Recruitment and retention have become a constant struggle for fire departments (and most employers) nationwide. At a time when departments are offering sign-on bonuses and actively recruiting for lateral hires from other departments, it’s surprising to see that some administrations still lead their entire department via authoritarian control. The “keep your mouth shut and just do what you’re told” mentality is sometimes warranted, but generally reserved for probationary firefighters who are still learning the ropes or a few perpetually poor performers. When applied to an entire department as a whole, it results in an immediate crash in morale and an exodus of good employees.

Servant leadership is a more effective approach that creates pride and ownership in the organization, while developing future leaders throughout the department. The administration need only instill a positive culture and citizen first mindset, like the “lines on the side of the road” and the direction it’s heading. Once the mission is understood, the administration can trust their subordinates to make sound decisions. Chiefs should push decisions as far down the chain as possible. A good rule of thumb is: if the decision won’t affect the way that you do your job, then you shouldn’t be making it. Pass the decision down to a committee of line chiefs, company officers, and firefighters. The command staff should guide them by providing insight on budget and long-term plans that they may not be aware of, but leave the choice up to them. The Chief still has final say, but if the department has a shared mindset, the committee’s decision will probably be similar to the one the Chief would’ve made anyway.

This approach has several positive side effects. Firstly, it eliminates the “them vs. us” atmosphere that plagues authoritarian departments. The line personnel made the decision, so there is no “them”, it is only “us”.

Secondly, it exposes those personnel to all of the factors involved in making the decision. This transparency and context is often missing from decisions that cause unrest in the ranks. Many administrators dislike hearing the question “why” from their subordinates. However, it is typically not a case of questioning the validity of the leader’s decision. Most often, subordinates are simply trying to understand why the leader made that decision, so that they can learn from their thought process.

Lastly, it provides subordinates with command-level decision making experience, preparing them to rise through the ranks. This is imperative, unless your command staff plans on working for 100 years. Eventually the Chief will retire, and if they’ve made every single decision for their department, then it’s unlikely that any of their subordinates will be adequately prepared to take over. A storm of disorganization and unnecessary mistakes will be left in their wake.

Shared ownership, transparency, and communication are pathways to a successful department culture. A lack of those traits, or the deliberate removal of them, will lead to low morale and high turnover. Department administrators may run their organization however they see fit as long as they’re in charge. However, departments that ascribe to the “do what you were hired to do and shut your mouth” mentality should at least add that mission statement to their job announcements. It would save good candidates the trouble of wasting years of their career at a toxic department with poor leadership, and there are plenty of good departments who would be glad to have them.

As much as we talk about being focused and into the job on duty, it is equally important to decompress off-duty.

Like most of you, the fire service is not just my job, but my chosen trade. I devote a lot of my spare time off-duty to improving my fireground performance. From attending classes, to getting extra practice dialing in skills, to focusing on physical fitness.

Becoming truly proficient in all areas of this craft requires discipline and dedication, beyond the required minimum set by the department.

However, it’s easy for the scales of work/life balance to tip over leaving us, and our families, burned out. It’s important to keep our priorities in the right order.

Take time to do things you enjoy, spend time with family and friends, get away. Do good work, on the job and off.

In talking to firefighters from across the country, I’ve run into stories of company officers who chastise or even formally discipline their firefighters for setting up drills on their own in the firehouse. Even worse, sometimes it is the senior firefighter being reprimanded for drilling with the junior member of the company. As someone who often spends time getting reps on my own, this is frustrating to hear.

If you are an officer who is guilty of this, take a second to call yourself into your office and give yourself a write up. If you forbid firefighters from masking up, throwing ladders, or stretching lines on their own because setting up training isn’t their job; you are doing nothing, but hindering the progress of your team, demoralizing them, and ruining any initiative they have to better themselves. It is a sign of weak leadership ability and you shouldn’t be surprised when your team starts to fall apart and perform poorly.

It takes hundreds of repetitions of a single skill to become proficient and reach a level of autonomy (which allows for performance under stress). It takes thousands of repetitions to reach mastery.

If your personnel want to take the time to get those reps when they have a spare moment in quarters, encourage it. Even better if the drill started as your senior firefighter grabbing the junior member off the couch to get after it. A senior member willing to motivate the junior members without your direction will go a long way in strengthening your team and take some of the load of leadership off your shoulders. The easiest team to lead is a team who motivates themselves.

Embrace the “lone wolf” putting in work on the bay floor. Encourage them, or better yet, join in. Let them lead the rest of the company through the skill. Junior members aren’t junior members forever. The earlier you give them leadership experience, the better they will serve you as a senior firefighter, and eventually company officer, down the road.

Disclaimer: For junior members, this goes for drilling on skills that you have already developed a baseline understanding of through formal training with an instructor or your officer. If you have less than five years on the job and you run across a video or article with a skill you want to try, it’s a good idea to vet it with your officer or senior firefighter first. They can make sure that it is relevant to your local operations and watch your initial performance to coach you through learning the skill for the first time. Also, it may be something new to them and the entire company or department could benefit from learning it.

Just a quick post for those who don’t follow on Facebook or Twitter.

I’ll be headed up to Indy for FDIC in the morning and I wanted to post some of the various published schedules from other bloggers before I head out.

If you’re going to be there (or already are there)…

here’s the Fire Service Warrior plan for FDIC.

The First Due Tackle itinerary is here.

And the The Fire Critic’s schedule is here.

See you there.

-Pete

Jason Kiefer!

I’ll email you details shortly. There were 52 entrants. Thanks everyone. Be sure to check out Box Alarm Leather. Their prices are reasonable and their work is exceptional, so there’s no reason not to order something from them anyway.

Now that the free stuff has been given away, it’s time to get back to work…