Overcoming Conflict with Personnel in the Fire Service

When someone takes a promotion, arguably, they take it hoping to contribute for the better to both the role and their department. Knowing that people take the role with the aspiration to do well, why is poor leadership cited so often in departments across the nation?

The EAR model

The EAR model is a practice that ideal officers utilize frequently within their own leadership style. The name serves as a reminder to officers that they should be listening. It’s the job of officers to take in all information unbiasedly and process it, followed by making a plan of action, implementing the plan, evaluating the results, and either changing the course of action or, hopefully, having a resolution. It also is called the EAR model as an anagram for engagement, advocate and respect. The EAR model is a great way to overcome conflict with your personnel.

Engagement

A bored firefighter is dangerous. When firefighters get bored because of lack of calls, training, whatever the case may be, the boredom begins to produce an environment in which negativity can grow.

Engaging firefighters is simple. It starts with talking to them. Learn their interests, what they believe must be changed within the department, what training sounds interesting. By utilizing a laissez-faire style, officers can give members, for example, the ability to determine in what order the station chores need to occur. Is there a different way to deploy a hoseline that they’re interested in trying? Is there a new construction in town that everyone could tour?

Firefighters who feel as though their company officer communicates well with them and engages them often have a sense that the officer buys into the crew. It’s important for the company officer to not hide in the office and to be part of the team.

Advocate

All too often, leaders are gatekeepers of information. Nevertheless, one of the largest complaints across fire departments is lack of communication. Now, there absolutely are times when retaining information is appropriate, but much of the time, information should flow freely from the top of the organization down to the rank and file. This keeps rumors to a minimum and helps morale.

Frequently, leaders don’t advocate for their people as part of this gatekeeping. The leaders might believe that a member’s idea is inadequate or that it goes against their own belief. It’s possible that they just don’t want to say the wrong thing to their own supervisors. This is where it’s imperative that leaders remember that they are in their position to serve their personnel.

Try to share members’ ideas or suggestions with supervisors as much as possible. If something doesn’t seem like the best idea, talk it through with the firefighter and, maybe, come up with an alternative. This would get buy-in from the firefighter, because you engaged and now will advocate a collective idea that the member helped contribute to.

At the end of the day, officers’ responsibility is to the people who they serve. That means the public and the firefighters that work for them.

Respect

Respect is the simplest yet one of the most overlooked portions of the EAR model and in leadership.

Respect each other. This is as simple as officers not being on their phone when a firefighter is talking to them or taking the time to help firefighters clean the kitchen after dinner. Although an officer might have his/her own work to complete, doing these types of things show members that the officer still is one of them and is willing to do the work.

Issues that leaders face

Poor communication is a large issue. Some of this is because of size of the department, but often it’s just a lack of free-flowing information.

One thing that I’ve seen that’s helpful is a “Chief’s update” or “Station update,” where information is passed down either departmentwide or on a station level, so all crews are on the same page with anything that’s occurring. This could be new pieces of equipment in service, budget information, hiring, etc.

Another issue that’s difficult to combat is the rise of online training. Online training certainly is the way of the future and is here to stay. There are numerous benefits to online training. Finding the appropriate balance is key.

Ensure that for every hour of online training that occurs, there’s an hour of hands-on training. Online training shouldn’t be the be-all and end-all for departments.

Ownership

Above, it was noted that poor leadership is voiced as an issue nationwide. Why is this so common? It’s because the negative folks are always the loudest. Every department has them. This is why it’s important for officers to engage them, to see what they think the issues are, to ask how they would fix them, to advocate for some of the fixes when they are reasonable and actionable.

Lastly, leaders should ensure that they always work to fix a problem that they come across. True, the officers might not have resources, but then the onus is on them to figure it out. Pass the problem along to the right person for the fix. Don’t be the person who leaves the mess for the next person to clean up.

The fire service requires ownership. Although NFPA standards change continually, roles and responsibilities are increasing. It’s paramount that fire officers strive to improve and lead from the front.