Expectations and Leadership

By Chase Sargent

From the newest recruit to the chief, everyone has expectations they want met. Some are easy; some, not that easy. There is a wide range of methods to communicate and implement, check, and ensure that expectations are met.

Have you ever wondered if expectations are important in leadership? What does your organization expect from you? What do you expect from the organization? What do your members/subordinates/peers expect from you, and what should you expect from them?

Expectations are a big deal, especially when they are never established, are misunderstood, are miscommunicated, or are never followed through. In fact, expectations are about building relationships and, most importantly, about delivering customer service in a manner that is, well, expected! Expectations are essentially the heart of an organization—its core values, mission, and delivery. The problem is that we seem to minimize them and don’t teach people at all levels of our organization what is “expected.”

Expectations change over time. They are driven by political winds, financial aspects of the organization, and changes in leadership or management at the upper levels of the department and sometimes in city or county government. They also change when new legal rulings, Occupational Safety and Health Administration and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health regulations, or local government ordinances change. The key aspect of this kind of change is that when the rules or expectations change, everyone needs to be notified and the rules/expectations are implemented within a specified time frame.

Expectations are often misunderstood by organization members. Some reasons for this may be a feeling of entitlement, unclear directions or communications, and not knowing where to look or what questions to ask. The key sets of expectations that must be understood, communicated, and acted on every single day follow.

Key Expectations

Organizational Expectations

What does the organization expect from its members? Where do members find this information? How is it communicated and disseminated throughout the organization so that all members have a mutual understanding? Organizational expectations are documented and contained in a variety of documents including the mission statement, values statement, and strategic plan; policies and procedures; standard operating procedures (SOPs); and general correspondence. These documents, when done correctly, are an integrated set of expectations and predictions that need to mirror and complement each other. They may span a short time frame, and some are expressed in a medium- and long-range evaluation of where the department envisions itself in two, five, or even 10 years. Policies and SOPs may come and go, change over time, or be modified.

In many instances, they are very fuzzy and generalized plans or expectations that necessitate refinement to be understood and operationalized—for example, a statement such as, “The (your department name here) strives to ensure that the visitors and citizens of (your city) feel safe anywhere, anytime, anyplace,” or a mission statement that says, “The (name) Fire and Rescue Department shall provide service to the citizens and visitors of our city through planning, response, mitigation, and restoration.”

The problem is that when you just print words on paper and fail to explain them or educate your members about them, the expectations may be misinterpreted or ignored. The department must educate the members.

SOPs and policies are changed or updated on a rotational basis. A smart department has already identified them as low-, medium-, and high-risk policies and has indicated a time frame within which they are to be updated, with more frequent evaluations for high-risk policies. If major changes are made to a policy, command may cover the changes at an in-service session so that everyone gets the same information. If the change is a standard one, the company or unit officers can review it with their personnel.

Overarching plans like the strategic plan are more complicated and necessitate that an officer in-service meeting be held to address the foundational aspects and thought process behind the plan. Provide details such as whether it was spearheaded by a strategic planning group at the city or county level or created by an organizational group from within the department. Provide the historical aspects of the documents. Next, help your officers to understand how the document and its expectations impact members’ activities on a daily basis. Keep in mind that officers are responsible for explaining the plan to their troops and having them integrate the expectations into their everyday actions. That is a huge undertaking and responsibility.

Critical to the entire process is implementing the mission statement into tangible, everyday actions. It speaks to what you expect from your members every day. In other words, give your members the authority and responsibility to fix customer complaints on the spot whenever possible.

Generically, these are the methods the organization uses to establish expectations. If you are going to solve or at least minimize the A, B, C fire departments, in lieu of a single fire department, this is where you have to start. It’s an ongoing process that requires continual, open, and honest communications. When the rules of the game change, everyone needs to know they have changed. Allot a specified time for informing everyone, and then expect everyone to embrace and implement the change.

Members’ Expectations

What are your expectations of the organization? What do you expect the organization to provide? How do you establish them, and where are they documented? How do you communicate your expectations to the organization as a whole? There is a difference between expectation and entitlement. Some members feel entitled to certain things or aspects of the job that are not realistic. The fundamental expectations a member should have include the following: a livable wage; health insurance; a solid health and safety program including physical screening, annual physicals, and a mandatory physical training/training program; a say in their work environment; a decent retirement plan; a workplace free from discrimination; equal opportunity for advancement; and a clean and healthy workplace. Members should be given the opportunity to move around in the organization, get greater breadth of knowledge, and be personally fulfilled.

Why do I bring up entitlement issues? When you go to work for a fire and rescue service, you work for the organization, not just one branch of the organization. You should not expect that you are entitled to spend your entire career in, say, suppression. The organization has a right to move you where it thinks you will best serve the needs of the organization. Should you be moved without being consulted or having it discussed with you? No. However, that does not mean the outcome will be different.

