Ignition Leadership Podcast
Join hosts, veteran firefighters and leadership coaches, as they engage with experts, explore successful strategies, and share inspiring stories from the frontlines.
Ignition Leadership Podcast
Episode 7: From the Field to the Firehouse: Transitional Leadership
In this episode of the Ignition Leadership Podcast, hosts Jamie and Bob Howorth discuss their hectic schedules balancing professional and personal responsibilities. The episode addresses the Darley essay contest, emphasizing the importance of understanding the 'why' behind mental health issues in the fire service. Jamie and Bob explore the critical dynamics between emergency and non-emergency leadership, stressing the importance of creating a comfortable environment in non-emergency situations to enable effective command during emergencies. They share anecdotes, tips, and best practices for transitioning between authoritative and collaborative leadership styles, ensuring team efficiency and fostering resilient mental and emotional health within their team. The episode concludes with insights into making informed decisions, setting priorities, and nurturing confidence among team members.
Welcome to ignition leadership podcast! Leading with fire and building with purpose. All information and opinions are of the hosts and guests and are not affiliated with any organization. Here are your hosts Jamie and Bob Howarth
Jamie Howarth:Hi listeners. I am host Jamie Howorth.
Bob Howarth:And I'm Bob Howorth.
Jamie Howarth:Welcome to Ignition Leadership podcast. I know that we have kind of been MIA for about a month. We try to get these podcasts in. As often as we can. However, we are parents to 13-year-old twins. We coach their softball and baseball teams. We are deeply involved with their academics and we also both work and are very passionate about our jobs and growing and leadership and growing in our jobs as well. So we're pretty busy.
Bob Howarth:There's always something going on.
Jamie Howarth:There is, yeah. Whether it's
Bob Howarth:sports with the kids, just doing things with the kids, whether it's. Finish in the basement.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah.
Bob Howarth:You know, just always something going on.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. And I'm working more shifts in the field now because it's summertime and it's important that we support each other, spread the wealth and make sure nobody gets held over. And I, I think it's important that everybody does their part with that. Right. And I don't wanna get off topic on that, but if I want to be off work. Then I need to help people who also want to be off work.
Bob Howarth:Right. Or if you can't get off work, you at least have the power to complain about it because you're not just the problem.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. I try not to complain about it, but everybody knows who those people are. Sure. Like I'm sure people listening to this, it's probably popping in their mind. The people that usually aren't the ones that are helping, but those people are usually ones complaining. It's not usually the people who are. Being positive in the firehouse and, and helping and, and making sure that the world goes round. That actually brings me to the Darley essay contest. I know I've mentioned this before on the show when it started in March. I want you to know that today is the last day that you can put in for the Darley essay contest. It is this year's. Topic is understanding the why behind mental health and the fire service. And I'm a judge. I won last year's contest and I have to tell you it has, it has opened so many doors for me and I have met some incredible people who are very inspirational, who I've made contacts through this essay contest. And. It was really great just to get out some of my ideas and to know that other people are, are like-minded and feel similarly than I that I do when it comes to leadership in the fire service.
Bob Howarth:The networking that it has brought you has been incredible.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. You know,
Bob Howarth:being introduced to different people from different parts of the country in different positions, different leaderships, right. Yeah. And seeing how some think just like you and some think completely opposite of you, but being able to weigh all that together.
Jamie Howarth:Right. I think that we have to grow outside of our own little fire department world to see how other people do it. And that's for two reasons. Either you're like, man, that's a really good idea, or doesn't look like it's working out so well. Maybe I won't do that. But all of that is lessons learned, right? And leadership. Hands down affects mental health.
Bob Howarth:It does.
Jamie Howarth:Of course we are more susceptible to bad calls and traumas. That is, that is a part of the job. And I really feel like that we are starting to manage mental health and we're starting to recognize that we can, you're never gonna be able to prevent some of these traumas from occurring, but you can definitely help them process it. And also earlier in their career. Be prepared for it so that they can process it better. But the question is why, and that's what we're reaching out to, to people for, is to, to give us a three to four page double spaced essay on your thoughts of why the mental health and the fire services a way that it is, and give us actionable items that we can implement to make it better.
Bob Howarth:Yeah. And it, the essay itself. It's just a part of it. And dealing with the mental health, going through all that is absolutely important. I'm sure coming from the essays that people put in that we're gonna see a lot of interesting comments. Interesting ideas. Yeah, and I think that's good. One thing I will say is when it comes to leadership and mental health, when it comes to leadership and really anything, when you become comfortable in your leadership, you should really start to be uncomfortable. Because getting too comfortable is how you just stay the same and we don't grow. And if we all would've just stayed the same, we wouldn't be dealing with mental health the way we are right now.
