All Blog Posts Tagged 'Leadership' (62)

By Chris Langlois

“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four, calling the tail a leg does not make it a leg”.- Abraham Lincoln.

            On the fireground, we are always gathering information. We need to know what is going on…

I try never to make promises I cannot keep. That being understood, I'd like to share with you why you should invest your valuable time and hard-earned money to attend the annual Fire Department Instructors Conference (FDIC).…

You’ve heard them all. Maybe you’ve even said some of these things. I’m talking about fire service staples like, “Don’t worry kid, this is just a routine fire,” – “All you have to do it put the wet stuff on the red stuff,” – “Stay in until you can’t stay in anymore,” – “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it,” – “Keep your mouth shut probie,” – “Books don’t put fires out. Why are you wasting your time reading that?”…

By Mark vonAppen

In this time of transition in the American Fire Service, due to mass retirements and paradigm shift in how we do business, the unfortunate, and sometimes…

People aren’t born leaders. Just as well, you can’t read a book and take some classes and then call yourself a leader just because you have a certificate in your hand. Leadership is so many things. It encompasses a set of skills that are learned, developed, and maintained through practice and practical application.  As leaders, everything we do and the choices that we make all have some kind of an effect or influence on others.  As a leader, you have a great responsibility to the people…

By Mark vonAppen

"Our standard of performance on defense is to get 11 men to the football on every play," my father would say as he stood before his players to begin the season.  "We have a standard to uphold, and each one of…

                     The fire service can move at lightning fast speed one minute and other times the clock can move at a turtle’s pace... …

I am always amazed at how many critically important issues there are to manage in the fire department. With any high risk occupation the day is filled with decisions that have long lasting effects. Yet it seems that we never have time to do things right but we always have time to do them over.............. and when a departments crisis is at its height, we are reminded of…

By Paul Strong

If a lab was studying a person to determine their leadership abilities and they wanted you to be the researcher on this project, who would you pick as your subject to be studied? I know you can think of many people in history who were successful leaders, i.e. Patton, Martin Luther King Jr., or Gandhi.  But those people shouldn’t be the first choice for you. If you’re studying leadership with a goal to learn as much as you can about this topic, then start…

By Mark vonAppen

This will be the year that the rogues come home.

Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth. Our professional…

I believe firefighters can be placed into 3 categories in terms of engagement and leadership.  Generally speaking: 

• 25% believe in (or pretend to believe in) current leadership staff…

“[A] FIREFIGHTER  who is uncertain whether he can SAVE someone, or [a] FIREFIGHTER who for religious or moral reasons knows he will not ENTER A BURNING…