← Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table 
Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table
Ep. 69: Nick Langlow, Deputy Chief - Human Skills of Leadership
00:55:37
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- [00:02]
Nick Langlow
Whether you're an emerging leader, whether you want to be a leader, whether you're a formal leader within your organization of any rank, or you're the brand new firefighter. Like I said that the community sees as leaders from day one. I would say that every day you have an opportunity to make a difference, to make someone feel appreciated, valued, understood and cared for. And that every day you will encounter people who are battling through something you might know nothing about. Compassion does not take any clinical competence. It only takes intentionality that says I care and I'm here. They may not remember the words you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel. And we lead people and we manage processes. It's never the opposite.
- [00:59]
Podcast Host
Being rescued from a three story apartment building. The First Responder Liaison Network is proud to present to you the Kitchen Table Podcast. Join us as we explore leadership from perspectives around the globe. From firefighters to fire chiefs, civilians to CEOs, our conversations have one simple goal. Build more leaders. Good afternoon. Today we are back in Gig Harbor, Washington as we have Deputy Chief Nick Langlow on the show and the theme we're talking today is Human skills of Leadership. We're also going to talk leadership versus management, how they are different but yet both necessary. Also going to talk about how leaders have flaws and leaders are still learning. Thank you for tuning in Today to episode 69 of the Kitchen Table. Nick Langlow is the Deputy Chief of Operations for Gig Harbor Fire and Medic one. Gig harbor is a five station fully paid fire department in Washington State that serves a population of approximately 55,000 people and runs approximately 7,500 calls for service. They provide fire response, EMS and paramedic response and transport as well as technical rescue, wild land and more. Chief Langlo started his career with gig harbor in 2003 as a volunteer and was hired full time in 2006. He has served in the ranks of firefighter, lieutenant, battalion chief and now Deputy Chief. Nick has been married to his wife Nicole for 17 years and has two children, a 13 year old boy and an 11 year old girl. Chief Langlo and his wife grew up in Gig harbor and are proud to be raising their family in the very community that he serves. Good afternoon Chief. How are you today on this I'm sure beautiful day out there in Gig Harbor.
- [02:59]
Nick Langlow
It's I'm great. It is a beautiful day in Gig Harbor. I'm sitting in my office looking out the window and it's blue sky and there's green in the trees. It's full spring here.
- [03:07]
Podcast Host
It's Full on spring. I know. It's actually looking out my window and I can't even see a cloud. So what a beautiful month because it's May 1st. So, yeah, beautiful spring day. So I'm getting the sense here that Gig harbor has some phenomenal leaders. I say that now because Gig Harbor. I can, I can confidently say that Gig Harbor Fire now has the most guests on the kitchen table than any other fire department. So thank you for taking up Chief Booth's leadership challenge. That's how we're able to have this conversation today. But before we begin, would you mind sharing a little bit about Deputy Chief Nick Langlo before we go?
- [03:45]
Nick Langlow
Sure, of course. Yeah. So I'm 42. I just turned 42 about a month ago. Kind of skipped the birthday. You know, it's just another day on the calendar anymore.
- [03:54]
Podcast Host
I hear you. Mine's in two weeks. I hear you. Yeah.
- [03:56]
Nick Langlow
Happy birthday. So I turned to, like, part of my bio said, I, I grew up in Gig Harbor. I've been here my whole life. I started going to school in Gig harbor as a kindergartner, went through the whole public school System, K through 12 in Gig harbor, and got a four year Bachelor's degree at the University of Washington. So purple and gold, full husky. Nothing against Washington State, but it is the second best school.
- [04:20]
Podcast Host
Second best. I would agree. I would agree for sure.
- [04:23]
Nick Langlow
And then about halfway through my, my bachelor's, I'd gotten an associates. And then about halfway through my the last two years of school, I got hired on full time at Geek Harbor Fire. And so I'd been a volunteer, like we talked about, and started in 2003, and then got hired full time, quit going to UW Tacoma. I had about 50 or 60 credits left and then got hired at the fire department. And then my dad said, hey, I'm not going to pay for it, but you need to go back and finish your school. You're too close not to. And so I've been a pleaser my whole life, which is a whole nother podcast topic probably. But I did go back and I finished my four year degree, which I'm super proud of. And so, yeah, got a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary arts and sciences from UW and in Political economy. And I tell people that it got me my four year degree, finished without having to do lab science or math. So.
- [05:21]
Podcast Host
Wow.
- [05:22]
Nick Langlow
They're like, why political economy? So that's, that's kind of why.
- [05:25]
Podcast Host
Wow. There you go. There's a secret there.