Jamie Howarth:Yes, and I actually have this quote on my computer at work. That says, every day your're either changing for the better or for the worse, but every day your're changing Mm-hmm. So you're either growing or you're not growing. The choice is yours, whether you wanna grow or not, and that that does take effort. This, this job does have burnout. I do wanna make a shout out to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. They also really believe in this essay contest, and they believe in the topics that we're trying to get out there to try and and support the fire services as a whole, emergency services as a whole, so that we can move the culture forward, which, you know, is something I'm really passionate about. I, I wanna preserve our traditions. I don't wanna change the identity. Of the fire service, however, stuff is evolving. It evolves every day. Right. You either, yeah. You either stay the same or you change, and, and the bottom line is every day it's changing. You know, you either get better or you don't.
Bob Howarth:Right.
Jamie Howarth:But the, the ship is gonna, it's gonna leave without you, and it's starting to leave without people who are stuck in a, in a mindset.
Bob Howarth:Absolutely. And it's leaving quickly.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. Yeah. It,
Bob Howarth:it really has just, you know, I've been retired from the fire department going on six years now. Yeah. And there's a difference in just that six years of how mental health is dealt with and Yeah. That in the grand scheme of the fire service, that's not very long.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. That's,
Bob Howarth:that's a very short time to start changing things.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. And it has made great strides. I do think that. Social media networking, being able to, you know, have people at the ends of your fingertips and, and podcasts, right? Like this is a, a fairly new thing. All you have to do is just go on YouTube and you can find. Anything that you wanna know about the fire service and different techniques and how people deal with mental health, how people deal with leadership, how people deal with tactics all of those things you can find at a push of a button. And I think that is one of the reasons why the fire service has really started to kind of pick up and move so quickly because we have the information just like the rest of the world. Right? It's at, it's at our fingertips. It's, it's right there.
Bob Howarth:So I saw a video the other day, I think I was telling you about this, where. A 30 year paramedic said the top three things that she learned in the job over 30 years. And her number one thing is she should have started therapy the day she got the job. Yeah. To it. She was stressing that that would've helped her prepare
Jamie Howarth:right. For the
Bob Howarth:things that she was going to deal with and see.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah, for sure. I have actually been in therapy since 2019 and. What therapy does for me and well now it's kind of like just calling and talking through my, just talking through stuff.'Cause the job is stressful. Right. It taught me how to be mentally and emotionally resilient. Mm-hmm. And to give me. Grounding techniques. It actually helps me on emergency responses. I, I allowed you to listen to the audio of one of my recent fires. Mm-hmm. And you can actually hear me. You, you pointed out to me that I had, you had said you, you're grounding yourself. Right. And that's exactly what I was doing. I took a deep breath. I grounded myself and. Carried on.
Bob Howarth:You can hear the change in your voice
Jamie Howarth:reflection. Yeah.
Bob Howarth:You can hear the change in the speed that you're saying things. You can hear all of those things. And neither one of them were wrong, but I could hear where you were headed and you caught yourself and said, take a breath, it's gonna be all right. And
Jamie Howarth:yeah, put
Bob Howarth:yourself right back to normal.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. And the grounding techniques are really help me because my job. Now is is mental, right? It's, I'm thinking it's critical. Critical thinking, critical decision making in our stressful environment. And what I have learned through the critical incident stress management management team, our CISM team, our peer support team, what I have learned through my therapist, and honestly just through research and reaching out to people and learning different techniques from people is you can quickly ground yourself before you pick up that mic. Take that first transmission and that is what sets the tone for the rest of the call. That is what sets it up for success. The way that they respond to you as an incident commander is, is off of your voice, off of your calmness, off of your command and control, and. We, we all get a little excited in the beginning, but the fact is, is you still have a job to do. You have to go to work. And I do use grounding techniques to bring myself there and that also helps process the call.
Bob Howarth:Yeah.
Jamie Howarth:So it's important that we, that we do learn how to be mentally and emotionally resilient. I think that's the key.
Bob Howarth:Yeah. You're not gonna stop. Seeing the traumas, experiencing the traumas, hearing about the, the different people, you're never going to stop that. But being resilient in how you deal with it absolutely makes it easier and better for you.
Jamie Howarth:And it is a different, it's a different world. You know, when I grew up in the eighties, which I know is a different decade than you, we went outside and played like I rode in the back of my dad's pickup truck. You know, I've been hit with baseballs and we've gone on. I can tell you a story. My brother and I went on a bike ride and it was actually in Greenbelt, where I grew up in Prince George's County and we called it Peewee Canyon. My parents just bought me a brand new bike for my birthday and. It ha it. It seemed like a huge hill for my age, right? I think I was probably 10 years old. And my brother, he's my older brother, so it's my brother than me, than two younger sisters. He's like, go ahead, you can jump it. Right? So here we are in the middle of the woods, just going to jump this hill. You go down and then you pop up and you, and you jump it.
Bob Howarth:Mm-hmm.
