I still get to fight fire every now and then, but these days I spend most of my time helping people

Wildfire Thoughts on Leadership – September 2002 This is an expanded version of a column first appearing as Thoughts on Leadership in the September/October 2002 issue of Wildfire magazine, the official publication of the International Association of Wildland Fire, published by Primedia Business Magazines and Media. Nine Leadership Practices I still get to fight fire every now and then, but these days I spend most of my time helping people learn to be leaders; interviewing people about safety, health and effectiveness in their organizations and facilitating boatloads of meetings. What I really get to do is a lot of listening. Listening to people’s concerns. So what are people talking about? Here in the U.S., fire folk are talking about the wisdom and implementation of the National Fire Plan, their inability to fill vacancies in their organization, the impending wave of retirements, rumors about continued funding, personal accountability, what might be wrong with the air tanker fleet and a fire season in which Mother Nature conspired with a handful of arsonists to make the National Fire Plan look pretty puny. Though expressed in all these different ways, people are concerned about the vision, the strategy, the values and the leadership of the organizations in which they toil. Lately, I have been disturbed by two related trends within fire agencies. First, what seems a growing attitude of hopelessness and helplessness. Second, the use of ...