All Blog Posts Tagged 'leadership' (49)

Handling the “Leadership Absenteeism” Crisis Ahead—a Volunteer Perspective

By Tiger Schmittendorf

The following article focuses on a growing issue in the volunteer fire service: the “leadership absenteeism” created by a generation of leaders retiring. Read a complementary article by Jeff Johnson about this issue’s impact on the career fire service here.…

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Added by Fire Rescue Magazine on April 13, 2011 at 6:30am — 3 Comments

Is It a Full Moon?

The belief in Fate, a divine hand, or just plain bad luck is encouraged and promoted by our understanding that call volume has some association with innocuous universal truths. Friday the Thirteenth is a widely held bad luck…

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Added by Peter Lupkowski on October 19, 2010 at 9:01am — 2 Comments

Rolling the Ball Uphill: Poor leadership makes poor frontline firefighters

Rolling the Ball Uphill

Poor performance at the line level has a direct connection to poor leadership at the officer level

By Scott Cook

On March 20, 2009, the USS Hartford and the USS New Orleans collided in the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf. What does this have to with the firehouse? Read on.…

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Added by Fire Rescue Magazine on August 13, 2010 at 8:00am — 5 Comments

Cultivating Leaders: How to encourage the development of well-rounded leaders in our department

By Chief Jeffrey D. Johnson, EFO, CFO, MIFireE

From the June 2010 issue of FireRescue magazine

Leadership development” has to be one of the three most common topics on any fire service conference program. Although that’s appropriate, I wonder if our leadership programs back home are intentional and integrated into the daily work of our organizations?

As chief officers, one… Continue

Added by Fire Rescue Magazine on June 5, 2010 at 8:30am — No Comments

New on Firehouse Zen - Art in Unexpected Places

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Added by Mick Mayers on April 21, 2010 at 9:43am — No Comments

Organizational Values - Daily vs. Emergency Ops

From Firehouse Zen:…

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Added by Mick Mayers on April 17, 2010 at 9:18am — No Comments

What kind of foam are you?

Over at All Hazards Contemplations, we're discussing some similarities between firefighting foam and fire officer characteristics.

Firefighting foam has been around for a long time. The Navy, ARFF firefighters, and the petrochemical industry have used Class B… Continue

Added by Ben Waller on January 30, 2010 at 5:00pm — 6 Comments

TAKE THE POLL: What's Your biggest recruitment and retention challenge?

Recruiting New Members?
Retaining Existing Members?
Getting our Leaders to Realize that We Need to Do Something about our Recruitment and Retention Challenges?

Take this poll at www.firerecruiter.com:
http://firerecruiter.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/whats-your-biggest-challenge

Added by Tiger Schmittendorf on November 27, 2009 at 7:30pm — No Comments

From the X-Box to the Box Alarm

As I travel around the country talking with other firefighters, a commonly recurring theme of our chat is the future of the volunteer fire service.

The conversation always comes around to the topic of today’s firefighters and the next generation of firefighters. Some “more experienced” firefighters (notice I didn’t use the term older) share that they don’t understand the “kids” coming into the fire service today.

The veterans don’t think today’s recruits share the same… Continue

Added by Tiger Schmittendorf on September 6, 2009 at 11:00pm — 9 Comments

Fortune Tellers

In my last blog titled “Dig In.” I talked about the importance of story telling in the fire service and how it serves as a means of sharing experiences, traditions and values from generation to generation. In this article I try to tell a story, and in that story, I hope you can find a lesson to share for generations to come.

Almost every firefighter I meet speaks of how they always knew, from the time… Continue

Added by Tiger Schmittendorf on September 6, 2009 at 10:22pm — 6 Comments

Are You Leading by Example, or Are You Just in Charge?

You Can’t Force It: Are you leading by example, or are you just in charge?

By Scott Cook

It’s that time of year again: The FireRescue magazine staff and board just selected the 2009 Company Officer of the Year. The list of candidates this year was loaded with people who’ve really made a difference, not just in their crew, but in their department and their community.