Jamie Howarth:And. I bent the front tire of my bike on that jump and I, obviously, I got hurt,
Bob Howarth:right?
Jamie Howarth:And we were deep in the woods, so my brother's like, well, look, I'm not carrying your bike, so you're gonna have to carry it. And we don't have a phone, right? It's the eighties and it's starting to get dark. Your parents are gonna be wondering where you are. We had a, we had a yellow lab with us. And the yellow lab would just wanna, would just run around with us in the woods. And so I had to carry my brand spanking new bike out with a bent tire. I had to face my parents because I broke the bike on the first day. And I You, it gives you resiliency.
Bob Howarth:It sure does. You know,
Jamie Howarth:it's not like, our kids now where they just pick up the phone. Oh, mom. You know, we're out here and I bent my, my wheel of my bike. Okay, son. I'll be right there to get you. You know, I had to, yeah, I had to work for it. I had to get my bike out and then I knew there were consequences on the other end of it because I was doing stupid stuff with my brother.
Bob Howarth:Yep. We've all been there.
Jamie Howarth:So I feel like the resiliency, while, you know, the eighties weren't all great things. I do think that it created. A generation of people who are who, who do have that resiliency a little bit more than the later generations. That's not a bad thing because we are exposing them to less trauma and we're more aware of it. It's just knowing that the job still has trauma that hasn't changed.
Bob Howarth:Right.
Jamie Howarth:It's still. It is still trauma filled. Like we can't, we're still facing the same things that we were in the eighties and the nineties. Right. Like you, when you were starting in the fire service, like trauma still hasn't changed.
Bob Howarth:No, not at all.
Jamie Howarth:So they still have to be mentally and emotionally resilient to it. So that's what I have on.
Bob Howarth:Okay.
Jamie Howarth:That's what I have on mental health. Do you have anything to add with that?
Bob Howarth:No, I think you hit it all.
Jamie Howarth:Okay.
Bob Howarth:Well, I think we're good.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah go to darley.com/essay contest. You have plenty of time. To write three or four pages, double space, get your thoughts down. It's completely anonymous. They take it, they, they add numbers to it. The judges, there's 12 of us. We grade it on a rubric and then we come together to decide who the top three are. So I'm really looking forward to reading these essays and I think it's gonna be fantastic.
Bob Howarth:And I do think one of the things they look for in the essay is innovation, not just regurgitating statistics completely and things like that. So even though it's the last day. Put your thoughts down, you know, be genuine in what you're saying. If you don't have a lot of references, don't worry about that. Right. Make it make sense to you and let them see what they think.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. I didn't have one reference actually, right. It was all from my brain, personal experience. And then things that I have done at my level for leadership.'cause that was what my topic was on. You know, what, what things have you done, you know. We're, we're here to read it and I'm really looking forward to it. Okay. I know that that was like
Bob Howarth:half the podcast, 15 minutes.
Jamie Howarth:But it was such a good conversation to talk about with mental and emotional resilience. And I think it's important that I. We were just able to tie that together with the Darley contest.
Bob Howarth:Sure.
Jamie Howarth:So what we are gonna talk about today is emergent versus non-emergent operations in your leadership style. The fire service military police it's very unique because you can be sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner. And then suddenly you're racing down the road to a house fire with people trapped. And that same person that was sitting down, cutting up with you, laughing at the dinner table is the same person that's gonna lead you into that fire and who is going to to be there with you through the process. The person you have to trust the team that you have built and. It is hard to, it's such a strange line between emergent and non-emergent because they still have to look at you and see you as the boss.
Bob Howarth:Absolutely. Every day.
Jamie Howarth:Every day. They
Bob Howarth:have to know you are the boss.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. But there are different levels of being the boss when you are in non-emergency situations. Mm-hmm. And I really feel like. I feel like we actually do the emergency situation part. Well, we have a chain of command. You're, you're in an environment where you're making quick decisions. Everybody is doing their part. We have SOGs, so we have, you know, essentially until the battalion chief gets there. Once the battalion chief gets there, then it's command driven, but you still have. Processes in place, and it is called command and control. And that's what you operate under when you go back to the firehouse. It is still where you are, the designated adult, the person that's the leader, the person that's in charge, but you can't live under command and control. And I say, go do this 24 hours, that's gonna burn out people.
Bob Howarth:But it, what it does do though, you talk about emergency situations and having that command presence. Everybody listening that's been in the fire service can think of a name wherever they are, of someone who was not in a command position but had a command presence. That was so good that a weak leader became a subordinate, and that is something that a leader on an emergency situation cannot let happen. Of the responsibility they have. Command presence can be a huge thing on a on fire grider, but it doesn't work as well. It can be a better presence in non-emergency because now you don't wanna live that 24 7 on top of them forcing everything. But now you have another person who has some strong leadership tendencies, but may not be in that leadership position who is now. Able to express that leadership to the people below or to the equals of them. And it does make it a better situation for you as the ultimate boss.
