By Jason Hoevelmann
Today’s fire officers are tasked with many responsibilities. This has never been more true, with fire departments being tasked with being all-hazards response agencies. These added jobs and expectations add to the list of things that firefighters must be educated and trained in to meet the demands of all the responsibilities that are placed on us. The fire officer has the added responsibility to keep crews and members motivated and engaged.
There are a lot of leadership classes and books that discuss traits and characteristics that are definitely important for fire officers. These traits include having integrity, strong values, and morals as well as honesty and humility. The question is always asked, “How do we demonstrate or show our members these leadership traits and the expectations that we communicate and hold our members as well as ourselves to?”
In my experiences as a fire officer, I have found that being demonstrable is important to show authentic and consistency in how we lead. I’ve had the honor and pleasure to be an officer at the company level and chief level in a volunteer, combination, and career department. Interestingly, the things we need to demonstrate cross all those lines and are effective for any kind of organization. The key to these E’s is that we demonstrate through our actions daily and we make them almost habitual. These are not a silver bullet for a struggling company, shift, or department, but they will help with starting to make some positive changes–and they are free!
Engagement
We cannot expect our members to be engaged and all in if we are apathetic to our mission and expectations. As officers, we must come to the engine house ready to be involved and active in the job and daily work and challenges. It’s not enough to do the minimum of what is on the schedule. We need to have discussions with our members. We need to not just be present but also active participants in the things we expect our members to do–and then go a bit beyond it.
Being engaged simply means that you are engaged on shift or on meeting nights and training as well as reading trade journals, reading books, UL research, taking classes, watching webinars, discussing the job with your members, and generally always working to get better to help those around us. Identifying deficiencies without being negative and creating a drill or discussion to correct it can demonstrate engagement from an operational perspective. Learning who your members are beyond the job and showing you care about them and their families is a demonstration of engagement from a personal perspective. It is our job to do both daily.
Enthusiasm
Coming to the firehouse with some enthusiasm about the opportunities that will present themselves sets a positive tone for your members. It also can be very contagious in the same way a negative attitude is. It sounds cliché, but when the officer is happy about being at the firehouse and doing the job, the crew is much more likely to approach the day and shift in the same way.
Not everybody may be as enthusiastic as you, but your enthusiasm may pull them from a super-low place that day to just normal or average. That is a win!
I recall my first day as a career firefighter and my first days as a company officer as a way to reset my mood and approach. I will never forget riding backward responding to an EMS call as my first-ever call as a career firefighter. I had the biggest smile on my face, and I remember thinking that I had made it. My enthusiasm for the job was as great as it could be, even responding to an EMS call.
If we can recreate those enthusiastic moments in our careers every shift and meeting night, we might just create some of those moments for our members. It is something you have full control over and, yes, some days are easier than others. As leaders and fire officers, our example must be demonstrated beyond just training and operations. Making our time in the greatest job in the world as fun and positive as possible is another responsibility we have in our positions.
Empathy
To be able to relate to and understand or to be able to put ourselves in the current situations of our members is important for us to respond appropriately to their needs and to build relationships and trust. Before we jump to conclusions or lose our cool with members, it is wise to be discerning and try to understand the situation and why it happened.
This is extended to how we treat citizens. Calls that we don’t perceive as an emergency or reason to call 911 can create an approach that is dismissive toward the person asking for help. Demonstrating an example of empathy toward these calls will extend to your members and provide direction for how they should treat these calls. We don’t know what people are going through, how they arrived at their current situation, or what they have endured leading up to their calling for help for what seems insignificant to us. Treat them with empathy and understanding, fix the problem if possible, and then move on without condemning or minimizing the situation.
This show of empathy will hopefully set the example for your members. None of us are perfect. Our members are going to make mistakes and, more times than not, they feel bad about it and are willing to fix it. Reach back to your past indiscretions and consider how you were treated and how you wish you had been treated. Proceed accordingly with a little empathy, understanding, and steadiness with your response.
