Need Your Input: Power-Hungry Chief

I'm a member of a volunteer fire and rescue dept. We have aprox. 20 members and approx. 15 explorers. Here is our problem we have a chief who thinks that he is the absolute final say so on every decision even if our sog's say otherwise . i guess what i'm saying is that he thinks he is god almighty. and the rest of us think he's just an idiot. When he first became chief every thing was ok however now he has became power hungry. What is your opion.

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Permalink Reply by Norm Tindell on September 2, 2010 at 8:06am

This is not the place to air out your internal affairs. Besides, we can't give you a good opinion because we're not there with you. For your sake I hope the Chief doesn't see your post. Good luck and stay safe. PS - John, I see your comment and I now realize as you did that this post is 2 years old. Oops.

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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on September 2, 2010 at 9:11am

Things must really be slow, if you are resurrecting two year old threads for discussions.
But, I have some thoughts that I will share.
First, I see some of you took the original poster's (Mike) words as representative of his situation, even though it was pretty non-specific. That's cool, but you could also be lending bad advice if the poster was less than accurate with their description and you were proffering your advice based on an incomplete picture.
In our department, the chief has the final say on day-to-day operations. But, that does not mean that the chief can violate the department's SOGs or SOPs. The fact that you want to characterize them as guidelines and not procedures makes no difference to me, because ALL fire department members, including chief, must read and sign every SOG/SOP that you have read, understand and WILL FOLLOW
said guideline/procedure.
So, no; chief doesn't have that right.
Second; the chief can't give anyone the boot without the approval of the personnel committee and the Board of Trustees. Why? Because a dismissal of a firefighter does not fall under the chief's day to day duties. THAT falls under the Board of Trustees who are empowered by state laws to govern.
I don't like to use religious analogies when describing members of a fire department. I have friends who are atheist or are simply sensitive to someone using their God to describe a mortal person. I can think of nothing associated with a chief's duties that would elevate them to god-like.
What I have found over the years is, when someone describes their chief as "God Almighty", something has occurred to stir such feelings and before you know it, it is on a firefighter website and THAT sort of compounds the problem.
Well, let's see where it goes. It's been two years. Maybe Mike is CHIEF by now.
Or is it God Almighty?
TCSS.