Jamie Howarth:So there's a misconception that the leader is the person with the bugles and it's not anybody can be a leader. Anybody can step up and take responsibility work hard, lead by example, and there are. You know, leaders in the firehouse. My, the first thing that comes to mind for me is usually like the senior firefighter or the driver. Like people, you don't wanna bother the boss'cause it's not that big of a deal. Those are the people that they go to and it is important to still have difficult conversations with people if you are the officer. Even as the driver, right? We have a new firefighter. They made a mistake on the call. The officer came back, they're doing X, Y, and Z. There's nothing that says that. As a driver, you can say, Hey man you know, do you wanna talk about it? Do you want different techniques that, that you can put into place so that it can be better next time? It's really a team effort, and the, the person that is in charge, the officer, they do have to allow room for that to happen. They can't allow so much room that they're being walked all over. And that's what I talk about with like the fine line
Bob Howarth:Yes.
Jamie Howarth:Is you get back to the firehouse, you wanna create a space where they can decompress good for their mental health. Right. They don't get burnout. They're able to take a rest mentally and physically, but at the same time you, you can't let'em walk all over you.
Bob Howarth:No. And it's a good place to do that back at the firehouse. It's also a good place for those leaders in other positions to show others that they're still listening to you ultimately, and that gives another person, if you take a driver and you have a talk with a driver and say, Hey, can you talk to so-and-so about, you know, the way they pulled that line or the way they did that, and the driver goes and talks to them. Then that person sees the driver doing things right, knowing that you are watching what they're doing. It gives them the ability to say, Hey, you know what, that, that's a well-respected quote unquote leader, but still follows what the boss is saying. Yeah. And it does build confidence right up the chain, right up the leadership chain.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. And it's, you know, doing the right thing. It's like the cliche, right? Doing the right thing when nobody's looking. And I would hope that I'm building a team that when I am off for a few shifts and I'm on vacation and they respond on a call, that they're listening and following the rules and regulations and the SOGs, the way that they're supposed to, that they are doing what they're supposed to in the firehouse, and that they're able to handle the problems as they arise. Just as they do when I'm there.
Bob Howarth:Well, it's interesting that you say that because do the right thing. A lot of times has to be thought about in, are you doing the right thing by the rules and regulations, or are you doing the right thing by the mission of the fire department? Because there can be a difference.
Jamie Howarth:Okay. Well, I kind of feel like your rules and regulations should support the mission.
Bob Howarth:It's the smaller things, the rules and regulations support the overview of the mission. Always not a problem, but it's the smaller things. For example, how many fire departments, including the one we worked for many, many years ago had a policy that they did not treat animals in the back of the Medicaid. That used to be a hard, fast rule. You couldn't take a dog that was pulled out of a fire, put'em in the back with medic and provide oxygen to him. You were gonna get in trouble for that. So the right thing by the rules and regulation was not to do it, but the right thing by the mission is you do it and the public perception becomes you are trying to help everybody and everything. And that results in the change in a rule,
Jamie Howarth:right? That was gonna be my, yeah, it
Bob Howarth:results gonna change, but you have to be. A leader that's willing to do the quote unquote right thing and apply it, whether it's the right thing on paper or the right thing in public perception, and there is a limit to that because the right thing in public perception can get you in a lot of trouble.
Jamie Howarth:I would have to understand the why behind that role and because there are some. Policies that are put into place that I did not fully understand, right. That are, I don't think are a big deal, but let's say the chief, you know, they think it is a big deal and I have to just trust that they put that in place. And if I, if I do have a different idea about it, then I go and I talk to my shift commander. And then they bring it up to the bigger bosses, and that's how you affect change with it. I, I would really have to understand the why behind that specifically. And the only thing I can think of is people would get sidetracked with the animal and not focus on the people.
Bob Howarth:So sometimes those rules are put into place because of a legislative mandate. Sometimes those rules are put into place because someone well above the fire department says you can't have animals in a medical situation and. You have to, that's what the mandate says. That's the law. And then you do that, and then somebody starts to publicly say to their politicians that they've elected the constituents, go to them and say, that's crazy. We have now we have oxygen masks for dogs. We have pet oxygen masks. Yeah, no, I like that. Right. We have all those different things that came about because constituents had. Politicians changed the legislative side of it, but it would've never come of that had someone not said, I don't care what the law says in this one. I have to take care of this.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. And I'm not a real fan of going against policies and procedures, but in we're talking about that example. Yeah. Yeah. Just this example. Do have another, another point to that. In that specific example, then I would just treat the dog on the sidewalk with oxygen instead of putting it in the back of the medic. Can people allergic to dogs? People have religious reasons why they do that. Mm-hmm. And so that's what I'm saying is like I really would need to understand the why behind it because you might be doing what's in the best interest of some constituents but not others. So for me, I would have to think of all parts with it. With that being said, there, there are plenty of things that come up. That we don't have rules and regulations for that. We have to make decisions on every day. And, you know, the public can complain about stuff that they also don't understand. When I make decisions in the firehouse, in not emergent situations, because the decisions can be, I can take my time, I can look into them, I can research them, I can understand the why. And the very first thing I ask myself when something comes up is. Do we have a policy on this? Is there a policy? Because the example that I can give is the American flag on the back of a right. A piece of apparatus, right? We don't have a policy on whether or not we can or can't do that, but every once in a while somebody does bring it up or somebody complains about it. And I think we are in a non-emergency situation, we have to consider both the public and the personnel. And so the first thing I ask myself is. Is there a policy,
Bob Howarth:right?