Empowerment
Our members and team need to be empowered and shown that we trust and value their contributions, talents, and skills. Empowering our members is not just offering support and being a cheerleader; it is much more than that if we are serious about developing strong teams and leaders. Consider three main points related to empowering your members:
How we deal with the members during adversity and the difficulties that they may encounter. Mistakes will be made, and the way we handle those mistakes will set the tone for how our members respond to them. That is the first point of empowering our members–to respond vs. react to mistakes and deficiencies. Taking the time to learn the conditions and facts, taking a breath, and providing a productive response will result in better outcomes in the short and long term for our members and organization. Responding takes the immediate emotions out of our decisions that are common with reaction. This kind of response to our members creates trust from them knowing that we are not going to fly off the handle and that we are more concerned with correction than punishment.
Allowing decisions to be made at the lowest level possible. This requires trust and some boundaries, but we need to trust and allow our members to be able to make some consequential decisions without our interference or intervention to create leaders and officers. Yes, there is risk, but the upside is so much greater in creating confidence and trust in our members. One other part of this is when a mistake is made, we back them up and look for a correction and we don’t cast blame and then start to micromanage.
Putting our members in positions to succeed. Look for opportunities that will showcase members’ skills and knowledge. This may be different for each person based on their confidence levels and abilities, but each person can be made to feel valued by using one of their ideas or placing them in charge of something. Asking for their opinions goes a long way in creating an empowering environment that shows trust and value in our members.
Effort
Effort needs to be expected from and demonstrated by the officer. So many other things can be overcome by a consistent and strong effort for achievement. From the smallest assignments to the most challenging instances, effort, or lack of, will set the tone for how the team works.
Apathy is dangerous and can infect an entire crew, resulting in freelancing in the engine house and on the fireground. It also results in a sign of indifference from the officer granting license for crews and members to do whatever they want. When effort is lacking, that expected work ethic typically related to the expectation of our fire service reputation is lost and difficult to get back.
When effort is targeted at making our members, organization, and crews better, everybody benefits, and we set the standard and expectation for all members. When effort is misused to do less, that becomes our standard. When we work to make our jobs more comfortable and convenient for ourselves, we invite and slip into complacency. Although we don’t want to make things hard needlessly, we cannot avoid hard work and tasks or inconvenient ones simply because they are uncomfortable or inconvenient for us. Our effort must be demonstrable toward tackling all problems and issues with energy and enthusiasm.
Effort is required in all we do and should become the default. I equated it to the idea that when we were on shift, we were going to be the ultimate problem solvers and we decided to “chase kinks” at every opportunity. Just like on the fireground, any kink in the hoseline is everybody’s responsibility to fix; the same was our mentality and effort in the engine house. The problems we came across were then ours to fix.
Practicing a strong work ethic and being consistent in giving a strong effort create a productive environment and a mentality of solving problems and putting others and issues ahead of our own comfort and convenience. There begins to be a sense of pride in the fact that you work hard and provide strong efforts in everything you do. Be the crew that can’t be outworked, and take pride in that.
In many cases, it’s the simple things that matter the most and represent your effort–things like doing that drill one more time or pulling the crosslay off to repack it because it didn’t look right. Training and drilling when it’s not on the schedule as well as taking advantage of fire alarms by doing a familiarization of the building before you return are all demonstrations of effort.
The key to these E’s are that they are demonstrated and not just said or written down on policies or guidelines. They are also incredibly simple but can challenge our own leadership styles and philosophy from an action standpoint because they require an awareness and consistent actions to accomplish. Stay engaged and be happy about the opportunity to do and share this job. Empower your members and demonstrate a strong work ethic and effort. Be present and set the example; don’t just talk about it.
BIO:
Jason Hoevelmann is chief of the Florissant Valley (MO) Fire Protection District with 22 years of service. He has a bachelor’s degree in fire service administration.
