By Joshua Burchick
Coming up through the ranks, and during management college courses, I often heard that leadership can be boiled down to what you tolerate for you and your team. Largely coming from military leadership principles is the concept that the little things that you let slide can often manifest themselves in larger ways.
As a leader, if you become too laissez-faire, or use minimal interference in managing your team, some may start to take advantage of the leverage they have been given. Over time, the uniform shirt could be left untucked while out in public, perhaps the faces of the crew are not clean-shaven, the rigs go too long without being washed, the hoselines are packed without care or concern.
The more things that are left unchecked, the more opportunity there is for error and apathy, which could breed carelessness at best or liability on the fireground at worst. What starts as something innocent, may manifest itself in team discord.
However, if as leaders we enforce every rule to its Nth degree, we may begin to alienate the members of the team and create non-free-thinking firefighters. We will limit openness and idea sharing and our firefighters will sit idly by until being told what to do. Curiosity may not be encouraged and menial tasks may become the go-to busy work.
I have known officers that have woken up the shift at 0300 hours just to make the crew sweep the kitchen or take out the trash that was missed. This was not on shifts that did not uphold house duties and policy, it was on shifts that worked hard to hold up their end of the bargain to the community and their peers, and ran numerous calls in their service area throughout the day.
At times, things may get overlooked. Here is the crux of the issue, if you have a team that works hard, trains well, and is disciplined on emergency incidents, you will burn your leadership capital at the expense of your team. The capital you produce, as Leif Babin of Echelon Front would say, is built by “supporting others, by putting the mission and the team before yourself.”
If your team is upholding the core tenets and expectations you have placed on them, are you hurting your leadership capital by nit-picking the smallest of details? Another way to look at this, using financial metaphors, is anytime you make a decision you are spending your personal leadership capital or figurative currency in that decision – will it be an investment in the team in order to influence positive change, or are you making every decision possible and spreading your capital thin? There is no actual growth or return on your investment and action-autonomy is not encouraged.
To be fair, when a leader refuses to tolerate small things being overlooked, like uniforms or cleanliness, you can ensure a tight ship is being run. The small details are always at the forefront.
“How we do anything is how we do everything” is the mantra to live by and it could instill pride in the company. However, the downside of the leader being granular in the details is that the decision-making becomes centralized. While commander intent is hopefully known and clear, the leader must refuse to make every single choice. This plays out on the fireground where the firefighters will literally not move until directed by their officer, always awaiting the next order. This is further compounded by a firefighter’s inability to ever make decisions; if they are ever caught in a challenging situation, the firefighter may not have the decision-making experience to get through that trying situation. They have been trained to default to inaction, indecision, and meekness.
By flipping this script, making your commander’s intent known and clearly communicated, you only have to insert yourself when it truly matters most. Each decision you make, you spend your “capital,” making an investment in each person and decision.
The less you can insert yourself, there is a greater potential for your investments (your firefighters) to grow because you are placing the responsibility and decision making back on them, creating experience, ingenuity, and independence. However, without enough support, trust, or clarity, you can become too laissez-faire. Processes could take unintended routes or, if left to their own volition, humans may take the easier road or none at all.
In the United States military, commander intent and expectations are clearly spelled out and communicated, but the soldiers carry out that intent through their own decision-making processes while out in the field. This breeds further experience and independence for their subordinates and teams, creating powerhouses among the ranks.
Much of this argument lies in balance. Often, our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses. If I minimally insert myself into team productivity, it could go awry at any moment, and when purposeful action is needed on the incident scene, discipline in action may not be held to the standard that is required.
Conversely, if I burden the team with constant menial tasks, leading to burnout and resentment, there has been no positive growth or gain for the team. Finding the balance between these two distinctions should lead to healthier team dynamics.
As Marcus Aurelius said, “be strict with yourself, tolerant with others.” Your example will be the glasses through which your team sees and it is more powerful than what you merely speak.
There are a few requirements for finding the balance in healthy team cohesion. First, clearly articulated expectations must be known among all members of the team, and the leader must hold themselves, and all members accountable to them. There is nothing more detrimental to the team than its members not knowing the clear mission of the group.