Jamie Howarth:In that case, no, there's no policy. Should there be a policy, maybe there should be a policy for specific ways or specific flags and how they should be placed on the apparatus. And that's something that you learn from as you go, right? That's when policies are made in those situations so that everybody's on the same page. So then, you know, that's, that's not a priority right now. We just know we have to address that later and. Then you take those ethics, those morals, those values, you consider all of those things and you make an informed decision because you're in a non-operational situation. We train and we focus and we build our teams up. The firehouse so that when we go out to emergent situations, we are able to give command and control and give orders and, and people are efficient at their job. And we have high functioning teams, which is ultimately what I strive for. First of all, nobody wants to be embarrassed.
Bob Howarth:No.
Jamie Howarth:Right? Like, you don't wanna be that guy that. You know, you show up and you're fumbling pulling a 200 foot line or something like that.
Bob Howarth:And with social media, the opportunity to be embarrassed is Yes. More than it ever has been
Jamie Howarth:again. Right. Evolution.
Bob Howarth:Yeah.
Jamie Howarth:Just to be able to, to have those high functioning teams, but how do you get from point A to point B? It's not on those emergency calls. The work happens in the firehouse, but people have to feel comfortable. To ask questions, to make mistakes, to grow in their positions. You know, we have a, an officer promotion process coming up and I try to put, and I've asked this of my officers, those firefighters that are applying for that position. When they're, when we're in training, put them in that leadership position, make them uncomfortable. It's a place where they grow, they understand your position, and they're able to, to grow into the position they're going into instead of, you know, doing well on the assessment center, doing well on the test, and then they've, they've never, you know, they rarely ride a fire engine. Which we've changed that in my department. We, we have a great rotation schedule now but nonetheless, like they have to grow into it and you have to create an environment where they feel valued, where they feel like you care about them as a person. I like to know about the people that work for me. I'll go sit at the firehouse and just say, Hey. You know, nice to meet you. If there's somebody that's detailed in or a new rookie, did you volunteer before? Kind of what's your story? Do you have a family? And one of the reasons that I do that is because when we do go emergent, I know exactly what's on the line. And that is something that is there in the forefront of my mind. And that's what drives me. That's what drives me to make sure I'm, I'm pushing myself. I'm training and I'm making decisions and I'm putting the effort in as well.
Bob Howarth:Well, that, you know, we've heard for the last couple years to create safe spaces. Yeah. You know, we want the person to feel safe coming to you. I don't particularly care for the word safe in that situation. Yeah. I think that instead of feeling safe, we need to make people feel comfortable coming to you because if they're comfortable coming to you, whether you say yes or no, they're gonna be okay with it.
Jamie Howarth:Well see, and that's, that's where the line gets funky, right? There are also people who feel very comfortable coming to you and telling you your, their point of view, and you give them the why and they argue with you and they argue with you and they argue with you. Because they only see it from their perspective
Bob Howarth:and they're not providing legitimate. Arguable reasons why the decision you are making or the policy is, I don't wanna say wrong, is less correct than what they're trying to get across to you. Because the policy is gonna address 99% of the situations, and in that 1%, it's okay for them to be comfortable and say, but what about this in this case? And when you say, we still can't do that. Here's the why.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah.
Bob Howarth:It's over.
Jamie Howarth:Right.
Bob Howarth:You know,
Jamie Howarth:that's the thing that I, I have, I don't wanna use the word failed on, but I have not reached my full potential sometimes by allowing those conversations to continue on longer than they should, as, as the person that's all ultimately making the decision. And then I feel like in those physicians, they start to lose some respect for you because. You're not standing up and saying, no, I am the person in charge. And I do think something comes along with that. Even though they may not like it, they can find comfort in knowing you can make a decision.
Bob Howarth:Right.
Jamie Howarth:And so as I grow in my position, I have been really focusing on, I do think in non-emergency situations, it is important to tell them the why.
Bob Howarth:Absolute.
