Once you reach an elite level of your profession, you must continually adapt to maintain or improve your position.
The following is an allegory for those who would be leaders. A young fire officer in a small rural department observed that the fire chiefs in many departments sometimes had a short life span. After many years of pursuing the top position in the department, some of those who attained this coveted position left it after only a year or two. Others would remain at the helm for a while longer but seemed to accomplish little more in the position than maintain the status quo. They were not respected. Their departments stagnated; membership dwindled. Eventually, these chiefs, too, were replaced.
But, there was one particular chief who stood out in his region. This chief had sustained his leadership of this volunteer department for many years-as long as anyone could remember. During his tenure, his department had evolved into one of the finest fire departments in the nation. Membership in this department was a sought-after badge of honor.
Not wanting to suffer the fate of the other chiefs, the young officer went to this wise old chief to learn what had enabled him to prosper in the down-and-dirty world of leadership. He wondered if the chief had always been a leader or if his years of experience had molded him. If experience had molded him into a leader, why had it not helped the others? If leadership was something he could learn, he wanted to know how.
The young officer was interested in learning from the senior fire chief how the experiences of leadership could make him a better leader:
Officer: “Is experience the best teacher? Can I develop as a leader from experience?”
Chief: “Some people have said that experience is the best teacher. But I believe that some experiences don’t teach us much, and in some cases experience may teach us wrong.”
Officer: “So experience is not always the best teacher?”
Chief: “Not exactly. It is just that not every experience offers important leadership lessons.”
Officer: “So where do I learn? What experiences will be helpful to me?”
Chief: “It is the experiences that challenge you and stretch you and force you to develop new abilities to survive and succeed.”
Officer: “When I am really pushed to my limits by my experiences, I will learn. Is that it?”
Chief: “Not exactly. Challenge is important. Our limits need to be tested. But even when we are challenged, we don’t necessarily learn.”
Officer: “You mean that I can have the right experiences-challenging experiences-and still not learn?”
Chief: “That’s right. You only grow from challenging experiences when you have the ability to learn from them. Not everyone does. Some people have the experience and miss the meaning. There are some people who learn hand-over-fist from a challenging experience. Others learn little, if anything, from experience. Growth, learning, and education are not automatic.”
Officer: “I think I’m getting it.”
The officer suddenly understood that we don’t learn or grow in a vacuum. Most of us are part of a larger group or organization where we have the good fortune of receiving feedback and support for our personal growth; sometimes we don’t. We need to get feedback from someone who will take the time to reflect on our experiences. Feedback and reflections won’t allow us to assess how we are doing, what’s working, and how we need to change. We also need acceptance, advice, and encouragement from others and support from our organizations if we expect to grow. We simply cannot do it all alone.
Officer: “When I avail myself of challenging experiences, when I take seriously learning from those experiences, and when I get support and feedback from key people in my department, I can then learn the important lessons of leadership that I need to survive and prosper. Right?”
Chief: “Right! As far as it goes. But there is still the question of what develops in leadership development.”
Officer: “What does that mean?”
The young officer felt that there are some things that can be developed and other things that appear to be hardwired or innate. Intelligence (for example) and certain personality traits appear to be set by the time we are adults, remain consistent over time, and provide some limits to our development. But there are those skills and capabilities that can be developed.
Chief: “It is a bit complicated. Being stretched and challenged is not easy. Diversity and adversity are the keys to growth, and both challenge us. None of us like to operate out of our comfort zone. And it takes time-years, in fact. And a lot of pieces have to fit together just like a puzzle-challenging experiences, organizational support, and individual readiness.
“We used to think it was easier, that single events were developmental-a single event of training, for example. But that understanding was inadequate. Development happens over time as part of a process or a system. There is still a lot we don’t know about how leaders develop. But we have learned a lot, and we are learning more all the time. And the good news is that we can learn and grow and change.”
The young officer thanked the old chief for his time and insight.