They’re not like Capt. Frank. Note: Although Capt. Frank is a… Continue

Added by Fire Rescue Magazine on August 16, 2009 at 8:00am — 2 Comments

It is ALWAYS Political

A COMMON WHINE FROM FIRE OFFICER CANDIDATES IS THAT FIREFIGHTERS ARE NOT POLITICIANS. A "real" firefighter is good of heart, focused on saving those endangered by fire and righteous in suppression skills. That is all that is needed.

Only in the movies ...

A STARK CONTRAST

Dave Statter posted a video showing Engine 848 (West Lanham Hills #2) arriving at a well-involved garage fire (… Continue

Added by Mike Ward on July 1, 2009 at 8:30pm — 1 Comment

A Spartan Attitude for Firefighters

I recently watched the movie “300” and find it to be inspiring and historically interesting. I have seen it maybe three or four times and this most recent viewing it made me stop and think. These Spartans were a proud, honorable and highly trained group of men and society. It was an honor to die protecting Sparta.

Sound familiar? The fire service should be a place that we are proud, honorable and in trying to save a life, we are revered for giving our lives to save another. At least that… Continue

Added by Jason Hoevelmann on May 17, 2009 at 11:07am — 10 Comments

To The Easily Offended

In my blog at Firehouse Zen today: I mentioned a great homily by Father Chris where he spoke about getting the message out (you know, THE Message). I specifically discussed one of his points about how, when someone in today’s society doesn’t agree with you, the expectation is that they have a “right” to be offended.

There are a lot of people who should pretty much… Continue

Added by Mick Mayers on April 4, 2009 at 4:09pm — 8 Comments

Constant Battle

From Firehouse Zen: I am never surprised by the willingness of firefighters to fight for what is right. I have officers that work with me as well as friends throughout emergency services who seem like they are perpetually locked in battle with someone over something, and having been one of those people myself for a number of years, I know how exhausting and frustrating that mode of… Continue

Added by Mick Mayers on March 14, 2009 at 7:38am — 6 Comments

Everyone Has Their Parking Lot Somewhere

Like I was discussing in my blog at Firehouse Zen, experience is useless without learning from it. As an officer with a few incidents under my belt, I too have my parking lot somewhere as a stark reminder of my failures and inadequacies (this isn't it, by the way). When I need a little humbling, I take a little spin by the ol' place to remind myself of what I was like as a young officer.

Unless you… Continue

Added by Mick Mayers on January 18, 2009 at 10:00pm — 5 Comments

Open Your Eyes in 2009

From my blog at Firehouse Zen:

What have we learned in 2008? Are we better off here on the threshold of 2009 having experienced so much in the last year? Or are we destined to repeat our mistakes? Are we advocating better cardiac fitness for our troops? Are we beating the seatbelt issue into their heads on a daily basis? Are we telling them that it’s silly to fight fire without using proper PPE and… Continue

Added by Mick Mayers on December 30, 2008 at 4:23pm — 10 Comments

Blogging As A Tool

I’ve said it from the beginning- this blogging project is a work in progress for me, but I'm enjoying it and it's apparently pretty contagious. As far as my writing skills, however, I’m quickly learning about how to catch your interest in sound bites rather than in paragraph form, which is a big transition from technical writing. Of course, I know that to put “Buy Cialis” as a title to a firehouse blog will get people to look, even though it has… Continue

Added by Mick Mayers on December 5, 2008 at 12:30pm — 4 Comments

Firehouse Zen

Note: For some reason, I posted this a few minutes ago and the post disappeared into the blogosphere. If for some reason it pops up in duplicate, someone please point it out (if I haven't seen it) and I'll delete it. Nothing like identical blog entries to ruin your credibility. That should be a warning to some of you out there.

Inspired by the personal blogs of some of you (and seeing that even Webchief has his own personal blog), I have created my own blog,… Continue

Added by Mick Mayers on November 26, 2008 at 11:36am — 8 Comments

Leadership Conference Home Run in Syracuse!

I’ve just returned from Syracuse, NY where I was assisting with running the FASNY Fire Service Leadership Conference. This was an eight hour, one-day program focusing on the needs of our current and future fire service leaders in terms of risk management decisions, the tactics and strategies used effectively by true leaders, and mindful strategic thinking on the fire ground.

The day started significantly earlier for me and the FASNY Chiefs Committee than it did for most, as we had… Continue

Added by Mary Ellen Shea on November 16, 2008 at 8:22pm — 4 Comments