Quite a while ago, one of you kind folks out there in reader land took the time to share an important thought with me. After reviewing one of my early leadership commentaries back in the July 2000 issue of Firehouse magazine, one of my readers took the time to drop me a note and share his feelings with me. He was most generous in his praise of the research that had been done by the members of Harry’s Gang, an ad hoc group of people who responded to my call for fire service leadership thinking back in the days just after I retired from the Newark Fire Department in June 1999. I thought it was important to see what other folks felt about the topic of leadership, so I asked my readers for help.
At the end of his period of praise, he raised a question that I personally found most troubling. Nowhere on the list that was provided in that article, he noted, was any mention made of the concept of honesty. The groupthink had covered a wide variety of topics, but had failed to make any mention of honesty, in and of itself. It is just a guess on my part, but I feel that most people thought that integrity was an all-encompassing topic.
How many of you have heard the old adage about honesty being the best policy? This little axiom has served as a guidepost for me as I have grown and prospered within the fire service. The people with whom I associate on a regular basis believe as I do that we need to use truth as the center of who we are as people.
Much like beauty, truth is held hostage to the eye of the beholder, or, more correctly, the lips of the person uttering his version of the truth. Or, at the very least, the thrust of his concept of what he expects to pass for the truth as it departs from his lips. I once conducted a discussion on this particular topic with a friend from the world of public school education.
During that conversation, I mentioned that I was forced by the limitations of my own brain to stay with the truth. It would seem as though every time I journeyed into the world of creative alterations of the truth, I was caught, as they say, red-handed. When confronted by those in authority with a demand for an instantaneous explanation of my conduct, out would come the truth, flying as it were, from my parted lips.
My wife taught me an important lesson about truth during the early years of our marriage back in the 1970s. She often told me that when I was trying to pass off a fib on her, there would be a little sign that would light up and run across the front of my face, much like a flashing theater marquee. And what words did the marquee flash to the world? “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
My friend from the educational world agreed with my reasoning for using the truth. She, too, was a frequent victim of her own honesty. Unfortunately, there are many factions at work in the world that use falsehood and deception as their stock in trade. Lest you think that I am referring to spies, thugs, and thieves, I am not; I speak of the folks around you in your fire department.
Let me share an important thought with you at this point. During a political battle in 1861, Abraham Lincoln uttered these famous words: “Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.” Unfortunately, there are a number of people in the fire service who haven’t got a clue as to how to tell the truth. Just show up at any budget hearing where the fire chief is working to get a budget accepted.
It has long been my experience that there are a number of versions of the patented organizational falsehood process. Let me share a few that I have identified:
- Tailoring the truth to the person being addressed
- Tailoring the truth to the audience in front of the speaker
- Creating a separate version of the truth for the same individual in different circumstances
- Telling different stories to different members of the same organization
As you might imagine, I could have gone on at length with variations of each of these. And I am sure that you would be able to share stories that I have not heard. But these seem to be the basic overall schools of thought within the world of the organizational liar.
I do not want you to think that I am without sin. There are a number of whoppers for which I will have to answer when I approach the Pearly Gates for my date with Saint Peter. Some of these prevarications were deceitful, while others came upon me suddenly. Some were uttered to the police officer leaning into my car window. Others were presented to the charming Mrs. Carter as to why I was late getting home from the fire station. And there were still others that were shared with that charming young lady at the Asbury Park office of the Internal Revenue Service.
None of them was right. None of them was acceptable. And let me share with you that rarely did they work. I know they didn’t work with that charming IRS lady.
It is critical to cite Mr. Lincoln again at this point. He was once heard to say the following to a caller at the White House: “If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never again regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you can fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” Amen, Mr. Lincoln. Although I have met people who dearly loved to try to fool all of us all of the time, they were never really successful. They were seen for the deceitful louts they really were.
So why is it that people do not always deal in the truth? This is as tough a question to assess as any other problem involving fire department people, and society in general. Maybe even a bit tougher. I do know that many fire service managers think that those of us who make up the great, unwashed mass of rabble out in the fire stations are too stupid to deal with the truth. It is this lack of confidence in the troops that gets a great many officers into trouble.
Other officers are just plain afraid of their people. They feel threatened by the knowledge, skill, and enthusiasm of their troops. What better way to feel superior to other people who are better trained and motivated than to create an aura of secrecy around yourself? These people set up a web of lies around themselves much like a U.S. Army infantry attack team would set up claymore mines around the perimeter of their ambush area. The enemy is forced to run a gauntlet of explosions and flying steel to reach the troops. So it is with those unsure of their skills. We have to run the gamut of their lies trying to find the truth of their operational imperative.
