Leadership is a tremendous topic that has been written about and taught in schools, academies and universities. There probably are hundreds of texts on leadership and certainly hundreds of instructors, professors and training officers who teach the topic to current and future leaders.
How do you know what elements work best for you? How do you know what book or text provides you with the information that you need to be a successful leader? The answer: You don’t, because there are innumerable elements that are associated with leadership. That said, how can there be so many different ways of dealing with the group, team or company that you lead? The answer is simple but complex.
Curveballs
There are so many different people. Whatever group that you lead is made up of a unique collection of individuals. If you are the officer of a fire company in an urban department where the staffing for your unit is four firefighters plus yourself, you have four people who have different needs, problems, strengths, weaknesses and attitudes. If you work with that same group every shift for months or even years, you’ll have a good handle on how to deal with and treat those folks to get the most out of them.
What happens when on any particular day one of the regular people is off and another firefighter fills in for that person. You have a new and possible unknown firefighter who you’re responsible for, maybe just for the 24-hour shift, but still, that person is under your wing for the day and you must “deal” with that individual, too. Doesn’t this change the attitude or mood of the shift? Could this single firefighter say or do something that could upset or blow up the mood of the other “regular” firefighters? Now you have a leadership challenge to handle.
An outside assignment
What about when you as the officer are assigned an overtime shift in another firehouse where you rarely work. You might find yourself in an unfamiliar firehouse or location working with an entire crew of firefighters who you don’t know. Will your leadership skills fit into this situation, or will you be disarmed and find it difficult to lead this group? Must your leadership skills and abilities be adjusted to fit this new situation, or must the firefighters who work for you that day adjust their behavior to your requirements?
There are no specific answers to these questions, because the variables are too numerous and the list of options that you have is quite long. What piece of advice might be helpful in all of these situations and many more?
Skills adjustment
One of the best pieces of advice that can be offered to any leader, but particularly to a fire service officer, is that you must be prepared to adjust. A leader of any rank—lieutenant, captain, battalion chief—will be thrust into numerous leadership situations over the course of one’s career. As noted above, you might be with a different group of people, one of your crew might be replaced or you might supervise at a different firehouse.
You must develop a robust set of leadership skills that you can adjust and apply in the numerous leadership environments that you find yourself. You must be “one of one” in your leadership role and strive to apply the most appropriate and effective leadership actions in any and every situation that arises.
Company officers who nurture and develop this skill are the ones who command the most disciplined and effective crews.
