Leaders at all progressive agencies have been engaged with increasing gender, racial and ethnic diversity over the past decade. Unfortunately, although a few gains have been realized, such as achieving some diversity in appointed leadership positions, there are many areas in which the pace of progress has been disconcerting at best.
In particular, the fire service continues to have lower-than-desired proportions of women or individuals from diverse groups represented in its ranks. The low representation can be attributed to many factors, even if leadership’s efforts are thoroughly well-intentioned in most cases.
Anchoring in
Diverse fire organizations are more innovative, provide better care and improve safety. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in 2021 means anchoring in the belief that our shared values for each other are more prominent than our individual values for ourselves. In other words, applying DEI organizationally implies that every person in the organization must start with a baseline of understanding bias, of recognizing our lenses, and of committing to treating everyone with dignity and respect, period. There are no shortcuts, checklists or seminars that will improve the organization.
To truly realize the potential of the DEI effort takes leadership, commitment and desire. Fortunately, those are values that the fire service already promotes in many existing mission and vision statements—but do they really set the stage for DEI?
Leading involves design
The act of developing an institutional framework and supporting infrastructure for organizations that will survive budget cuts is an art—and one that takes grit, effort and investment. DEI maintains its core values of equity, inclusion and dignity for everyone, and the leader’s role is to amplify and weave those values throughout the organization and community.
DEI isn’t simply about race, gender or ethnicity. DEI isn’t a person in an office who has a DEI title. It isn’t an appendix in a three-ring binder. DEI’s place in an organization should be an integrated component in every corner of the organization and in its work, its decisions and its strategic plan. A leader’s primary focus when endeavoring to integrate DEI philosophies should mimic the architect, who brings a level of intensity and creativity to the table to create a culture that will weather the worst of storms for many years into the future.
Start early
The positive influence of role models and of creating experiences on students who haven’t formed a realistic portrayal of public service can’t be overestimated. Using underrepresented incumbents to teach these programs to diverse groups is a force multiplier for organizations. In addition, the program can be developed so that it helps students to overcome myths and stereotypes about the fire service.
Organizations must review and refine their strategies continually to facilitate the capability to recruit all applicants. As such, an organization’s best recruiters are its incumbents. Therefore, a leader’s specific focus should be on obtaining recommendations and guidance from the incumbents who are part of the target population. In other words, look to people who view the organization through the same lens as potential recruits do. Talk to the incumbents, engage them and, most of all, listen to them.
An internal marketing mindset must be developed, so all organizational communication includes positive images that represent the organization’s successful underrepresented employees (not stock photos). Rarely will underrepresented candidates even consider a position in a high-performing and difficult field if none of the photo icons looks like them.
Our profession is highly influenced by family members, role models and the media. As a result, people often get misguided information on what it means to work in the fire service and the opportunities and challenges of the profession. To tackle the lack of information or inaccurate information, DEI strategies must focus on exposing the experience. Leaders must open the doors to the organization and connect to the community, which means storytelling in as many ways as possible—but they are most effective when the story is told through a DEI lens. If you value it, then talk about it, highlight it, be excited about it. If the value of DEI guides a leader, people can tell. If a leader just is trying to check a box and avoid the difficult work, people can tell that, too.
The selection of talent for a team is the only true legacy of a leader. Therefore, the selection process for new employees should be nothing short of fair and equitable. The entry process and exams must be the most contemporary and validated to avoid bias. The members of oral boards and assessment centers must be diverse. All communication should be developed to remove bias. In other words, the leader must remove artificial or bureaucratic barriers, so a fair and unbiased selection process can occur.
Finally, the leader is responsible and accountable for establishing and communicating the standard. When the standard is breached and the leader refrains from addressing the behavior, the leader will be faced with accepting the behavior and outcome by remaining silent or avoiding corrective action. Silence is concurrence, so behavior that breaches the standard becomes normalized and metastasizes throughout the agency and into the community. One must be prepared to take action, despite the fact that it might be the most difficult decision that one must make, particularly if the untoward behavior is an accepted part of the organization’s culture.
The leadership directive
Some will say that a leader’s determination to take on organizational DEI is a very personal, individualized decision that should be pragmatic and precisely measured to achieve success. In my experience, the decision most often is forced because of crisis or court order or is determined by a leader’s retirement date. Regardless of the reason why, you must act—now. As I write this, COVID-19 has decimated the aged, Latino and Black populations at confounding rates. The racial injustices that surrounded the George Floyd incident and so many others have affected organization’s cultures in ways that many of us never could have predicted. The January 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol is a massive tragedy that serves as an iconic illustration of the immense problem that we face.
I challenge each one of you to immediately engage with your people on the DEI platform to make a meaningful change—while you still can make a choice.
Brian Schaeffer
Brian Schaeffer is the fire chief for the Spokane, WA, Fire Department. His professional life spans more than 30 years in fire departments in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. Schaeffer serves on numerous local, state, and national public safety and health-related committees. He frequently lectures on issues that involve innovation, leadership and public safety technology. Schaeffer is a member of the Firehouse Editorial Advisory Board.
