I have read several books written by many of the excellent leaders in the fire service.

I tend to gravitate to books on firefighting tactics and leadership. Don’t get me wrong; I love reading about fire service history with accounts of the big fires or intricate rescues, but tactics and leadership books seems to fit better with what I do and what I want to accomplish.

Though tactics are specific to what we do in the fire service, leadership is something that we can use in all walks of life.

I know I’m a better manager because of my fire service leadership training. I know I react better to all emergencies for the same reason. I also know that I’m a better person over-all, because of the skills-personal and professional-that I have gained from leaders in our fire service.

 Here is where this is going: when volunteer firefighters fail to meet acceptable, minimum requirements to be considered active on their fire department, is it a failure of leadership?

When a career firefighter no longer wants to work out, study for promotion or train in the specialized fields, is it a failure of leadership?

Finding what motivates your people is a key component of leadership. Diplomacy would be right behind.

If expectations have been clearly identified and the tools have been made available to every firefighter, then how can we not see early on that a person is not meeting expectations?

Why does it rise to a level where the morale of your department is being negatively affected?

I prescribe to the John Salka paradigm of leadership, in that everyone on a fire department is a leader; from the rank of firefighter to fire commissioner. Leadership DOES NOT rest solely on the shoulders of one person and on most departments that would mistakenly be the chief.

When a fire department is ready to implode, it will be the chief who will be held accountable.

But, it will be shared responsibility that will have you looking at the application, the screening, the hire, the probationary period, the mentoring, the training and ultimately, the termination, if goals have not been met.

If your department has not established benchmarks for firefighters to achieve, then it is a leadership problem.

If you belong to a department where a chief rules with an iron fist, it is a leadership problem.

If you belong to a department where nepotism outweighs and outscores qualifications for a rank or position, then it is a leadership problem.

Firefighters will only get involved enough to complain, but want to remain neutral. They call THAT not getting involved.

No such thing!

You become involved the day that you were issued turnout gear and a pager. Welcome to the world of leadership!

So, as leaders, we learn to identify the signs and symptoms and then, the treatment and the cure.

But, we are ever the optimists. We disregard our training, because we HOPE that the firefighter will turn it around on their own.

And THAT is the biggest mistake that you will ever make as a leader. The firefighter didn’t get there by himself and he certainly won’t turn it around by himself.

I have seen departments literally torn in two, because a firefighter with attendance issues wasn’t dealt with properly. It should NEVER reach that point!

If you haven’t done so already; establish realistic attendance policies for meetings, training and other fire department functions.

Create a personnel committee to monitor every member’s involvement.

Prepare a document that everyone agrees to follow and then have them sign it.

Take the appropriate actions BEFORE they become a big problem.

It all comes down to this: in this business, everyone has each other’s back.

A leader is watching what is in front of you.

YOU are watching what is behind him.

NOTHING GETS BY EITHER OF YOU!

TCSS.

The article as submitted is published under The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie© umbrella and is the intellectual property of Art Goodrich a.k.a. xchief22 and ChiefReason. It is protected by federal copyright laws and cannot be re-printed in any form without expressed permission from the author. You may read other works by the author at www.chiefreasonart.com.