They feel uncomfortable with the truth, or at least with the fact that their subordinates have a better handle on reality than they do. So it is that they weave an intricate web of deception around themselves and their office. They think that by burying us in bovine by-products they can keep us down. These people start to run things all by themselves, or with the assistance of a small band of rectal titillation experts. Since their ideas and their commentary have no base in reality, things often go bad. Unfortunately, when things start to go bad, because of their lies, things go really bad. And since the people who are doing the work can never get a straight answer, they are forced to work in ignorance.
It has been my personal experience that Aristotle was correct when he stated many centuries ago that “the least deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousand fold.” He may have been referring to the fact that the use of lies is much like the consumption of potato chips. I have yet to meet the person who really did eat just one. The same may be said about people who deal in falsehoods: each lie leads to a fresh reason for another lie.
Many times it seems that truth is a variable commodity. Much like beauty, truth is held hostage to the eye of the beholder. Or at least the thrust of truth as it departs from the lips of the person uttering his version of the truth. When I was discussing this with my friend from the world of elementary education, she outlined the following story for me.
There was an enrollment decrease and a cost increase in her school district. It seemed like the superintendent of schools lacked the intestinal fortitude to handle the realities of a possible layoff scenario. He wanted to be everyone’s friend and no one’s enemy, so he took to telling different people different stories of what was going to happen.
Given the contractual language involved, which is fairly standard for our state, this is not a difficult situation. The junior people are shown the door and the more senior people adjust their positions, based on their level on the seniority list. But apparently this superintendent couldn't seem to come to grips with the truth.
It was bad enough when he told the second-grade teachers one thing, the third-grade teachers another, and the kindergarten teachers still another. But he had gotten at the point where he was telling my friend a different story every day. And it seemed as though he had forgotten what he had said the day before.
Far too many people in positions of leadership think that everyone in subservient positions are far too stupid to remember what they were told yesterday. They go on their merry way, thinking that theirs is the only brain in the land of the supposedly stupid. Many of you might be thinking at this moment that my comments are overly harsh and demeaning. I am afraid that the reality of lies and deceit in many places is far worse than I could portray and remain believable.
One of the great benefits of the Internet is the immediacy of many of our communication interactions. If something bad happens to one of my regular correspondents around the country, it does not take him long to share his tale of woe with me. From what I have been able to gather over the past year or so, there are far too many people out there who do not have even a passing interest in the concept of truth. This is sad. Because in many instances, the focus of the individual who is doing the lying is so inwardly directed that I wonder why people like that ever bothered to become leaders in the first place.
However, like most observers of the human condition, I have a theory regarding why some people will lie, cheat, and steal (and I mean this literally and sincerely) their way to the top of the organizational heap in their fire department. I am beginning to believe that these are the people we made fun of back in high school. These were the people we picked on back in those days. They were the ones who said to us, “Just you wait and see, someday I’ll get you.”
The problem is that many times we are not the people they meant to get. We just happen to be people who end up in positions of subservience to these sad, demented people. And these people have become so used to lying and cheating their way up the food chain that truth has become an alien enemy within their camp.
There may be those among you who think I am just being cynical. Frankly, I think not. I am just a guy who is trying to stay on the right side of the line between the truth and the lie. I would urge you to join me, because the results engendered by truth are normally much better than those created by lies.
Let me close by saying the following to you. It was Aristotle who once stated that “all men, by nature, desire knowledge.” It was Harry Carter who once said, “Just tell me what’s going on, boss. Just tell me what’s going on. Don’t lie to me, man, just tell it like it is. I am not a mushroom. Don’t keep me in the dark and feed me fertilizer” (although I might have used a different noun).
People have a way of telling when their leader is lying to them. And once you get caught in a lie, you are done for. So start by using the truth, live according to the truth, and when you die, be remembered as a straight shooter. It is really as simple as that. Or, as the Masons are so proud of stating, “We arrive on the square and depart upon the level.”
Some study questions to ponder.
- What are two of the ways in which a falsehood can occur?
- Define honesty in terms that are relevant to you and your life.
- List and define two ethical problems that can occur because of Internet interactions.
- Each lie leads to a fresh reason to lie. What does this mean to you?
HARRY R. CARTER, Ph.D., CFO, MIFireE, a Firehouse.com Contributing Editor, is a municipal fire protection consultant based in Adelphia, NJ. Dr. Carter retired from the Newark, NJ, Fire Department and is a past chief and active life member of the Adelphia Fire Company. Follow Harry on his "A View From my Front Porch" blog. You can reach Harry by e-mail at [email protected].
