. Just as the chief must instill in his chief officers the vision, company officers must instill in firefighters the value of what they are doing every day when they would rather be at working fires.
Vision is a word spoken quite often and used quite seldom. Certainly, the chief must have a vision and an expectation of where he wants the department to proceed. And that vision must be clearly communicated to the deputy chiefs, division chiefs, and battalion chiefs who are expected to implement the plan at certain organizational levels. These chiefs must then instill in their subordinates the drive and desire to follow the vision, and the company officers in their subordinates, who will ultimately implement the operational aspects of the vision toward the effective, timely, and professional delivery of customer service. This is critical since the operations branch provides approximately 90 percent of all the services provided by a department. Subsequently, it is critical to obtain feedback regarding what is and what is not working if you are ever going to be able to adjust your strategic plan to enable your vision to move forward.
No vision, no matter how well communicated, will be implemented by your subordinates if you as chief do not have credibility with them. Credibility clearly means that you have the trust and respect of your chief officers and the operational side-the firefighters and company officers. People must believe that you know what you are doing and that what you are doing is in the best interest of the stakeholders and the organization.
Vision and core values-what your organization stands for-are the basis of any leadership pyramid. Your values are actually the filter through which an organization runs its ideas and evaluates what it will and will not implement. Core values also establish an expectation of the way each member is to act. This expectation is then surrounded by accountability for firefighter, officer, team, and chief, regardless of the organizational level.
It is not enough to simply write down the vision and core values. If the chiefs do not live the vision, it sends the message that core values apply only to subordinates. You will lose credibility, and it will be very difficult to regain.
ORGANIZATIONAL FAILURES
So, if vision is so critical and the ability to impart and actualize vision is a matter of communications, credibility, trust, and respect, why are organizations failing in their ability to create tomorrow’s leaders?
Failure to educate. Human beings are products of their upbringing, their environment, their culture, and in some instances peer pressure. Most organizations spend considerable time teaching new recruits the technical aspects of the job. If our firefighters are our future officers, then what better time to start educating them and allowing them to see how they fit into the vision than in recruit school? Most departments fail to impart their vision and core values to the newest personnel. You must show them in concrete ways how your core values are applied to the job every day-not just in emergency operations but in the daily routine and often mundane tasks every firefighter does as a member of a team.
Most organizations will spend 16, 18, or 24 or more weeks educating and training recruit firefighters. So why do they fail to provide the necessary education to their new company officers when they are promoted? Most new company officers have just finished a very competitive process to transition from buddy to boss, and overnight they are transformed from riding backward to riding forward. The organization says to them, “Congratulations, kid. Here is your white shirt, gold badge, and white helmet. Report as the lieutenant or captain of station so and so on Monday!”
Many organizations fail to provide even the most basic officer training to new officers-evaluations, discipline, leadership principles, management tools (paperwork, computer use, departmental flow), violence in the workplace, managing diversity, sexual harassment, basic tactical applications for company officers-the list goes on and on. These types of educational issues are the basis of the pyramid in the ability to lead and manage effectively at the company level. This failure to train creates an environment that sets up the new company officers for failure. As a result, they are unable to assist in implementing the vision because they are not sure how to handle the most difficult situations of all-those dealing with people. This failure to train also creates an officer who has not been told by the organization what is expected of him. The new officer is then left to determine what those expectations are.
Creating change fatigue. Sometime during a chief officer’s tenure, he will be confronted with organizational change. This change may be brought about by the appointment of a new chief, political change, fiscal changes, union activity, or other reasons. When this change occurs, chief officers are often tasked with being the change messengers. This presents many challenges. First, they may not agree with the change. Second, the change may require a change in the way they “walk the walk,” which puts their credibility on the line.
How does organizational change affect the development of future leaders? Future leaders will trust when trust is earned, and they will learn about change and how it is implemented and managed by being involved. Change done in a positive and effective manner is an excellent teaching tool for new leaders to emulate. On the other hand, poorly implemented, micromanaged change from the top (not bottom-driven) will fail and will create a poor model from which future officers can learn.
