By Ron Kanterman, Featured in Fire Engineering

We’ve all had bosses who appeared to be good leaders but were terrible at managing, and vice versa. Both disciplines take hard work. Management entails lots of work in planning, organizing, staffing, delegating, budgeting, and all the other aspects we learned about POSDCORB (for you younger readers, ask an old chief about that acronym.) Can you be a good leader and a good manager at the same time? I say yes. Can you be good at one and not the other? I say yes again. Can you be lousy at both? Of course! I knew a chief of a small combination fire department. He was a great manager and administrator. He could justify a delivery of ice to the firehouse on a freezing day in February and get the funding for it from city hall. He couldn’t lead the men to the breakfast table. He had no “people skills” or leadership qualities and had a tendency to mess with the troops regularly. I once asked him why he did that. His answer was “because I can.” Glad he’s gone.

Leadership isn’t necessarily what’s on your collar. Respect for rank comes with that rank, but respect for you as a person comes with having the right stuff. Think about the best leaders, officers, firefighters you ever worked with. What made them what they were? I’ll guess they were trustworthy, dedicated, well-read, and people with great integrity who respected others at the highest levels. Also think about the worst leaders you’ve come across. You can learn from the bad ones, too, because you will also know what NOT to do.

You’ve got To Have “Vision”

All great leaders have had one thing in common. I have a lengthy list of those I consider great leaders. You can list your own, but the fact is that they all had a vision. If you are going to be a leader in your organization or the leader of your organization, you must have a vision. Don’t confuse your vision statement with your mission statement. Most fire and emergency services organizations have a mission statement and most probably have these key words: service, dedication, best, customer, quick, efficient, effective, ability. A vision statement is much different. Here’s your opportunity to dream a little and really look into the old crystal ball. Shape your vision into what you believe the organization should and could look like. Put the budget and all the other current obstacles aside for the moment and come up with a vision for your organization. “If I were the Fire King,” “If I were Queen of Fire,” If I were the Fire God” … Once you develop your vision, share it with your staff. A chief might want to start with the assistant chiefs and/or deputy chiefs. It may become a group vision at this point and then start to filter down to the line. “Our firehouses are 100 years old. We need new quarters. My vision is to build new firehouses.” Sound impossible? If you don’t believe in your own vision to start with, it will never ever come to light. You must believe it yourself for you to make others believe that it’s possible. If in fact a vision just came to you and you said “that will never happen,” either change it, or click off this journal entry and go on to something else on fireengineering.com.

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