All Blog Posts Tagged 'Leadership' (62)

It is fourth and goal with the game clock tick, tick, ticking away. The success or failure of your next play will bring your team victorious glory or public disgrace (and these days, social media shaming). You take your positions, the ball is snapped, you run your route awaiting a precise throw from the quarterback, the ball is released and it's coming your way, you…

It is our obligation to share our experience and what we know. It was certainly done for us when we first walked through those firehouse doors, so we owe nothing less to the new faces starting their fire service journey. Be the mentor, the voice of experience, and the guiding hand to usher in a new generation of firefighters and EMTs – they are…

“Risk a lot to save a lot”

Upon rounding the corner in my neighborhood, I couldn’t help but hear it. The chant of “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!!!!” echoed through the double pane windows of our first floor, and even though I had only stepped out to walk the dog, you would have thought I was scoring the game winning touchdown (or at a minimum bringing home some pizza).  I could hear my two little girls from a complete house over screaming for me, and an…

If you were to walk into any firehouse on any given Sunday, most dayroom TV's will probably have the big game on.  Firefighters have their share of die hard football fans who rep the team hats, sweatshirts and jackets of their favorite team.  It seems the recent turmoil over NFL officiating has soiled the game most of us love. Sports networks and talk radio shows are a buzz over the…

Several years ago, I was having conversation with a friend of mine who is a seasoned Company Officer from an agency I use to work with.  I was inquiring on how he always seemed to be calm, cool, and collective on incident scenes.  I was always impressed by his demeanor and command presence on any incident, but especially on those significant ones.  His was reply was simply I’m a “Duck on Water.”  I looked at him with a blank stare and said what does that mean?  He said I make myself stay…

United States Army Manual defines the leader as “anyone who by virtue of assumed role or assigned responsibility inspires and influences people to accomplish organizational goals.”

The Air Force Doctrine Document 1-1, Leadership and Force Development describes leadership as “Leadership is the art and science of influencing and directing people to accomplish the assigned…

"It is amazing what you can accomplish when you don't care who gets the credit." - Harry Truman

I recently listened to a podcast interview with man who I consider to be a fire service hero. I refer to him as such because he has been at the forefront of leadership, travels both nationally and internationally championing the cause of the firefighting, and serves as the head of multiple organizations that disseminate fire service information to the masses. Upon concluding the…

Do you have command presence? Do your people know you are the person in charge, the person who they can turn to in a crisis and know will do everything in your power to produce a successful outcome for them? Do you lead by example and “walk the walk”, or rely on bombastic talk, domineering bully tactics, and a big voice/big stick mentality to prove that you are in…

Listen in Wedenday evening 9/16/15 at 7:30pm for the latest edition of Fire and Training .

          When leading a team through change, people often encounter adversity. I firmly believe that if you ever lose your will to fight someone with fight still inside of them will control your life. The “will to fight” can sometimes be described as stubbornness, and for that reason stubbornness can sometimes be a good thing.

           Leaders need to stand their ground when…

What will you do when it's your turn to build onto what those who came before us started? Will you make it better? Will you have the courage to say "yes"?



Be the leader and build for the next generation to follow and exceed our progress.

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This will be a working extrication of my head from my A$$

“Avoid putting callouses in the hearts of your loved ones”

We have a ritual with our oldest child, Ayla who is three years old. We finish each nightly bed-time routine by…

As a servant leader hopefully you will not fall into the trap of focusing your efforts on self-serving ventures or only focusing on the organization.  As a servant leader you must be focused on what is truly the most valuable resource in the fire service, the others around you.  

It is important to remember there is no I in team.  This is a hard area to over come and it takes constant effort with successful leaders as they are always striving to get better, focused on the vision…

At times, it can be overwhelming.  That desire to do great things, crushed hopelessly underfoot, trodden into the mud beneath an army of detractors marching against you.  Seemingly insurmountable odds and an enemy that looms over you and hurls taunts and discouragements. 

Bear with me, heathens, for we are about to delve into an Old Testament tale of victory in the face of overwhelming opposition from all sides.  It is a tale thousands of years old, but it has direct parallels…

Every adversity you and the team you are leading will ever encounter is either a problem or an opportunity. Although one might think there are many different variables that would distinguish one from the other, there is really only one difference between the two – YOUR ATTITUDE. That’s right. Often times the difference between a problem and an opportunity has everything to do with how you look at the challenge at hand.

Opportunities exist…

As America’s fire service witnesses the retirements of the baby boomers, it is critical that leadership continue to build solid winning teams.  It is important that we drill into the heart of what it takes to create a winning team in an evolving fire service.  The foundation of the future modern fire service will be based on the creation and communication of a vision and setting goals that focus on the many new talents of the younger members of this great profession and utilizing their…

     I have to admit that this comes as a result of not a small amount of built up frustration over many years. I’m sure many, if not all of us have sat around the fire station table and asked, or tried to answer, the question “Why does this (insert activity) even matter?”. I continue to ask myself if we have forgotten WHY we do what we do, and as a result if what we are busy doing everyday has become more important than why we set out to do it…

Finding the balance between leadership skills and the popularity contest can be the most challenging transition faced by newly promoted leaders. This is a career long struggle for some. It is not easy switching roles. One day you are working for the idiot and the next day you are the idiot. It doesn't take long to realize that maybe; just maybe, you didn't give your officer enough credit for all of the issues they had to deal with on a day to day basis. I know the switch to company officer…

I'm of the belief that success is a result of happiness.

Unfortunately, there are many that seek success so they can be happy. That is backwards. Simply due to the fact that success is never enough, so you keep pushing to get that next goal, so you can be happy again. Ultimately, you will rarely achieve that happiness, since you keep pushing past your previous…