~When you are in a leadership position, having a vision for your organization is more important than the words that you say. As leaders, sometimes we don’t realize how closely we are being watched by our administrative staff, our line officers and firefighters, and by our superiors. Many organizations publish information on their mission, vision, […]
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Thoughts on Volunteer Recruitment and Retention
Hardly a week goes by when a story doesn’t pop up on my Facebook news feed or show up on some news agency page talking about the shortages of volunteer firefighter, EMS or rescue personnel. All these news agencies report the one thing we all know, volunteer firefighters are a dying breed, but very few […]
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FDNY firefighters disciplined for hazing incident
NEW YORK — Seven FDNY firefighters were disciplined for violating the FDNY’s “zero tolerance” hazing policy following a hazing incident of an African-American firefighter. Although the department withheld the identities of those involved, the New York Post (see this article for full story) reported that the incident involved a prank in which “they put the […]
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Don’t Fail To Plan, Or You Will Surely Plan To Fail
In January of 2006, I was deployed with one other officer from pour department to Hancock County Mississippi to manage the planning section of the emergency operations center (EOC) for ten days. Although Hurricane Katrina had made landfall four months earlier on August 29, 2014, Hancock County was so severely damaged that the EOC was […]
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Employee and Organizational Morale
As leaders, we should constantly monitor our organizations morale and make adjustments as necessary. What are some of the steps, policies, mannerisms, or lead by example tips we as leaders can do to help build and maintain morale? Professionalism It is always important to look professional. Personnel should not be showing up at emergency scenes with shirts that […]
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Trust
Trust. Only a five letter word, yet it carries so much weight. When we leave home in our own vehicle for work or travel, we automatically are trusting of the other drivers on the highway. On a two-lane road we trust that the driver coming towards us will stay in his lane. On a larger […]
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Motivation
Motivation can be defined as a term used to explain behavior. Motivation drives people’s actions, desires, and needs. A motive is what prompts the person to act in a certain way, or have a tendency to exhibit a specific behavior. So, how can we, as leaders, motivate our people? Here are two schools of thought. […]
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Leadership, Another View
“Leadership is the privilege to have the responsibility to direct the actions of others in carrying out the purposes of the organization, at varying levels of authority and with accountability for both successful and failed endeavors”. What leader made this statement? It sounds modern and something right out of current leadership books. Actually, the statement […]
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What Firefighters Should Expect From Their Leadership
Much has been written about what leadership is, how management is different than leadership, and what you can do as a leader to improve your department. Do we remember what it was like to be a firefighter and how we reacted to the many different leadership styles we were exposed to? I remember thinking, in […]
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Important Qualities for Fire Service Leadership – Part 4
To summarize so far – As part of the National Fire Academy (NFA) Executive Fire Officer Program (EFOP), the student is required to author an Applied Research Project (ARP) within six months of completing each of the four classes. For the executive Leadership class ARP, I sent a survey to 50 metropolitan departments including my […]
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