Delegation of Responsibility
The Managerial Wheel
The four functions of a manager (planning, organizing, directing, controlling) surround the foundation of work (people). The rim (coordination) demonstrates that the manager must continuously move through the four functions to keep operations running smoothly.
Most of us in the fire service are aware of the management wheel, depicted as a pie graph cut into five sections showing planning, organizing, directing, controlling, and coordinating. Of these five most basic management functions, the most important by far is planning. Through proper planning, the chief will find that he has more time to address his other responsibilities.
A major portion of planning is delegation of responsibilities. Let us make it clear at this point that while the chief can delegate responsibilities, he is still ultimately responsible for them.
What is delegation of responsibilities? It is the sharing of the tremendous work load of managing a modern fire department within a technically advanced society. It is allowing your subordinates to be creative. To put their years of experience and formal education to work in the best interests of the department and the community, no matter what their rank is. Finally, delegation is allowing the subordinate to participate in the decision making process, thereby creating a more willing participant in the implementation process.
Why delegation of responsibilities? First and foremost in the management of a fire department is money. Delegation can save you money by having in-house people rather than consultants perform tasks. Delegation helps you to train your subordinates by allowing them to participate in command responsibilities. This also prepares them for and affords them the opportunity to be promoted in the department. Some departments have to go outside the department to hire staff personnel. This is a sure sign that subordinates within the department have not been given the opportunity to prepare for promotion.
More and more, fire chiefs are saying,
‘There’s just not enough time in a day.” What with community board meetings, water supply meetings, union problems, meetings with municipal leaders, planning for expansion, etc., etc., and trying to deal with the day+to-day problems of the department, there is not enough time to give proper attention to any one particular project.
What kind of responsibilities can be delegated? Let us say that the chief has three pressing matters on his calendar. A meeting with the mayor, a meeting with the water commission, and a meeting with a civic group to discuss a problem that has risen in factory occupancies. Looking at the three matters, the chief decides that the mayor’s meeting requires his personal attention; the water commission meeting is delegated to a water supply officer; and the civic group meeting to discuss factory occupancies is delegated to the fire prevention officer. In smaller departments that do not have the resources to have separate fire prevention and water supply officers, then first-line supervisors can assume these responsibilities.
Any responsibility that does not absolutely require the chief’s personal attention should be passed along to the appropriate subordinate. The staff and line officers must be capable of taking on these delegated assignments. If the staff and line officers are not capable, then the chief should provide whatever training is necessary, either formal or “on the job” or both. Remember when the department has to hire from the outside rather than from within, that is an indication that the chief is not delegating and training his people, and that chief is probably also faced with “not enough hours in a day.”
Why reluctance to delegate? It has been my experience that a good deal of fire chiefs have a “mother hen” attitude. Picture a mother hen walking across a barnyard with her brood of chicks. She is ever alert for danger. She is constantly flitting about, keeping the chicks together and safe from the outside world. This maternal instinct, as witnessed in the mother hen, manifests itself as the paternal instinct in the male. In the fire service, this instinct of taking care of the brood begins when the member enters the service. The name of the game is to take care of your buddy and he will take care of you. Then as a line officer, you take care of the men in both the firefighting and administration ends. In return, the men perform magnificently on the fireground and in the station. As the fire officer moves up in the chain of command, his circle of responsibilities and the number of men he is responsible for increase. The paternal instinct becomes more ingrained and materializes in a reluctance to delegate.
“Any responsibility that does not absolutely require the chief’s personal attention should be passed along to the appropriate subordinate.’’
Another resistance to delegation is a fear of failure on the part of the chief if he allows a subordinate to perform a task. The old adage of “If you want a job done right, do it yourself” doesn’t apply to management. When a subordinate is given a task to perform, it is to be made very clear who and what he can depend on if he needs help. He should be given complete authority to finish the task, a deadline as to when the final proposal of the solution of the problem is to be submitted, and progress reports at various intervals before the deadline. These progress reports, which need only be verbal, enable the chief to quickly determine if the solution is progressing along the lines that he wants them to. The end result is that the chief has invested a minimum amount of his time in reaching a solution that his subordinates will accept more readily because they have participated in the decision making.
A third reason for resisting delegation is a reluctance on the part of the chief to give up some of his authority.
The chief wants to be in full control so that he will be assured of the solution being his and his alone. Good or bad, the ultimate responsibility for a solution lies with the chief. However, there are methods of controlling subordinates and insuring that they perform satisfactorily. There are verbal reports, which can be followed up with written reports. Deadlines can be established. Intermediate objectives that lead to the final goal can be instituted.
A trace file (31-day working file) can be a most effective controlling device if it is used religiously on a daily basis.
When deadlines, objectives, goals, and future meetings are put in the trace file, they will not get lost in the shuffle.
Another method of control that can be used as a measurement of success is to quantify objectives and goals. Quantifying is a fancy word that simply means to put a numerical value on expected results and the amount of time it will take to achieve these results. For example, “In a period of 12 months, we will reduce firefighter injuries in the fire department by 50%.” The 50% quantifies the expected results and in stating “12 months” we are utilizing “time management.” The goal in the above statement is to reduce firefighter injuries. Intermediate objectives need to be enacted to achieve this final goal. One of these objectives could be to train a percentage of firefighters each month.
“The end result is that the chief has invested a minimum amount of his time in reaching a solution that his subordinates will accept more readily because they have participated in the decision making.”
The chief has but to telephone to find out how the program is coming along.
In closing, let me make you aware of something that you have probably been doing all your life but were not really conscious of. It is the scientific approach to problem solving, a step-bystep method as follows:
- Identify the problem (fire prevention, apparatus accidents, water supply, etc.).
- Determine the degree of urgency of the problem (must it be done immediately or do you have time?).
- Examine a number of possible solutions (time does not permit an examination of all possible solutions).
- Select the best solution.
- Implement the solution.
- Collect feedback data (Is the solution working? If it is, then let it run; if not, then how can you make it work? At this point it may be apparent that the solution opted for will have to be changed to an alternate solution. This could be a difficult decision to make because time and money has been invested in the original solution. In the long run it is cheaper and more efficient to implement a solution that will achieve the desired results.).
- Review all established policies and procedures on a periodic basis. This is to insure that they are still current and are doing the job for which they were originally designed.
