What does it take to lead those who run toward danger instead of away from it?
The short answer: Leading first responders requires a comprehensive leadership toolkit that not only helps people accomplish their mission and return home safely, it also develops them in quiet moments so that they can grow. It’s a tall order, but leaders who have these skills bring out the best in their people.
I speak from experience. I served as a first responder and leader during my long career in the U.S. Navy, and I’ve been a student and teacher of leadership development at Blanchard for many years.
I’ve most recently been working with CAL FIRE, helping their leaders embrace a holistic approach that accelerates the development of first responders from enthusiastic beginners to self-reliant achievers.
Here are some of the principles I share with them.
The Difference Between Helping and Fixing
Great leaders of first responders want to be helpers. But many leaders have become great fixers, looking for problems and trying to fix them. Consider the tremendous difference between helping and fixing: helping empowers people; fixing ultimately disempowers them.
When leaders focus on helping, they can enable their people to develop skills in decision-making and self-accountability, which increases self-reliance. Leaders who develop the mindset and skillset of helping also cultivate skills that make for strong relationships, including building trust, honesty, and empathy.
There are times, however, when fixing is required. The challenge is this: leaders can get stuck in the self-generated trap of only fixing, which can cause them to lose sight of the overarching opportunity they have to create new leaders.
I ask myself the following questions daily:
· Do my people believe I am willing to help them succeed, or do they believe I am waiting for them to fail?
· If my people are going to believe in something, what can I do today to help them believe in me?
· If I want people to believe in me, how will I show them that I believe in them?
The Danger of Heroic Leadership
Keeping relationships strong despite working in a high-stakes environment is difficult. Leaders must become skilled at balancing responsibilities without becoming just a fixer—because taken to the extreme, they may create a culture of malicious compliance. Putting it simply, when a leader is the only one who makes decisions and plans, their workforce will let them.
Leaders who are primarily fixers can fall into the trap of heroic leadership. It is a destructive loop that looks like this:
1. The leader perceives a lack of commitment or ownership from their people.
2. The leader takes charge of decision-making and processes.
3. The team members let the leader be the key decision-maker and decider and just comply with the direction of the leader.
4. The team members shift their focus to smaller, less important tasks and decrease their involvement.
5. Back to step 1.
If the leader is not aware this is happening, they may fall into the trap of heroic leadership. Acting like a hero can lead to an inflated sense of pride, and pride can be blinding. Too much pride is a trait not found in good leaders.
The takeaway and the unintended consequence of heroic leadership is that the team members end up letting their leader make all the critical decisions and they become merely compliant with the leader’s direction. They wait for their leader to tell them what to do and don’t take full ownership of what they can do.
Once established, this dynamic then requires the leader to always be there and always be right. The leader has just signed up for Mission Impossible—because leadership is what happens when the leader is not there.
Heroic leadership is not a healthy or sustainable path to team empowerment. When fixers act this way long enough, they eventually lose sight of how to develop their people. This story typically ends with the hero burning out and the team becoming disengaged.
No one does their people a favor by playing the role of the hero. It is actually an ego trap that diminishes everyone's ability to perform.
Building Resilience Through Connection
A first responder’s job is emotionally and physically draining to say the least. They must always be ready to give their best and to try to walk away unharmed. That personal mission alone is enough to create significant stress.
So what can leaders of first responders do to help their people become more resilient? Lead well.
They must show that they care about their people. I don't mean this in a vague and squishy way. It means the leader stays connected to them to make sure that the lines of communication are open and honest and the team members know they can talk with and maybe even confide in the leader. It’s about the significance of being fully present when talking with people—being focused on them and making them feel heard. It is not about becoming their friend. That is not the goal of leading well. It is about being approachable.
Being a resilient leader also means leaders taking care of themselves by getting enough sleep, exercising, etc. We tend to give lip service to these things, but leaders who are burned out are more likely to burn out their people.
Another point is the importance of trust. Since good leaders put trust above all, they can get to the truth more quickly. Trust accelerates the journey to truth. Their people aren’t afraid to be candid and tell their leader what they need. They ask their leader to show them the way, and the leader is prepared to listen.
Building Bench Strength Without Burning People Out
At the deepest level, building bench strength means leaders accepting that they can't do it all. They need to ditch the sink-or-swim mentality—and remember that most people tend to lead the way they have been led.
When a leader puts pressure and heat on someone, they might rise to the occasion. But what if they don’t? What a waste of time and resources if the leader just burned out a person who could have become capable and loyal. Most masterpieces take time—not just heat and pressure—to create. The exclusive use of pressure to build bench strength creates a negative undercurrent that eventually sweeps away the leader. Resist the temptation to say “that’s the way I was raised, and it didn’t kill me.” Heat and pressure are part of the process—not the entire process.
Leaders must realize they are responsible for their legacy and reputation. If they believe in the sink-or-swim approach, the word gets out that they are a bully who doesn’t care about their people—even if they truly do care. Once that reputation is established, these leaders will need to become good at exit interviews and new hire training, because they will have difficulty developing and holding on to great talent.
