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” […]

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 […]

National Safety Culture Change Initiative: Study of Behavioral Motivation on Reduction of Risk-Taking Behaviors in the Fire and Emergency Service Developed by the International Association of Fire Chiefs through a partnership with the U.S. Fire Administration {Excerpts} Controlling and extinguishing hostile fire comes at a great cost to human life and secondarily at great financial […]

As I reflect back over the years in my career there is one lesson I remember that resinates from my mentors, “If you put the organization first, then your wants and ambitions will soon follow. But it is always about the orgainization first, your suborindates second and you are last.” Well I have to often […]

            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 […]

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 […]

Communication always seems to be a root topic when it comes to leadership.  Whether it is lack of communications, no communications, over communicating or having tough communications the situation exists that communications is a critical factor.  When you are mentoring an individual you periodically need to have very forward and frank conversations with the individual […]

This article was originally published in 2014 by Scott Faith on the website; The Havok Journal (HERE) and is directed at change in the military and its affects and impact on the profession, its history, tradition, practices and mission. It was recently reposted on March 12, 2015 . After reading the piece, the parallels evoked by […]

History’s greatest achievements have been made by individuals who excelled only slightly over the masses of other individuals in their respective fields. I am reminded of this when you look at athletes. Most have significant levels of talent. The same is true for the fire service. Most of our personnel have strong predicated skills, abilities […]

We’ll further explore how as Christopher Brennan states; “Today’s firefighter must be a warrior who will unflinchingly put his very life in harm’s way to accomplish a mission, but who is also fully informed about the path being chosen”.