Officer: “Given all that you’ve said, it’s becoming clear that I must understand development in a longer time frame, that several elements are required to support it, and that there will be different outcomes in different contexts.”
Chief: “Exactly. Good luck on your journey.”
SUSTAINING LEADERSHIP
How can one develop as a leader in such a way so as to effect change within the organization as well as growth within the individuals of that organization?
Leaders can expand their individual capacities. People can learn, grow, and change, but they must first realize the need and have the desire. I do not debate the extent to which effective leaders are born or are developed. No doubt, leadership capacity has roots partly in genetics, partly in early childhood development, and partly in adult experiences.
The core question about sustaining leadership is, How do you go about it? How can you acquire the right leadership capacities, and how can the organization you belong to help the process?
Leadership development requires both a variety of developmental experiences and the ability to learn from experience. Experience is the element the individual brings to the development process. In the course of our fire service experience, people learn from similar kinds of experiences to differing degrees and in different ways. The ability to learn is impacted by a variety of complex motivational factors, personality factors, and learning tactics.
LEADERSHIP DRIVERS
Three key drivers of leadership development are assessment, challenge, and support. Developmental experiences are most effective when all three elements are present.
These elements serve dual purposes in the development process. First, they motivate people to focus their attention and exert effort toward learning, growth, and change. Second, they provide the raw materials or resources for learning: the information, observations, and reactions that can lead to a more complex and sometimes quite different understanding of the world. To enhance the development of leaders, we need to help them find, create, and shape a wide range of learning experiences, each of which provides assessment, challenge, and support.
Assessment
The best developmental experiences are rich in assessment data. Assessment is important because it gives people an understanding of where they are now, what their current strengths are, and the level of their current performance or leadership effectiveness.
In the context of their everyday work, people may not be aware of the degree to which their usual behaviors or actions are effective. In the face of a new challenge, they may not know what to continue doing and what to change. Even if they do realize that what they are doing is ineffective, people may believe the answer is to just work harder; it may not occur to them to try a new strategy. But when an experience provides feedback on how they are doing and how they might improve or provides other means for critical self-reflection, then people are more likely to understand their situation and to capitalize on a learning opportunity.
Challenge
Experiences that can be most potent to development are those that stretch or challenge us. Individuals develop certain strengths-ways of thinking and acting that work for them, become comfortable for them, and lead them to habitual ways of thinking and acting. As long as conditions don’t change, people feel no need to move beyond their comfort zone and develop new strengths.
In a comfortable assignment, they use their familiar strengths well in serving the needs of the organization, and they do not learn very much from the assignment. The same is true for a comfortable relationship, with incoming feedback that confirms a training program or skills that have already been mastered. In all such cases, comfort is truly the enemy of growth and continued effectiveness.
Challenging experiences force people out of their comfort zone. They create an imbalance, causing people to question the adequacy of their skills, frameworks, and approaches. These experiences require that people develop new capacities if they are to be successful. Consider a task force assignment in which the task is critical to the business, in which success or failure will become known, and after which task force members will present an action recommendation to senior officers within that department. Such an assignment can be thought of as developmental because challenge is deeply imbedded in it. However, this type of assignment will prove particularly developmental for people who have not faced such challenges before.
People feel challenged when they encounter situations that demand skills and abilities beyond their current capabilities, when the situation is very confusing or ambiguous, or when the person in question is confronted with a situation he would rather not deal with. The challenge might be negotiating the resolution of a conflict between two divisions with opposing views on how something should be done, or it might involve confronting people with the fact that they are not going to get the promotion they think they deserve.
Some challenges arise because of a lack of experience. They require the person to broaden and acquire new skills and perspectives. Other challenges require changing old habits-either the situation has changed and old responses are no longer adequate or old responses were never that effective in the first place.
Support
Developmental experiences stretch people and point out strengths and weaknesses but are more powerful when they also have an element of support. Whereas the element of challenge provides the motivation to change, the support elements of an experience send the message that their efforts to learn and grow are valued. If people don’t receive support in the form of confirming messages and if other people do not allow and encourage them to change, then the challenge inherent in a development experience may overwhelm them rather than open them up to learning.