Change is implemented and communicated as part of the vision, which usually comes from the chief. It then becomes the chief’s direct responsibility to ensure that change is implemented in a timely manner. It is also the chief’s responsibility to ensure accountability and that senior staff “walks the walk.” Failing to do this sets the wrong example for future leaders.
Change is always introduced with a bang-a big kickoff event followed by seminars, leadership expectations, inspirational talks, and some form of a “tool kit” to implement the change. The problem is that after all the hoopla, there is no follow-up. The organizational change, like the tool kit, ends up on the shelf collecting dust.
You see future leaders learn about change by being involved in it. Future leaders who have a very bad experience with change will be soured to it. Change is a learned event, and thus this type of experience impacts how future leaders view change.
If teaching our future leaders is about creating an environment where they can learn and practice the core values, then implementing any change should be a method of teaching. So why do future leaders “learn wrong” when it comes to organizational change?
One reason is poor communications. Leaders responsible for communicating change have to be prepared to give the same speech at least six times, or it won’t be heard. Leaders must be able to explain an initiative with clarity of intent, letting the troops hear the arguments for and against the options that were rejected. Finally, leaders must be able to address employees’ fears. Firefighters and future leaders want to know why you think they can make it through change, and they want to know how you are going to help them through it.
Another problem is “senior staff block”-the inability of senior chiefs in a position to implement change to embrace the change that is already outlined in a strategic document or accreditation plan. They may do this out of fear of change, fear of the unknown, or fear that the change will require them to alter the way they do business. So rather than embrace the change, they delay or block the implementation by hiding behind staff work and organizational concerns. What kind of message does this send to mid-level and upcoming officers involved in the change? What impact does this have on officers and upcoming leaders who have a stake in making this program work? Morale, trust, credibility, respect-all of these values are tossed aside when senior staff blocks change.
Promotion of noncombatants. Every young officer candidate must understand that to truly hone leadership and management skills, you must do some staff time. Staff jobs offer a different set of opportunities and a different workload than most operational jobs. Organizations set their new leaders up for failure by placing them in noncombatant roles (staff jobs) immediately on promotion! This is usually done because no one else wants the job or it’s an easier organizational move than making a veteran chief who has never done any staff time go to staff! I say an officer’s first assignment should always be in operations. This includes initial promotions to company officer as well as battalion officers. The essence of the fire service will always be emergency operations-or fire and rescue operations. When departments are faced with cutbacks, no city manager ever says, “Go ahead and shut down the fire stations; just make sure you keep training and prevention operating!” More than likely the statement is, “Whatever you do, Chief, I still expect fire trucks to be on the street.”
First, new leaders must learn to command and control an operational battalion and operate effectively and safely on the fireground. Since all officers will inevitably find themselves in operations at some time in their careers, it is critical that they learn to make decisions under extreme circumstances during emergency events. They cannot learn this skill behind a desk; only training and experience can provide this skill!
Almost 90 percent of all department staff-ing is assigned to the operations side; thus, the most appropriate learning ground for dealing with human resources issues, evaluations, diversity, violence in the workplace, human interaction, and other issues leaders in the fire service face is in operations. If you really want a new officer to learn to lead people and practice the supporting management skills, he must be in a situation where the potential for emergency and nonemergency interaction at a humanistic level is highest.
When organizations place new officers in a staff position, they take away the most important learning aspects of the job-learning to effectively control and command emergency events and to be part of the largest and most diverse human resources pool in the department. There will always be time for staff jobs, but everyone must learn through combat first! Since the vast majority of staff operations such as training, logistics, prevention, and administration are designed to support the operations section, it makes sense to send new officers to operations first. This allows the new officers to have a greater appreciation for the impact they will have when they get to a staff job.