Jamie Howarth:Just like we just talked about with the dog, like I'm trying to process that with a policy and I'm like. I need to understand the why behind it. But then if somebody comes to me and, and I say, well, you can't put dogs in the back of the medic unit because people are allergic it, there's not a sterile environment in the back of the unit. People have religious reasons that we could be violating. And that's why you can't put the dog in the back of the medic unit. So of course we want you to treat the dog or treat the dog on the sidewalk, and they go, the dog is just as important, and we're gonna put the dog in the back of the unit. And they just go back and forth, back and forth. Then you go, no, right. I've given you the reasons why. I'm sorry that you can't see the bigger picture, but this is the policy and this is how it's gonna be played out.
Bob Howarth:But you know what's really funny is between emergent and non-emergent, using the dog example. You just said people are allergic, religious reasons, all that. Most of those things, when I think about that, came from a non-emergent situation that we dealt with in our former community. Where they wanted to have At the end of the year, yes, at the end of the summer, they wanted to take the pool and before they put the cover on, open the pool up for one day for everybody to bring their dogs. Let their dogs swim. The community. Yeah, the community pool. It was the dogs swim.
Jamie Howarth:Which I was all for,
Bob Howarth:and the amount of pushback that they got for legitimate reasons was things that I never thought about.
Jamie Howarth:Right. Exactly. And that's why I think, especially in non-emergent situations, instead of firing back and making a hasty decision, you have the time to consider all things. I do that on a regular basis when it comes to just managing my day-to-day stuff. I have seven different stations and 42 personnel who have seven different needs. 42 different needs. All of them have different needs. The different stations, the seven different stations have different needs. So I have to juggle that and I have to determine what the priority is for that day, how I'm gonna make adjustments. Staffing is also something that comes up and it's important, I just recently had a conversation about staffing and when I, I considered, I considered their perspective. They had somebody detailed out that they wanna pull back, and I listened to what they were saying and it really came down to, well, one of them is senior, well, they're 18 months senior. They spend six of the eight shifts in the firehouse, and the other one only spends two shifts in the firehouse, the one that spends eight shifts in the firehouse. Is the one that got detailed out, but they're also only working from 5:00 PM to 7:00 AM Right. And they've already filled the overtime spot for the first 10. So I, I took all of the information, I considered their perspective, and then I made a decision. And, you know, it is a little ugh, you know, but, but, but, and I get it right, because you wanna defend your people. Like, I love that about my officers. Like they definitely go to bat for their people and I am ultimately the one that has to decide the importance of making those moves and, and how that would affect the, the bigger picture. So I explained to them the reason why like, look, 18 months, they spend a majority of the time not being roving around. They're only gonna be there from 5:00 PM on. Beyond that, unless you come back at me with something that is, that is a relevant thing. That's it. The, the conversation is over.
Bob Howarth:Right. Something that you don't know,
Jamie Howarth:right?
Bob Howarth:They have to bring to you something that you don't know and you didn't have to use in your decision making.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah, and I tried to, when officers contact me and say, Hey, can we switch this person and that person, and they feel more comfortable in this firehouse. I don't ever mind doing that. Unless it affects other people, it affects the mission, it affects the priorities that I've set for, for the shift. Then I, I have to reconsider it for that specific occasion. And, you know, for new officers or officers in the firehouse, that's something that you need to consider too. When you are making decisions, when you set your priorities for the day, when it comes to training, when it comes to in-service inspections, when it comes to cleaning the firehouse, when it comes to all of those things. There is gonna be stuff that comes at you because we are in emergency services. There's always stuff that comes up that like derails your day and you have to start learning the priorities, having difficult conversations with people. And nothing says that you can have difficult conversations and not be approachable.
Bob Howarth:Right.
Jamie Howarth:And I also feel like there's a misperception there that. If I have difficult conversations with you, you, you feel like I'm coming down on you, and then it's, I'm not approachable. You could be both.
Bob Howarth:Right?
Jamie Howarth:And the way that you be both is you, you grow that bond when you're training. You grow that bond at the dinner table. You grow that bond by not only having difficult conversations with them, but having other conversations with them too. Giving them praise when it's needed right when it's due. Don't just criticize and. Still have the difficult conversation'cause it's just as crucial. Both, both sides of that are, are just as crucial.
Bob Howarth:And I think all of those things that you just said about the dinner table, about, you know, conversations, et cetera, goes right back to exactly what I said earlier of they need to be comfortable with you. It doesn't mean that you're not gonna make a decision they don't like it doesn't mean you're not gonna have a hard conversation with them, but they have to know that. They need to be comfortable to come to you when it's time to talk, whether you're requesting them to come to you or they're gonna come to you and understand that what you're doing is in the best interest of someone. They may not see it from their seat. Yeah. But you're gonna see it from your seat. I
Jamie Howarth:see that so much more now. And my position, so the battalion suites, we are located in a firehouse and we run out of a firehouse. So I have a role there. I really, I love the crew that's at that station. Like, they're just really great people. And then of course, like the surrounding stations, when they're driving by, they pull up on the ramp and they come in and I, I leave my door open, my door's open, come on in and sit down and we'll talk about your new kid. And we'll talk about life, and we'll talk about the promotional process, and we'll talk about the reason why I did something on a call, or if you have a question. If my door's closed, you need to call or text me,
Bob Howarth:right?
