By Ron Kanterman

We've all had bosses who appeared to be good leaders but were terrible at managing, and vice versa. Both disciplines take hard work. Management entails lots of work in planning, organizing, staffing, delegating, budgeting, and all the other aspects we learned about POSDCORB (for you younger readers, ask an old chief about that acronym.) Can you be a good leader and a good manager at the same time? I say yes. Can you be good at one and not the other? I say yes again. Can you be lousy at both? Of course! I knew a chief of a small combination fire department. He was a great manager and administrator. He could justify a delivery of ice to the firehouse on a freezing day in February and get the funding for it from city hall. He couldn’t lead the men to the breakfast table. He had no "people skills” or leadership qualities and had a tendency to mess with the troops regularly. I once asked him why he did that. His answer was "because I can." Glad he's gone.

Leadership isn't necessarily what's on your collar. Respect for rank comes with that rank, but respect for you as a person comes with having the right stuff. Think about the best leaders, officers, firefighters you ever worked with. What made them what they were? I'll guess they were trustworthy, dedicated, well-read, and people with great integrity who respected others at the highest levels. Also think about the worst leaders you've come across. You can learn from the bad ones, too, because you will also know what NOT to do.

You’ve got To Have “Vision”

All great leaders have had one thing in common. I have a lengthy list of those I consider great leaders. You can list your own, but the fact is that they all had a vision. If you are going to be a leader in your organization or the leader of your organization, you must have a vision. Don't confuse your vision statement with your mission statement. Most fire and emergency services organizations have a mission statement and most probably have these key words: service, dedication, best, customer, quick, efficient, effective, ability. A vision statement is much different. Here's your opportunity to dream a little and really look into the old crystal ball. Shape your vision into what you believe the organization should and could look like. Put the budget and all the other current obstacles aside for the moment and come up with a vision for your organization. "If I were the Fire King," "If I were Queen of Fire," If I were the Fire God" ... Once you develop your vision, share it with your staff. A chief might want to start with the assistant chiefs and/or deputy chiefs. It may become a group vision at this point and then start to filter down to the line. "Our firehouses are 100 years old. We need new quarters. My vision is to build new firehouses." Sound impossible? If you don’t believe in your own vision to start with, it will never ever come to light. You must believe it yourself for you to make others believe that it’s possible. If in fact a vision just came to you and you said "that will never happen," either change it, or click off this journal entry and go on to something else on fireengineering.com.

The Great Communicator

What also made the leaders what they became was one common bond. They were all great communicators. We know President Ronald Reagan was labeled "The Great Communicator," but he was just the lucky one to get that title. Great leaders have a vision they believe in, and they are able to share and communicate that vision to the masses and are able to change the lives of others, good or bad (e.g., Lincoln vs. Hitler). If you are to be an effective leader within your organization or beyond, you must have a vision, the passion to make it work, and be able to communicate that vision at all times and at any cost. Most importantly, you must first believe in it yourself.

Values are Essential

We all have them, and they're all different. In a leadership role, one has to attempt to strike a balance with all the members in the house, bureau, or department. I have asked members of my audiences numerous times, "Where do we get our values?" Most answer "from home" or "our parents." It seems we are a product of our environment. We read about kids in bad neighborhoods who grow up in a single-parent homes with drugs and crime all around, and the beat news reporter does a story that shows these kids (not all of them) in gangs at the age of 12. Once in a while, we see a success story: One of these kids got the heck out of there and made something of himself, but the vast majority do not. They simply become products of their environment. How does this affect you in your leadership role? Every member of the organization brings his own set of values to the table. Your job is to not only deal with them but to understand them as well. Your job is to sort through the pile of values on the table and bring everyone to a common ground. Boy, that sounds easy! It’s not. It's hard work and takes perseverance; but as a leader, you need to rise to the occasion and get it done.

Be Proactive

You probably won’t believe it, but I'm going to say it: Create the environment, and lead by example. No apologies here. Just do it. Chief Peter Lamb from Massachusetts says, "What you allow to happen without intervention becomes your standard." Is he ever right! If you continually let the tail wag the dog and the day comes when the dog must wag the tail, you will have to climb Mt. Everest to get there. Get in early. Set the stage, create the environment, set the tone, or do whatever 10 other good clichés tell you. As the leader, you have to lead at all times, not just when you have to or it’s convenient. You are charged with setting the tone for ethical behavior, even if you were the biggest prankster in the house or told the best jokes. Once you get elevated to the next level, "you can’t play cards with the guys anymore," as one of my former bosses so aptly stated when I moved up a step a long time ago.

Areas for Self Development

Take Opportunities to Learn and Contribute. As the leader of an organization, you are looked on to continually contribute to move the organization forward. Generating new ideas will generate excitement among the members. Get out of the darn box, and see what everyone else is doing. Go to conferences and seminars; bring things home (other than a shopping bag of brochures). Most importantly, apply new knowledge rapidly. If you hear or see something great at a class, seminar. or school, and you shelve it when you get home, you'll never ever pull it out again.

Develop your Department

Consider that you, as the leader or boss, have internal customers as well, which is everyone in your department under your command. If you're the chief of department, your staff chiefs, line officers, line firefighters, and administrative staff are all your customers. You need to fulfill their requests as much as you would for your customers out on the street. Don’t forget that your people are your greatest asset. You need to take care of them. You also have customers in the other municipal agencies --the police department, the department of public works, the parks and recreation department, the office of the mayor or city manager, and others. Take care of them in the way you want to be taken care of when you make the call for assistance. And get involved in your community. Successful chiefs I've met were part of their local Rotary Club or Chamber of Commerce.

Collaborate. If you are at or near the top, you need to discuss with your companies, divisions, bureaus, and units why it's important for all of you to align yourselves with the department’s goals, objectives. and guidelines. If you're a company officer, you need to lead your members to the "alignment trough" and have them take a sip. Many career firefighters and line officers have told me that they work in a four-platoon system, resulting in "four separate fire departments within one fire department" because each shift and shift commander does it a little different or, in some cases, a lot different. Alignment is key. Leaders at all levels are responsible for making that happen. Align the fire prevention bureau with the suppression forces. Align the shifts. (you would think that standard operating procedures or guidelines would take care of that.). Align the line and the staff. (I will bet that you can’t believe I just wrote that. I don’t believe it myself!) It's OK if everyone is singing "Jingle Bells" in different keys. If everyone is on the same sheet of music, you’ll all have a general idea of what the others are singing.

Our founding fire service father Benjamin Franklin defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." He was right again. Don’t forget to take advantage of collaborating with other agencies as well. Many jurisdictions form task forces with police, fire, and other municipal services. Get on to these task forces and do some cross-jurisdictional work. As a leader, you are expected to do this type of work. Don't forget to encourage others to do the same along the way.

Ronnie K