Failure to create vision, failure to educate, promoting noncombatants, and creating organizational change fatigue are all identifiable and correctable events. Organizational leadership must recognize them and develop methods to correct them. Organizations are the parents or our new leaders, and we must lead by example. Each of these pitfalls represents the ability of organizational leadership to educate and groom in a direct or a passive manner. Each of these represents a powerful tool that when used wisely and correctly greatly enhances the development of leaders instead of managers.
HUMANISTIC ATTITUDES AND APPROACHES
People are not our greatest resource-trained people are! What humanistic tendencies, attitudes, and approaches make people successful leaders?
All solid houses have a solid foundation. Certainly, the foundation for leaders includes core values and the ability to communicate and impart vision, provide the necessary management skills in support of leadership, and listen to the voice of the organization. There are a set of fundamental foundational values and actions that anyone aspiring for leadership must understand and practice. These ABCs not only will show future leaders how things should be done, but they will also generate in your teams the ability to thrive and achieve great things and be a part of creating change and implementing vision. These ABCs of leadership are critical and are as follows:
- Trust your subordinates.
- Develop a vision.
- Keep your cool.
- Encourage risk.
- Be an expert.
- Invite dissent.
- Simplify.
Trusting your subordinates at any level of the organization is critical. Micromanagement is a clear sign that you do not trust people. How can you expect your personnel to go all out for you if they don’t believe that you trust them?
Loyalty and trust go hand-in-hand. Obtaining mutual loyalty includes fidelity and patronage, tolerance of shortcomings in recognition of past service, a pride in departmental continuity, and an esprit de corps for the team and work unit. Seldom do personnel come to you as a leader to seek justice; more often than not, they come to you looking for help. If leadership comes through on the little things, leadership is more likely to be trusted on the big things, and trust, as they say, is the “coin of command.” You cannot expect your subordinates to trust you if you do not trust them. Of course, you will meet and work with people who cannot and should not be trusted. Those people should be dealt with appropriately and swiftly.
Developing a vision at even the battalion level is an important part of learning to be a leader. Don’t let people come to work wondering what their mission in life is and how they are contributing to the big picture. It is critical that you understand and implement the big vision. People want to follow someone who knows what he is doing. If you were to ask a firefighter why he was sweeping the bay floors, he probably would say, “Because the Captain told me to!” The captain knows that sweeping the floors is part of what it takes to accomplish the big picture. Hydrants, inspections, prefire plans, vehicle maintenance-all these seemingly unimportant tasks add up to the big picture.
We somehow expect our company officers and battalion officers to be able to constantly see the “big picture” when senior staff talks about vision. This expectation is neither realistic nor healthy for creating change at the operations level. Battalion chiefs should be like riverboat captains, looking out over the river from the bridge and navigating from point to point, until the next section of the river opens and reveals itself. A good riverboat captain knows the river, knows the danger, and certainly knows that the object is to get the boat and passengers from point A to point B safely-but he does not begin to look at the Gulf of Mexico when he leaves Louisiana! Educating young officers on the big picture is excellent and an absolute necessity, but expecting them to lead and manage by continually thinking big is unrealistic and dangerous to the survival of the strategic plan.
Keeping your cool is critical when you are a new officer. This is relevant to emergency and nonemergency (human resources) issues. The best leaders always show their mettle under fire. Chief Alan Brunacini of the Phoenix (AZ) Fire Department once said, “The first rule of anger management is, when you’re angry, don’t do anything that makes you feel good!” Never lose your cool on the fireground! You will be challenged on every single fireground; just maintain your technical competencies for your job, and you will never have to worry-you will always be in control and visible!
Developing and implementing ideas are all about taking some level of risk. As a young officer, you have to encourage your people to “think outside the box.” Any idea that comes your way must be acted on in some manner. Evaluate it further, implement it for a trial period, discuss it, and sideline it if it cannot be done for fiscal or political reasons. No idea should ever die on your desk!