Jamie Howarth:I don't come in my office when my door's closed. But I do think that's kind of, that is a view of setting boundaries and being both approachable and still having that command presence.
Bob Howarth:Yes, absolutely.
Jamie Howarth:So then the question here is how do you transition from emergency to non-emergency leadership from authoritative?
Bob Howarth:How do you transition each time or how do you transition in general? In general?
Jamie Howarth:In general. What are some good tips for our listeners where they can implement skills to understand both?
Bob Howarth:If I'm
Jamie Howarth:asking this question correctly,
Bob Howarth:first thing I would say is whether it's emergent or non-emergent, own your decision. When it's an emergent situation and you make a decision, it's not always gonna go the way you want. There are gonna be times when you say, I want you to take that line to the second floor when it's not going to do what you saw in your head, and they're gonna run into this situation. You may have to pull them back and go in somewhere different, whatever, but you have to own that decision you made. I made that decision to send to the second floor because this is what I envisioned happened. The same thing when you get back to the station and you're in that. Non-authoritative position, and someone says, Hey, you know, I, I wanna wear Baltimore Ravens hats. Yeah. You know? And you say, no, we can't do that, and here's why. And are you gonna be unpopular? Sure you're gonna be unpopular a little bit, but. You made that decision and you owned it and you explained why. Yeah. And it's not authoritative at that point. Yeah. It's, this is just what we're gonna do.
Jamie Howarth:That's a respectful thing.
Bob Howarth:Yeah. So that would be one of the things I would say is own your decisions, whether it's emerging or not emerging.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. I think that's a, that's a great tip is you also have to be vulnerable. They're gonna be vulnerable with you. You do have to be vulnerable with them some too. You have to be humble. You have to own your mistakes. Hey, I'm human too. I'm not up on this pedestal. We all make mistakes. Let me tell you the mistakes I made. How can we make it better? I, I just recently did that on a fire. The first two engine I got on location the same time they did, and I did my brief initial report and I kind of jumped in and as soon as I did it, I was like, Ugh. I should have just let them work through their process. The damage is done now. And when we got back to the firehouse and some time had passed, I brought them into the office and I was like, Hey, I can tell that I screwed up your process and I'm really sorry for that.
Bob Howarth:But you owned it. Yeah. That you screwed it up. Yeah. Yep.
Jamie Howarth:And I let them know like, okay, for the next time, this is what I'm gonna do. If we get on location at the same time. Don't even look at me in your rear view mirror. Continue with your VR and 360. That'll give me an extra couple seconds to, you know, get it together to, to size up the building. And then once you complete your 360, then I will establish command. And that's an agreement that we came to. But she kind of felt like she had screwed it up because I threw her off for game. Yep. And I wanted her to know, like, look, it's. I own that one. And so that's just one example. Another way that I do where I transition from emergent to non-emergent is when we run high acuity calls, high stress calls everybody's adrenaline's pumping. So when I get back to the firehouse, take a shower I, my door closes like I need some time. This is company officer level too, right? You close your door. Take some time to process what just happened.
Bob Howarth:Take a breath.
Jamie Howarth:Take a breath. Especially if you need to address something that happened on the fire ground or, or that happened on the call. Like if you need to address or correct a behavior, do not do that as soon as you get back to the firehouse. You need to be able to give yourself time to transition back to your adrenaline being back down your epinephrine dump. All of that fun stuff because if you don't, the conversation is not gonna go well and it's not gonna be productive. And that is something I had to learn. I can think of several instances where I was really angry about stuff that was just like, I can't believe this happened. Like this is just ridiculous. I can't believe they did that. And I had one of the drivers come into my office. And he really wanted to talk to me in that moment,
Bob Howarth:not a good time.
Jamie Howarth:And I was like, listen, I need some time before we sit down and discuss it. Because I want it to be a productive conversation where we both hear each other and so I just need 30 minutes before we can sit down and talk. If you address those things on the fire ground or as soon as you get back to the firehouse you just run a higher risk of it being. Unproductive.
Bob Howarth:Right. You can't let it go too long.
Jamie Howarth:For sure. And and it has to be addressed
Bob Howarth:well, and you don't necessarily have to address the whole thing right away. Right. But you have to acknowledge that it's going to be addressed. And then it may be a shift or two later that you really sit down and address it. Yes. But you can't let it just fester. You have to let'em know that, hey, we both had a role in this and we need to have a discussion about it, but it's not the right time yet. Next shift, we'll talk about
Jamie Howarth:it. I'm not ready. I'm just not in the head space to hear everything I need to hear, and I, I truly believe that people show up to work and have the intentions of doing the right thing.