Support helps people handle the struggle and pain of developing; it actually helps them bear the weight of the experience. It is needed to help them maintain a positive view of themselves as people capable of dealing with challenges who can learn and grow, who are worthy and valuable. Seeing that others place a positive value on their efforts to change and grow is key for people to stay on-course with development goals.
Perhaps the largest source of support is other people: bosses, coworkers, family, friends, professional colleagues, coaches, and mentors-even a favorite author. Support can also take the form of organizational norms and procedures. Organizations that are more supportive of development have a closely held belief that the staff’s continuous learning and development are key factors in maintaining organizational success. They emphasize helping people identify what is needed for development and to work out plans for addressing those needs. These organizations use a variety of development strategies, make resources available for learning, and recognize and reward efforts to learn and grow. Feedback, cross-group sharing of knowledge and information, and learning from mistakes are all parts of the organizational culture.
WHAT HAPPENS TO UNDERDEVELOPED LEADERS
Over the years, I have asked chiefs and officers to identify what they have learned that has made a difference or a lasting change in how they manage others. I asked them to think about experiences on the job, outside of work, and in formal leadership development programs and to isolate the critical lessons they’ve learned.
The results are clear: Development comes from many kinds of experience. These chiefs learned from challenging jobs, from significant people, from hardships, from training and course work, and from a miscellaneous variety of other events. The lessons they learned involved new skills, values, abilities, and knowledge. Over time, people who failed to learn became stuck in their personal lives or in their jobs.
CHECK YOUR ATTITUDE
How do you maintain your personal enthusiasm? After you become chief, the stresses and the wear and tear can take their toll on even the most idealistic among us. Don’t take your attitude for granted. Reevaluate yourself constantly to ensure you are maintaining your edge.
What should you do if you don’t have a positive outlook? Find one. Instead of thinking “I can’t,” start saying “I can!” It takes just as much time and energy. If you are surrounded by a lot of negativists, think about putting some distance between them and yourself. Surround yourself with people who encourage rather than discourage. Remember, every day some ordinary person does something extraordinary. Today it’s your turn! Take it!
We will always encounter crisis. Life is full of crises, and if we realize that up front and expect crises, our attitude will be different when we confront those emergencies. Every person, group, and department will face setbacks. It’s not enough to overcome them. You must also learn from them. The great jazz musician Miles Davis once said, “Don’t be afraid of failure. There is no such thing.” I support that thinking. “Don’t let what you don’t have keep you from using what you do have.”
All of us should adopt the attitude of the blind man who was being led down the street by a seeing eye dog. When they came to the corner of a busy intersection, the dog crossed against the light. The blind man had no choice but to follow. Cars swerved to avoid the blind man; drivers honked their horns and swore loudly. Somehow, the duo reached the other side unharmed. As they stopped on the corner, the blind man reached into his pocket, pulled out a dog biscuit, and offered it to the reckless canine. Having just watched the two as they crossed, a bystander tapped the blind man on the shoulder and said, “Sir, that dog almost got you killed. The last thing you should do is give him a biscuit as a reward.” The blind man smiled and said,” I’m not giving him a reward. I’m trying to find his mouth so I can kick him in the rear end.”
Whenever you find yourself moaning about some difficulty, remember that blind man. Give adversity a swift kick in the rear end. Drop the self-pity, throw out the crutches, trash the excuses. Do something positive. Welcome the most daunting challenges.
SACRIFICE: VOLUNTARY OR INVOLUNTARY?
You will succumb to stress only if you are ill-prepared. All the hours spent in preparation will help you make it through your career. You can be just as cool and productive as anyone else in any situation if you approach your life with similar dedication.
