For some reason I've been racking my brain over the idea of evaluating leaders on our volunteer department. And my little discussion is a bit more specific to volunteers for the little acronym I came up with in evaluating them and you'll see why when I write it out.

The acronym is L.E.A.D. and it stands for

L ~ Location: Where a volunteer firefighter lives can make a difference in someone getting there to radio pertinent information quicker

E ~ Experience: This is a no-brainer, but how do you evaluate experience? Is it solely based on years? Education? A little of both? More than one over the other?

A ~ Availability: Again, this is more important for volunteers, but are all of your captains working during the day when the majority of the department is also working? Do they maybe work 2nd or 3rd shift where they can help during the day?

D ~ Dedication: If I've heard it once, I've heard it a million times "It still says volunteer on our department" And they're right, ours is an all volunteer department, but as a captain I think you need to volunteer even more. You need to attend those boring and mundane trainings, show up for the fundraisers and other tasks that aren't so glorifying as a burning house or big MVA.

Am I off here? Could you add more or change some of the meanings to L.E.A.D.??