Bob Howarth:Mm-hmm.
Jamie Howarth:I truly believe that.
Bob Howarth:It's rare that someone doesn't have for sure good intentions,
Jamie Howarth:but it's frustrating when you've said to them 17 times don't do that, and then they do it.
Bob Howarth:The other thing going the opposite way, going from non-emergent to emergent. When a subordinate or a coworker comes to you with a question that doesn't really need a decision made, because everybody knows what the right decision is, showing confidence in that person goes a long way into the emergent situations, right? Now in private industry, I don't have to deal as much with the emergent situation, but what I do have to deal with is we can be talking today about something you're asking me about, you know, debris, samples or something like that, and tomorrow you could be on a hundred million dollars loss,
Jamie Howarth:right?
Bob Howarth:That's a different kind of emergent situation.
Jamie Howarth:Stakes are different,
Bob Howarth:but when someone calls me, it just happened today. An investigator called me and said, Hey. Here's the situation I'm in. I'm not really sure what to do, but this is what I think I should do. And I replied back and said, I don't know why you're calling me. You made the perfect decision. Go ahead and do what you think you're gonna do. That instills confidence in them so that when they're on that a hundred million dollars loss, and I say to them, you have to do this. They're confident that I believe in what I want them to do.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah, and they could just be calling you. For reassurance, that's
Bob Howarth:what they're doing most times.
Jamie Howarth:And to, for you to just say to them, you're, you, you're right, you're right. Our division chiefs and, and sometimes our ops chief will come on the calls. And on my last far the ops chief got in very calm, very calm voice. And it was really reassuring for him to say to me, like. Yep. Keep going.
Bob Howarth:Right.
Jamie Howarth:It it just like, okay, all right, this is going well. I have no doubt if it wasn't that either the shift commander or the off chief would step in, but just having that reassurance of Yep, yep. You, you covered all your t you know, you cross your T's and dot your is, and, and hearing that just it does start to boost your confidence
Bob Howarth:and if you have confidence in them, non-emergency. When you tell them to take that line to the second floor, they'll know that you have confidence in them accomplishing what you want them to. For sure. And that's important as a leader in an emergent situation, right? You don't want, you don't want the crew you're assigning to look at you and say, I don't think she thinks we can do this. Because if they think that they'll not, they will not accomplish it. But
Jamie Howarth:I also don't wanna look at those people and say, I don't think they can do this. Nope. And that's where non emergent comes in, right? Yep.
Bob Howarth:Yep. You build it up before you ever get to the emergent.
Jamie Howarth:Yes. And that's why non-emergent leadership is so important.
Bob Howarth:Mm-hmm.
Jamie Howarth:So hopefully we have, have given our listeners some things to chew on. Don't take your bikes to Peewee Canyon. It's dangerous.
Bob Howarth:Yeah. It's. Hmm. For those of you that are listening and have been around for a little while my mom a wonderful mother, but I wrecked my bike more than once and had to call her at work to come home because I thought the hospital was a hundred miles away and really the hospital was only 10 miles away, but nobody wanted to drive there. And if you're familiar with ro, that was my mom's. Reason to stop you from doing dumb things. She would slather on the merome. It hurt worse than anything you could imagine. Treated the injury and you didn't do it again'cause you didn't want to face that
Jamie Howarth:child abuse. So today that would be child abuse
Bob Howarth:Today, it may be, but back then it was treating the wound.
Jamie Howarth:It did effectively do its job.
Bob Howarth:Absolutely. I never rode someone on my handlebars. The second time after we had a bad wreck.
Jamie Howarth:You know, that's an interesting analogy almost, right? Like. Y you can either do it the hard way or the easy way. Ultimately, she's going to Yeah. She's giving you the resources you need to heal the wound.
Bob Howarth:Oh, there was no infection.'cause that stuff killed everything.
Jamie Howarth:Yeah. So like hypothetically. Yep. But it's gonna hurt in the process. And that is growth in leadership. Yeah. Basically. And, and an analogy.
Bob Howarth:Absolutely.
Jamie Howarth:All right, well thank you for tuning in with us. I don't wanna make any promises on our next one. We try to do them biweekly. However, we're busy. We have a lot going on with the twins. It should calm down a little bit now that softball and baseball is coming to an end. So just thanks for hanging in there with us. We hope that we've given you some stuff to think about and to take back to the firehouse and, and just have a discussion around the table with. Any last thoughts?
Bob Howarth:No. Just let your, let your people that you are leading understand where you are coming from. Let them become comfortable with you, but let them know you're going to make a decision.
Jamie Howarth:Great. You're still the boss.
Bob Howarth:Yep.
Jamie Howarth:Alright. Until next time. Thanks everyone.
Bob Howarth:Thank you