One of my officers came to me one day and said, “Chief, I just purchased a 200-acre farm in Xville.” Now, Xville was 2.5 hours away. In those days, we worked 24/48, so he could drive every three days. I congratulated him, but I also warned him that if the organization needed him in a day job somewhere, having a farm 200 miles away was not going to be the basis for an argument that he should not be transferred. You could have heard a pin drop.

Members have expectations, and they should be given the opportunity to discuss them with those in command. The command staff owes it to the membership to listen; and, if the expectations are rational, reasonable, and doable, the managers should consider implementing changes to benefit the members—but never at the expense of the key mission and never in violation of the organization’s values.

How can this occur? It may be that the union negotiates portions of members’ “expectations” if you have collective bargaining. It may occur through committee work, say in the specifications and purchasing of new fire apparatus or breathing apparatus. It may be members working on the design and implementation of some new program or structure. It might be that they are given the opportunity to have a say in a benefits meeting or health care policy discussions that will affect everyone. The bottom line is that members must be given avenues, both individually and collectively, to express their expectations and provide their reasons for them. This necessitates open, honest discussion with feedback up and down the chain of command. It often requires compromise and adjustment. The organization always gets better when ideas and expectations are driven from the ground up instead of from the top down.

Team (Officers’ and Members’) Expectations

Frontline officers and battalion chiefs have a tremendous responsibility when it comes to expectations. Not only do they need to communicate their expectations to their employees and subsequently do their best to meet these expectations, but they also must communicate and ensure implementation of organizational expectations. This is an everyday, ongoing effort.

Officers should effectively communicate their expectations in a sit-down, face-to-face with the folks who work for them. This should be done anytime an officer moves to a new shift or position or gets new people on a shift or in the division. This is so important that it should be one of the very first tasks officers undertake. Of course, the officers will be getting expectations from their bosses at the same time, so it can be a real challenge.

Officers’ expectations of their team, how they conduct business, how they manage conflict, and how they operate are critical to the team’s good order and safety. These issues must be established and discussed up front because that is the time to discern if there is any conflict, misunderstanding, or downright rebellion! You have to listen and hear members’ feedback on your expectations. Clearly define a method for addressing deficits on both sides. Team members must be able to approach the officer for clarification when needed, and officers must be able to address shortfalls to their team when they occur. This needs to be timely, ongoing, and related to the mission at hand.

The next phase involves how the officer is going to implement the organizational priorities and expectations at the operational level. These expectations, which will be played out as everyday actions, must be aligned with the mission statement and strategic plan.

Officers should ask team members what their expectations are—and listen to what they say. Leadership is about trust and honest communication even when it is tough. It’s about making sure you understand when your strength is weakness and who can support you when you are weak. It’s about ensuring that your team’s expectations of you are reasonable and realistic. It’s about meeting those expectations and checking in to make sure that you are making the necessary adjustments when needed.

The Consequences of Not Meeting Expectations

There are consequences for not meeting expectations for all of us, no matter where we fall in the organization. If the chief does not meet the expectations of the city manager or council, he may receive a royal wrap on the knuckles or be looking for a job. It’s much easier to say goodbye to an “at-will employee” than one in the rank-and-file protected by a union.

In municipal government, you cannot “force people into excellence.” They can by virtue of the job be mediocre, nonbothersome employees and survive an entire career. If you are in the right place, at the right time, and in the right uniform and doing the right thing most of the time, you will more than likely have a 25-year career in municipal service.

In most instances, it begins with a discussion about what expectation was not met and a further discussion about what the two of you can do to correct it—a mutual understanding, a good handshake, and an understanding that it will be corrected in the future. The next phase involves writing a note for the personnel file. If a polite person-to-person talk does not correct the problem, it’s time for a written explanation about how you expect the individual or group to proceed. This, of course, is followed by a time frame in which the expected changes need to be made and some form of follow-up to ensure that they occur. Hopefully, you never get to this phase, as it is the beginning of a potential termination process.

Leadership is difficult and daily work. Balancing, understanding, and adapting to ever-changing expectations are just a part of being a leader. Communicating your expectations, listening to others, and making sure you can meet your team’s expectations are critical. Truth is always better than white lies. If you need to recalibrate the expectation meter in the future, don’t be afraid to do so.

CHASE SARGENT retired as a division chief/paramedic with the Virginia Beach (VA) Fire and Rescue Department in 2005 after 26½ years of service. He was the VA-TF2 leader and IST White leader at the 2001 World Trade Center attacks and the Murrah Building bombing in Oklahoma City, among other incidents. He is the author of Buddy to Boss (Fire Engineering). He spent five years overseas in high-threat protection.