Every time you put a dollar in your savings account, you’re making a sacrifice. Any mention of sacrifice reminds me of the story told about the gentleman whose oil well caught fire. He put out an all-points bulletin for assistance. To ensure a heavy response, the oil baron also offered a $30,000 reward to whoever could quench the flames. All the large fire departments in the area sent help. They dispatched their best companies accompanied by their most modern firefighting equipment. However, none of their trucks could get within 200 yards of the fire. The heat was too intense.
Finally, the Little Township Volunteer Fire Department appeared on the scene. It had only one rickety truck equipped with a single ladder, two buckets of water, three buckets of sand, and a blanket. It didn’t even come with a hose. When that old truck reached the point where all the others had stopped, its driver didn’t hesitate. He kept barreling ahead until he and his crew were on top of the fire. Little Township volunteers leaped out of the truck, threw two buckets of water and three buckets of sand on the inferno, and then beat the fire out with the blanket.
That oil man was so impressed by this display of courage, he gave the driver $30,000 in cash on the spot and asked, “What are you and your men going to do with all that money?”
The driver didn’t hesitate. “The first thing we’re going to do is get those gosh-darn brakes on that truck fixed.”
The lesson here is that not all sacrifices are voluntary. Sometimes circumstances force us to make them. However, in the long run, we’re grateful we did.
CHANGE: PROACTIVE IS BETTER THAN REACTIVE
Organizations fall out of favor when they fail to keep pace with their customers’ changing needs. Once you reach an elite level of your profession, you must continually adapt to maintain or improve your position.
It is so much easier to hide among the pack instead of being the lead dog. When you are working toward that top spot, you are never satisfied. You are open to any changes that might improve your organization. You can evaluate yourself against the performance of whoever is running ahead of you.
When you finally reach Number One, you’re all alone. There’s nobody left to chase. So there’s a temptation not to run quite as fast as before. You forget that the time to shift into overdrive is when you are the hunted, not the hunter. You have to show some extra foot so the competition doesn’t gain on you.
The top perch in any field carries a weighty responsibility. Once you attain it, everyone expects you to dominate your competition; you are supposed to be the best. Should your customers discover that your product or service is short of dazzling, they will shop elsewhere. A competitor may get away with selling them an inferior product because the customers come to it with lowered expectations. However, if you’re Number One, no one will cut you that kind of slack.
But change usually fails when it is a response to panic. Always remember that no matter how well things are going, you can always improve something. Making voluntary changes now saves you from being forced to make mandatory changes later. However, never alter anything simply for the sake of doing something different. Any modifications you attempt must have clear, productive goals.
SET THE EXAMPLE: LOOK UP!
I believe the people we deal with can be divided into two categories: those who lift us up and those who pull us down. We all know people who open their mouth only to deprecate someone else. Feel sorry for those poor souls. They tear down only to build themselves up. We must teach them by example that the greatest responsibility each of us has is to raise the life condition of everyone we touch.
Encouragement breeds success; discouragement breeds contempt. No one can deny the law of cause and effect. Your subordinates and superiors will not think well of you unless you think well of yourself. You cannot think well of yourself unless you think well of others.
Most negative people are only envious. If you malign people in the hopes that you will look better, nothing but the opposite will be true. You are actually degrading yourself and bringing misery to those around you.
I have survived as a fire chief by maintaining a positive attitude about my life and my person. No one will tear that down, since my opinions on those matters are the only ones that matter. There are so many people out there who belittle others so that they might appear bigger. The sad fact is that those people only belittle themselves. I believe that I do what is right at the right time and in the right place. Do I make mistakes? Yes, I am human and, as such, I will make mistakes, but they are not for a lack of trying. I believe action requires one to make a mistake once in a while.
John M. Buckman is chief of the German Township Volunteer Fire Department in Evansville, Indiana, where he has served for 22 years, and is president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). He was instrumental in forming the IAFC’s Volunteer Chief Officers Section and is past chairman. He is an adjunct faculty member in the National Fire Academy residence program, is an advisory board member of Fire Engineering, and lectures extensively on fire service-related topics.
