August 2008 Issue Number 101

Is a monthly electronic newsletter which links current events and issues to the daily challenges faced by fire and emergency services managers. Current topics in the areas of leadership development, workplace diversity, change management, and conflict resolution will be discussed.

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Consider This...

The Most Important Job

All positions in the fire service are important, but if I had to choose one as the most important job, I would pick company officer. Think about it. You can have the best vision and mission in the world. You can hire bright, eager people as recruits. You can invest in excellent equipment and infrastructure. But if that vision and those policies are not being supported at the crew level, out on the street and in the station, then nothing can ever really change and stagnation and dysfunction will become the rule in the organization. Company officers are where policy becomes practice, and small changes are made in support of larger goals.

If company officer is the most important position on the department, it is often the least supported. In many departments, people become company officers as the result of one written test or interview, or because of seniority, or in some cases, because of popularity. Once in the position, officers may get some training related to the technical aspects of the job-- how to write reports, or set up incident command. However, a large number of company officers never get any training at all in the areas of conflict resolution, team building, decision making, ethics, or other leadership skills. Company officers are often isolated in their own stations, with little outside guidance and oversight on a day to day basis. Major influences on leadership are often localized-- the officer's own experience, the temperament of the crew that is assigned, the district that they serve.

Some officers do wonderfully with this level of autonomy, and rise to the occasion, becoming officers that shine in their integrity and skill. And others... may not do so well. There may be little consistency in approach, and considerable disparity in outcomes, especially from the standpoint of team leadership. Consider some of the more egregious behaviors within fire departments in recent years: prostitution rings in stations, open drinking on duty, physical confrontations with other public servants. All of these things happened at the individual crew level, and it might be easy to discount them as the result of a rogue crew and a bad officer. Maybe. But such events do not occur in a vacuum. When firefighters get out of control, the first place to look for answers is the company officer. And when officers themselves are the problem, the organization needs to look at itself and ask what it can do to foster better leaders.

Company officers tend to become proprietary, at times adopting an attitude that this is my station and my district, and I can do whatever I want here, as long as I get the job done. They may forget about the bigger picture and the larger mission they are part of. When this happens, trouble is almost inevitable.

So what can be done to help company officers be the best they can be, for their own crews and the organization as a whole? First, recognize the importance of the position. When people get promoted to company officer, make sure they are prepared and that they know what is expected of them. Give them the skills to do their jobs, not just the technical skills, but competence in communications, conflict resolution, coaching and counseling, ethics, and decision making.

Second, reconsider how your organization runs, not in theory with its mission and vision statements, but in fact. How autonomous are the stations? How much contact do they have with one another? How often do company officers get together to talk about issues and compare approaches? How much communication is there from the top down and from the bottom up in the organization?

Third, provide ongoing professional development, and make sure everyone participates. Don't allow people to avoid this type of training because of longevity or job assignment. Mix it up-- bring in people from other disciplines and professions at times to provide new perspectives. Make sure the training is meaningful and on point. Don't waste people's time.

Fourth, make sure that yours is a culture where it is okay to ask for help. Firefighters are always ready to provide help, but are often discouraged from asking for it themselves. In some organizations, asking for help can be a career killer. If asking for help is not culturally acceptable, officers simply won't do it. Their decisions could be severely adversely affected as a result.

The essential mission of fire departments is to serve the community, and this happens most directly at the crew and company officer level. Ignore these people at your own peril.

The Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals has upheld the right of three Toledo firefighters to take their gender discrimination case to trial. The three women claim that they experienced discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in the course of their 20+ year careers with the department. This decision reversed a lower court decision that dismissed the case last October.

Sources: The Blade, July 20, 2008

Personal Problems, Real Priorities

I often state that the answer to conflict in the fire service is more fires. What I mean by this is that petty disputes among individuals tend to fall away when the larger mission and purpose of the job are abundantly clear, as when doing emergency response. But what about when this transformation does not happen?

Consider the recent case of two emergency services providers, one a fire department supervisor, one an EMT with a hospital ambulance service. At the scene of a bad car accident in the middle of the night last November, the EMT claims that the fire supervisor grabbed him, swore at him, and told him to back away from a "fire scene." The EMT has since filed a harassment complaint in municipal court against the fire officer.

The fire official counters that he was in fact the victim, and was "accosted, threatened and physically attacked" by the EMT. He plans to file criminal counter-complaints against the EMT as well as a defamation lawsuit. Local sources say that the dispute resulted from a vague city policy regarding which agency-- the fire department or hospital EMS-- is in charge at an accident scene requiring extrication.

Apparently forgotten by these two were the five victims trapped in the vehicle, all of whom required hospitalization. While these two emergency responders were fighting with each other (and almost certainly distracting others from the task at hand), the truly important work was not getting done.

When emergency responders put their own needs and egos ahead of the mission of helping others in crisis, they shame not only themselves, but the emergency services as a whole. Such behavior should not be tolerated.

Source: The Star-Ledger, Decmber 22, 2007

 

© Linda F. Willing, 2008