Building bench strength starts with the leader getting their ego out of the way. It is about being committed to developing a talented group of people who know what their co-workers do and who take ownership of what they're doing. My belief is that great leadership is a partnership, not just a position.
Ken Blanchard taught me that authority is a poor substitute for leadership. I will share more on this thought later.
Command and Control: When it Helps, When it Hurts
Command-and-control leadership is often misunderstood. We tend to think of it as ‘I say, you do.’ It is perfectly appropriate to use the command-and-control style when responding to a crisis. A leader’s job is to follow protocols and ensure people do what they're supposed to do in the moments, and sometimes days, of crisis management.
However, continuing to use a command-and-control style after the crisis is over is hurtful. It’s best if a leader is collaborative and uses supportive behaviors like praising, listening, and asking. The best leaders use a combination of directive and supportive behaviors. They learn how to light a fire within a person, not just under them.
Leaders of first responders often don't get a chance to learn about different leadership styles and when they should be used. They tend to get a lot of training on managing and supervising but not a lot of training on—or reinforcement of—leading.
Developing Others Is a Personalized Process
The goal of developing others is to get them to the point where they are self-reliant at fulfilling their responsibilities—and, when they have needs, they feel comfortable going to their leader for help.
Leaders must create trusting relationships. Only then will people share their struggles. A leader must be flexible and give people what they need to succeed and grow. I have learned to ask myself the following question after every meeting I have with an individual: Is that person more or less dependent on me now? If I am not sure, that means I suboptimized the opportunity of the meeting. If they are more dependent on me, I probably just fixed something and missed the opportunity to help them develop.
For example, someone might be enthusiastic when beginning a goal, and another person might be self-reliant at the same goal. Their leader shouldn’t give these two people identical input. Their needs are different. Diagnosing someone’s development level on a goal and giving the right amount of direction and support is an essential and fundamental leadership skill. The leader needs to first develop a belief in their team members that they can share their needs with the leader. Then the leader needs to lead them based on their specific needs with the goal of them becoming more and more self-reliant in that goal or task. This is how to really help!
Leadership Is a Partnership, Not a Position
The best leaders understand their relationships with their people are built on trust. Trust creates a sense of well-being and lowers stress. This is one of the most important resiliency activities a leader can commit to.
As I mentioned earlier, authority is a poor substitute for leadership. If we're not careful, we may forget this. A leader who flaunts authority may get compliance from their people, but they’ll never get their full commitment. The leader thinks they are leading people when they take an authoritarian approach, but when they turn around they see no one is following them.
The great thing about the idea of leadership being a partnership is that it gives everyone permission to take charge of their needs and discuss things early. That is very empowering.
What Does Command Presence Mean?
I define command presence as the reputation and respect a leader has. Ultimately, it is designed to help instill confidence in others.
Command presence is often supported by things such as how a leader dresses, how they stand, how they walk, and some of the more external manifestations of bearing. It's also based on big things like being thoughtful and being a good communicator and listener, and it includes where a leader’s focus is and what their priorities are. If people truly are a priority, how does that show up?
Command presence is also shaped by having great situational awareness and presence of mind. People know their leader cares for them and they, in turn, care about their leader. This is called reciprocity. Leaders get back what they give, and their presence (read: reputation) precedes them.
If a leader wants a better command presence, they should:
· Listen more
· Understand more
· Create an environment where people can tell the leader what they need
When a leader gives people work to do, they are also giving them very specific needs. The leader should learn what those needs are and help people learn how to fulfill those needs.
Final Thought: What Will Your Leadership Legacy Be?
There was a time in my life when I never thought about my leadership legacy. My attitude was to get the job done. To me, that meant I had to: ensure my people knew what results I expected, train them to get those results, and then bring them home safely.
There is great truth in that approach, but not absolute truth. I was focused on what I had to do to my people, and I neglected sharing with them my belief in them. I lost sight of the greater opportunity to build them up as leaders and get them ready for the next steps in their mission and life. My vision didn't extend more than a couple of feet in front of me. I just marched forward. It didn't matter what damage I did to myself or others on my way to the goal.
I believe I’ve changed since that time. I aspire to be the work in progress I call Bob 2.0.
The truth is, we are always creating our legacy. What we do is how we're going to be remembered, and it will persist after we leave an organization. So how do we want to be remembered—as an authoritarian leader who didn't care about their people, or a servant leader who helped others be their best?
I want people to remember me as someone who was approachable. I also want people to remember me more as a helper, not just a fixer. If something needs to be fixed, I'll do it, but then I'm going to have a conversation with the responsible person about what they can do next time to learn from this and be personally accountable.
I hope leaders of first responders take some of these ideas to heart. Because when leaders lead this way, it changes their relationships. It changes the workplace. And it changes everyone’s quality of life.
Great leadership equals great resilience.
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Ready to grow your leadership impact? Join our Leadership for First Responders course starting this July and build the skills to lead with greater trust and confidence.
About the Author
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