Recently, while I was giving a presentation on leadership, a gentleman asked what the Bible identified as the most important aspect of leadership. My answer: vision. Good answer, maybe, but I missed the mark, even considering that Moses once said, “A people without vision will perish.”
As a presenter, there are times when I ask myself, “I didn’t say that, did I?” This was one of those moments. Reflecting upon the gentleman’s question, a better answer crept into my mind.
The correct response should have been faith. Now even though this question started with the Bible, and the answer is faith, let me underscore that this is not an article about religious faith. Yes, religious faith can be used to lead, but faith is a more general concept too–you have faith in things that you don’t understand all the time, such as the operation of a sophisticated piece of machinery. You can have faith in mankind, or simply, faith in one another or in oneself. And faith is essential to leading in the fire service.
No Proof
The classic definition of faith is confidence or trust in a person or entity. When you envision an outcome that hasn’t yet occurred, you’re using faith. “Put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of the decade,” or “I have a dream”–these statements require faith.
Already, you can start to see why faith is so important for leadership. In order to achieve something, one has to envision, will it, or simply hope it will occur, and then diligently work toward that end.
The common thread here: faith is belief when there is no proof. The proof comes after the fact. Think of any great invention–the light bulb, airplane, space travel, medical cures. These things were envisioned without proof that they could exist, and then pursued until they were created. Logical reasoning makes assumptions, positive or negative. Faith almost always is a positive assumption, which is necessary to create a vision for the future (remember Moses’ quote at the beginning of this article).
Some people struggle with faith. They’re the ones who say, “show me,” who require evidence before they’re comfortable believing. By contrast, people who say, “I believe it’s possible,” work on a different plane, one that’s often abstract and messy, but one that makes the impossible possible. I understand this quite well, having spent my childhood in parochial school. Fifteen years as a fire chief and 35 years as a parent have reinforced the need to believe in a better tomorrow, a tomorrow of my own making, one that I envision. I imagine you’re no different.
Faith as Hope
Faith is often used to mean hope, trust or belief in something or someone. I’ve worked in four of the most populous and diverse counties in my state, including Orange, San Diego and Los Angeles. Like many of you, I have seen humanity at its worst and best in equal measure, across the entire socioeconomic spectrum. I’ve always been impressed by a saying from those who live on the street, echoed by those who have cared for them: “You can live 10 days without food, 10 hours without water, and 10 minutes without hope.”
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs places physiological needs–water, food, etc.–first. But the above quote about hope underscores how important it is to our survival. And if we substitute “faith” for “hope,” we can see that faith one of our basic human needs.
Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning illustrates this concept clearly. As a concentration camp survivor, he believed life never ceases to have meaning when one has faith in the future; however, when faith is lost, the individual is doomed.
And to tie this back to leadership again, it is often our leaders who give us hope, who create that vision. Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “A leader is a dealer in hope.”
The Four Fs
There’s a tool called the Four Fs that illustrates the central importance of faith. I’ve heard it explained in many quarters, but my first exposure to it came many years ago from Chief Jeff Bowman (Newport/San Diego). It’s a hierarchy of what’s important in our lives and can be used as an effective decision-making model.
- Faith: The first in importance. This can be a religious faith, faith in the world, in one another, or in oneself. But first and foremost, one must have faith. From a leadership perspective, you must have faith in yourself in order to lead.
- Family: Family comes second. Sure, we all have dysfunctional family members that cause us trouble, some more than others. However, whether you’re born into one, are adopted, or you pick your own, family is important.
- Friends. Good friends are our touchstone to what’s real, and like our family, what’s important. Their care and nurture is essential.
- Fire Service. For the men and women with whom we work and lead, the fire service comes immediately after these three other priorities. It’s bigger than all of us.
There’s a very specific order to these elements. Nothing is more important than faith, followed by family, friends and then work. If you have these priorities in the right order, you will have a better chance of creating a healthy balance between your work and family life.
Now, I’m not here to give you a lesson in religion–although that would make the teachers from my long-ago parochial school proud! Rather, I think all of this has a leadership application. In the end, every firefighter must have faith in their leaders; without it, leaders cannot lead. Leaders must also have faith in themselves, knowing full well that they (we) do not have all the answers. Another way of putting this: Leadership is all about asking the right questions, while at the same time being OK with not having all the answers. Which in itself requires a great deal of faith!
Almost invariably, better leaders take us where we need to go, but not necessarily where we want to go. Think about the last couple of centuries–Lincoln, Churchill, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mandela–and each of us who has parented children, or mentored, coached, supervised and led others. In all of these cases, the fundamentals of leadership are universal, and it all begins with faith.