Often, equipment checks, house duties, challenging trade-specific training, emotional intelligence, and physical and mental wellness are the main support system of the team’s vision and mission. These are the foundations and bedrock of firehouse success. They must be at the forefront of every decision, for every person on the team, for the benefit of the community we serve.
While those are the main supporting structures for the mission and vision, what is your actual priority that drives everything else? It is easy for a team or a whole department to list out numerous priorities. The original English language word “priority” came into existence as something singular, but in the 1900s, it morphed and become plural[1].
To have multiple priorities is to have none. Identify the one main driver for success and nurture this priority as much as possible. The easily identifiable one is to support field operations, because operations are the face of service and success to the community. More specifically, operations will not happen without people. Our people must be prepared and supported at all costs. Your people are supported through a healthy balance between leadership capital and tolerance.
Second, leader competence must be trusted and genuine. Thomas A. Kolditz, of In Extremis Leadership, writes that “leader competence [is] the most important attribute for influencing trust in combat. In in-extremis conditions, followers depend on their leaders’ technical expertise, judgment, and intelligence to plan and execute operations that successfully complete the mission with the least possible risk to their lives.[2]”
It is not how friendly you are in the station or autocratic you are behind a desk; it is your experience and technical knowledge that lets your team know that you will do everything in your power to get them out of dire circumstances and mitigate problems on the incident scene. As leaders, we must prove to the members of our shift each day that we support them, and we must do that through strategic knowledge, tactical proficiency, mental wellness, emotional stability, and physical prowess.
- Strategic Knowledge: do you have a working knowledge of your Department’s General Orders/Standard Operating Procedures, and are you able to marry those policies and implement an actionable plan that matches incident conditions with stabilization?
- Tactical Proficiency: under stressful conditions and in personal protective equipment, are you able to execute and troubleshoot job specific tasks with comfort and ease?
- Mental Wellness: are you a resilient human; are you generally positive and satisfied despite the rigors and stressors of our profession?
- Emotional Stability: are you consistent in behavior and action; are you able to adapt to all of your experiences while still presenting a logical and positive demeanor to those around you?
- Physical Prowess: is your cardiac and muscular readiness acceptable for the metabolic demands of our occupation?
This leads to the third attribute – your actions must be wrapped in humility. Whether you lean towards the dictator behind the desk, or the friendly peer, your expectations and occupational competence must be grounded in humility. There is a continuum of passiveness and aggressiveness. The goal is to find the middle point between these two, and in many circles, it is considered well-placed, humble assertiveness.
Make confident, well-informed decisions for the betterment of the team and community, and be absolutely genuine throughout that whole process. You must also know when to get out of the way of the team when they are making independent, sound decisions for growth. There cannot be a sense of elitism creating an environment of us versus them, and leaders will never have all the answers. Naturally, you also cannot fake expertise. Your demeanor, speech, knowledge, skills, and abilities must be authentic, or your peers will see right through you.
Finding the healthy balance between expending leadership capital and tolerance is a constant pursuit; often you’ll find yourself swaying between the two like a pendulum. Consistent, authentic behavior is key, and if your team is driven to burnout, resentment, or inaction, the answer will be right in front of your face. Be a good human being, clearly communicate expectations, and find a consistency between rules and energy expenditure; you will hopefully find an intrinsically motivated shift doing awesome things for the community and your organization.
Bio:
Joshua Burchick is a Captain with Howard County (MD) Department of Fire & Rescue Services, and has served with HCFR since early 2004. Additionally, he has served with the Kentland Volunteer Fire Department in Prince Georges County, MD. He is a trainer for the IAFF’s Fire Ground Survival Program, is an ACE certified Peer Fitness Trainer and nationally accredited CrossFit trainer. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Public Safety Leadership from Johns Hopkins University. He also runs the online community, Forged & Unbroken, a service promoting resiliency in the fire service through physical, mental, and emotional means, donating to public safety non-profits and charitable causes.
[1] McKeown, G. (2014). Essentialism: the disciplined pursuit of less.
[2] Kolditz, T. A. (2007). In extremis leadership: Leading as if your life depended on it. Jossey-Bass.