Many officers lose credibility because they fail to “be an expert”-they fail to obtain and maintain the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to effectively supervise their environment. This happens much more frequently with battalion officers and above than with company officers. The old cry is, “I don’t need that training, I won’t ever do that!” But if you supervise it, you had better be able to understand it, and that comes only from training and experience. Certainly, the deputy chief and chief cannot possibly train for the areas for which they are ultimately responsible. At some point, they have to trust those who have the technical knowledge to make the right decisions.
Officers must invite dissent if they are going to get the best out of their people. As a leader, you must seek out personnel with different views and ideas. You must be willing to get punched in the nose on an idea that may well be better than the one you had. True leadership is characterized by the ability to teach and learn from a wide variety of people and the willingness to support subtle transformations created by people in your organization. This ability to provide incremental change is much more suited to the everyday running of the fire service and offers up the best hope for long-lasting change.
To discover new ideas, you must develop the art of listening and hearing. Too many manager/politicians have perfected the art of listening without hearing! One of the most important tools in inviting dissent is to make it a priority to ask around. As a leader, your job is to find new ideas, help to nurture them, and lead the organization in adopting them. It is your duty as a chief to search for everyday leaders. And make sure you reward truth telling, even if it is not what you want to hear.
People learn by seeing and doing. If they see their chief doing something outside of policy or slacking, they naturally feel it’s an accepted norm. Over a period of time, this becomes the culture of the battalion or organization and is then difficult to break. Here are some basic guidelines.
•Establish expectations. Let your personnel know what you expect of them, and let them tell you what they expect from you. Establish this relationship early, and adjust as necessary. This ensures there are no moral, policy, or operational surprises.
•Understand that morale is important. Morale filters down from the top. It reflects the attitudes of people at every level-especially of supervisors toward their own jobs and toward the people they supervise. When dealing with people, you must sometimes make decisions that are technically irrational-sometimes logic must take a backseat to understanding. Spirit and a belief that your personnel are making a difference are what create morale; never un-derestimate the power of a group of people who feel they can do anything and are supported in accomplishing it.
•Expect accountability and responsibility. Expect leaders to lead. Expect that human resources issues such as diversity, sexual harassment, violence in the workplace, evaluations, and all other human component issues are addressed in a timely and professional manner by your subordinates. Expect that operational issues and the delivery of customer service will never be second rate. Expect emergency operations to always work efficiently and professionally. Yes, mistakes will be made, but they should be used as learning points.
•Be visible. Your people want to see you, even if it’s just to talk. Don’t get the palace mentality where you find yourself a slave to meetings or management tasks and lose touch with what is going on with your people. You must cultivate an air of detached involvement-get close without getting cozy. Your officers and personnel will look to you to effectively deal with the operational issues hampering them from doing their jobs. They will look to you for guidance and education on human resources problems when they are uncomfortable. A leader must have his pulse on the morale of the troops and on their personal welfare at all times. Never lose the common touch; always lead by remebering what it was like to follow!
•Keep your word-follow up. If you tell someone you are going to do something, you had better do it. If you find out later you cannot accomplish it because of fiscal is-sues, politics, or a mistake, you had better follow up. Explain what happened before you lose your credibility and your word is worth nothing.
Leadership is an art with which the fire service is rapidly losing touch. The fact is, we can turn around the trend of creating manager/politicians and begin once again to develop a leadership tradition. To accomplish this, we must embrace the necessary changes in approach, culture, and personal strategy so important in creating and em-ploying leadership.
CHASE N. SARGENT, a 23-year veteran of the fire service, is a battalion chief with the City of Virginia Beach (VA) Fire Department, commanding the Special Operations Division on B Shift. He is a task force leader with FEMA’s USAR Virginia Task Force II and is an instructor for the FEMA USAR Structural Collapse Technician program. Sargent is president of SPEC. RESCUE INTERNATIONAL, a training and consulting firm specializing in technical rescue, management and leadership, hazardous materials, and terrorism training. He has a bachelor’s degree in forestry and wildlife with a major in fisheries biology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and a master’s in public administration from Golden Gate University. Sargent is the author of Confined Space Rescue (Fire Engineering, 2000).
