BY TOM BRENNAN
We left you last month with a few lessons laced with true but humorous background. I guess the major direction here is to always look for lessons in every event in your fire service career. Here are a few more that helped me (when I paid attention).
I was a lieutenant for just a year and was helping another engine pack hose (second line we stretched) on the wide open spaces of Howard Avenue. An alarm for a box on the corner of our fire station is announced. Everyone assigned is still operating or in the street with us taking up. “I’ll take that for a look, chief?” trying to get another job for the day.
Down the street of the fire station to the only building left standing on Bristol Street. Hydrant in front. I peek to the “lot” left by the previously demolished exposure. Back at the radio, “283 to Brooklyn: We have fire in a tree in a lot. We will handle it ourselves.” Dah!
How did the fire get in the tree with no leaves? Like the burning bush of a religious pageant? Committed!
Well, the fire in the tree was being pushed there by room-and-contents fires on three floors in the rear of the apartment building. You couldn’t erase progress reports in those days. Everyone came to see my burning bush-knowing what it must have been in the first place. Wait to see what you really have at the scene before you put the @#$@ pot on! Chapter 2, Lesson 1, A.
“Gee, number two on the promotion list! Now I am worried. What would I do and how would I be perceived in the field as a new lieutenant? Book stuff is great, and study and memory got me to this point, but how much will get me through the shifts I have to face with ‘strangers’?”
One of the easiest leadership texts you can carry with you has only one page with two sentences. Think of the most impressive leader you ever had and the worst you ever witnessed. At frequent intervals, follow the manual.
- What would a great leader do here? DO IT!
- What would your worst example of a leader do or not do? REJECT IT!
Refer to Number 1. Lesson 2.
Now put all your experience together and mold your leadership style. One attribute you can cultivate is communication. How comfortable are your subordinates with your persona on duty to be able to always communicate data truthfully and without fear, especially on the fire/emergency ground?
We were so afraid of our lieutenant that our operational position within the fire structure was ellipse hide! I am reminded of my lifelong example from a dear friend who would become chief of department one day! He was working on the lowest fire floor (the second floor) in a four-story tenement in Brooklyn’s ghetto. I was working with my company on the fourth floor and backed out a wall opening and into the shaft of the structure. Though I was stunned and a little incoherent, I was saved for another day by the one-story accumulation of garbage that apartment occupants had tossed from their windows on the upper floors for years. My friend reminds me to this day that he rushed to my side with two other firefighters and that all I was saying was, “Don’t tell Lieutenant (name)!”
We always did everything we thought he ordered without question-to have additional dialogue after an order/direction was a fearful experience. As seniority mellowed me, I remembered that he would always demand by standing order that the toilets be clean as he arrived at the station from home on the day shifts-the reason being obvious.
Tired of being questioned as the junior slug every shift, one day I cleaned all the commodes and expertly placed SaranT Wrap on all the porcelain before lowering the seat! He had to realize how clean it was! Work at and encourage a trusting professional relationship in your role as supervisor. Things get mucked up when the followers don’t trust or they fear their leader. Lesson 3.
Communication-again! The department instituted a number code to be used in radio communications instantly, as it was printed and distributed to the more than 300 units in the department. “No exceptions, ever!” we were told. “No deviations, and no wise-guy cracks, either.”
“Oh well, this, too, will soften,” I silently mumbled to no one in particular. Little did I know that it was to happen to me within a week. In the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in the 1960s and early 1970s, it was common to see fire plumes burnish the air from location to other location throughout the night. Returning from another structure fire, we “tracked one” in a direction where there was no other radio traffic denoting operations. “Ladder 120 to Brooklyn: We are stopping to extinguish a fire at Eastern Parkway and Rochester Avenue. Request response of two engines to assist.”
“Battalion (any number) to 120,” came directly to us over the speaker. Chiefs don’t have to follow “no exception” directives. “What do you have?”
“Errrrr, errr,” I verbally paused and paused and paused. “There is no code for what is here, Battalion.” I wanted all of the borough to hear!
Our local residents had arrived at the newly constructed, Olympic-size, aboveground pool in the park with an enormous supply of gasoline and commenced to get the water surface fully involved. ‘Nuff said!
TOM BRENNAN has more than 35 years of fire service experience. His career spans more than 20 years with the Fire Department of New York as well as four years as chief of the Waterbury (CT) Fire Department. He was the editor of Fire Engineering for eight years and currently is a technical editor. He is co-editor of The Fire Chief’s Handbook, Fifth Edition (Fire Engineering Books, 1995). He was the recipient of the 1998 Fire Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award. Brennan is featured in the video Brennan and Bruno Unplugged (Fire Engineering/FDIC, 1999).
