What Are You Afraid Of?

I’m serious. Think about it right now. What are you afraid of when it comes to leading? You see, when we fear something, it holds us back. Sometimes fear holds us back from doing the right thing. Fear and stress can be one in the same. High achievers like to use the word stress as opposed to fear though.

We talk a lot about stress in our profession. There’s both physical and mental stress we endure. Imagine the possibilities if I told you that some of this stress is self endured. I say this because I’ve done this to myself too many times. I’ve had sleepless nights. I’ve been distracted while at home.

I’ve exhausted myself mentally just because I was lacking an important feature.

This feature just so happens to be the |big domino that is missing from too many firehouses. I call it the big domino because its the one thing that makes everything else start falling into place. So what’s this big domino?

Well it is the ‘Courage to Lead.’ This may sound simple and that’s because it is simple. Its just not easy until
you start doing it regularly. Having the courage to lead has made all the difference in my career. It is the sole reason I have been successful in the firehouse and on the fire ground.

It did not come easy. It was built one day at a time with some failures along the way.

When you have the courage to lead, it allows you to push your people
to become better versions of themselves.

A great way to start is by putting on regular trainings. Follow up trainings with drills to determine the crews performance level. We get better at our job through repetitions. You’ll also start to notice your people having more fun.

Firefighters like to do firefighter things. When skill levels rise, so does confidence and morale. Running medical calls does not make us better at performing fire ground functions. Performing fire ground functions makes us better at fire ground functions.

People also become better by holding them to a standard. There’s a saying that goes |people rise and fall to their level of expectations|. Its true. People need to be told when they are dropping the ball just like they need to be told when their doing a good job.

Most people are unaware of their own issues. The majority of corrective conversations I’ve had lead to an increase in performance. So we are helping people become better by letting them know when they are not being a good team member.

A side note: I always make performance issues about the team. Nobody wants to be the one person hurting their own team.

Do me a favor and imagine for a moment that every company officer in your department had the courage to lead.

- Would there be more training?

- Would performance issues be addressed?

- How many other issues would vanish overnight?

When we have the courage to lead, we start putting the team first. Have the courage to be uncomfortable and putting yourselves out there to be judged by others. We are all judged either way, why not be judged for making a positive impact.

This all starts with you. Yes you reading this article right now. Create a rule for yourself. If something is bothering you, then address it. Problems do not fix themselves and performance does not get any better by doing nothing.

Stop waiting for someone else and be the person you’ve been waiting for to show up.