Empowerment is the process of enabling or authorizing an individual to think, behave, take action, control work and decision making in autonomous ways. It is the state of feeling self-empowered to take control of one’s own destiny. As a leader do you have an empowerment Attitude? The sum of every leader’s actions is the “environment” […]

Credibility refers to the objective and subjective components of the believability of a source. In the modern fire service credibility has two critical components that cannot be really faked; trustworthiness and expertise. Both of these are easily faked for a short period of time but they become transparent if you are faking them. Leadership credibility […]

Most everyone in the Fire Service is aware of the tragic chain of events recently in the Fairfax VA, Fire Department. A young female Firefighter missing, then found dead of apparent suicide amid rumors and allegations of misbehavior among colleagues, cyber bullying and harassment. An internet chat site with cruel and devastating remarks and personal […]

Over my 36 years of being involved in he fire service I have come to realize that leadership is much more than just a position. In fact leadership is a process that really has nothing to do with a position or rank but about a true desire to see others excel. For many years we […]

It has been said that we influence a number of people in our lifetime. Your circle of influence depends upon you as individuals and the area you may be in. It could depend upon the organization, rank structure, personal boldness or even other peoples’ willingness to be influenced. So with so many dimensions why is […]

            Please join the fire officer.com’s own Doug Cline on  Wednesday evening September 16, 2015 for another edition of Fire and Training on Fire Engineering Blog talk Radio.  Joining host Doug Cline will be two well know women in the fire service and Fire Engineerings own Lt. Angela Hughes, President […]

Knowledge is Power… Share It !!! This statement is often used by many including myself. So what does it truly mean? It means that you will freely give of your knowledge and wisdom to others withholding nothing. It never fails, I will see a leader of an organization trying to hold information and knowledge from […]

In Doug Cline’s previous posting: Shaping the Future “Creating Leaders in our Youth”  Part I he ended the with a question, “So officers are you shaping the fire service’s future?” Here’s his latest installment. I hope this prompted fire officers to intra-inspect themselves to see if they were shaping the fire service’s future. I further hope this generated […]

As we quickly approach a time when much of the fire service leadership will be retiring we are destine to face the loss of great leadership in the fire service. This could prove to be a tragedy for our profession or we can make it a positive bench mark. A lot is going to depend […]