- [05:27]
Nick Langlow
And Gig Harbor's been awesome. I'm super, you know, super partial. Right. It's the only place I've ever worked. Think it's the greatest place to work in the world. But I also know there's a lot of great fire departments out there. I would, I would definitely double down and say that, that being a firefighter has got to be the best job in the world. Other than maybe like a fighter pilot, I think would be pretty cool. But, but I've been super blessed in the fire department. I, I've, I made so many awesome relationships with people in and outside of the Gig Harbor Fire Department that have kind of shaped me and guided me and like, who I've become. I think that's probably, you know, pretty common in the fire service. Right. We just have such a, what I think is such a unique opportunity to like, live life together and, and, and like through life together, we're raising kids together, we're having, we're doing stuff outside of work together. We're around the kitchen table, you know, pun intended, with your, the podcast.
- [06:21]
Podcast Host
Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for sure.
- [06:24]
Nick Langlow
We're, we're at the kitchen table doing life together and just the, the community aspect of the fire service just been amazing, super blessed and super glad to be here and have no idea what I'm doing on a podcast, but I'm happy to be here and happy to, happy to start.
- [06:40]
Podcast Host
I appreciate that you're on the podcast simply because a great leader said that you would be someone that could add to the show. That's why you're here. So thank you. One of the main topics we are going to talk about, and I'm going to start with this, something that you had mentioned when we were going back and forth was leaders have flaws and leaders make mistakes regularly. And leaders are still learning. And that's how true is that statement. I certainly make mistakes every day. But regarding this being one of your talking points, can you lean on the concept of leaders always learn and why flaws are just a part of the process?
- [07:17]
Nick Langlow
I was given a presentation, so I got promoted to deputy Chief operations in January. And our training division chief had asked me if I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking to our officers at the beginning of January. So all of our officer corps, company and chief officers get together once a month, first Wednesday of the month for officer training. You know, we'll get updates from the fire chief. They'll have a training topic, strategy and tactics. And so I thought it was a pretty good kind of target rich environment or opportunity for me to sit down or stand up but in front of them and kind of address the group, you know, like, hey, I know you guys have known Nick for a long time, some of you guys, for 20 years, but I'm in a new role and, you know, maybe some of the, you know, things that are important to me or I want to know some of the things that are important to you, right? And you can tell me, like, you know, you're kind of, you know, given the opportunity, like, hey, gang up on me. You know, there's 30 of you and one of me, so why don't you fire away some ideas and. And things you want us to get better at, things you want us to make sure we're good at. And I did a PowerPoint, and the first slide I put up there as I was building the PowerPoint, I'll just read it to you now because I think it's pretty key to what we're talking about. I put it up there, and it. And it's got these big letters, and we're not. We're not doing video, but it's got this big. This big letters that says disclaimer. You know, kind of like warning. Like a warning sign. And what I put on here, this is right after the title side, it says, the following presentation was authored by a practicing leader. The speaker does not claim to be an expert, makes mistakes regularly, and although he strives for excellence, he is a human, and thus falls short of expectations more than the audience may know.
- [08:53]
Podcast Host
Wow.
- [08:53]
Nick Langlow
And I think every word in there is true, right? Like, I wrote it, and it's. It is me to me to the core. One of the things that I think, one of the reasons I wanted to. To put it out there was one, because it's, like I said, it's absolutely reality. And then the other one, I think was just to kind of communicate an acceptance or an opportunity to be vulnerable and kind of give people permission, right? Like, if the deputy chief of operations is willing to say, like, hey, I need grace and I'm going to make mistakes on a regular basis, give me a shot, you know, it's okay for them to make. Make mistakes, too. And so, you know, I thought it was kind of a, you know, kind of a good icebreaker, like, hey, I agree. Here's this warning sign. Like, you, you know, like, you may not have signed up for me in this position, but this is what you're kind of gonna get. And we're gonna. We're gonna. We're gonna navigate through it together, and I'm gonna make mistakes on a regular Basis and kind of giving them permission to make those same mistakes too.
- [09:51]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [09:52]
Nick Langlow
Mistakes.
- [09:53]
Podcast Host
Wow. That is. I actually wrote down right here. I'm taking notes. I know obviously we're not doing video, but I wrote down vulnerability. And then you said vulnerability. I. We talk about, you know, because, you know, whether it be core values, whether it's. You do an exercise where people like, well, you know, what's the most important thing in, in a leader? People always talk, you know, integrity, honesty, someone that's vulnerable. I mean, talk about just kicking it off with just some straight up honesty, vulnerability. And you said reality. I mean, that's got everything right there. So that's. I'm gonna try to copy that if you, if you don't mind.
- [10:22]
Nick Langlow
Please do. There's no copyright on the slide.
- [10:25]
Podcast Host
Please do. Yes. Right. Yet. Until, until this podcast episode gets published and the whole world will be. But I like that, Chief. And so how. If I can ask. I mean, well, not even just ask, but like you said, you're giving now permission to now those that follow, those that are, you know, with you, your peers, your subordinates, even people above you to say, you know what, the chief is willing and honest about making mistakes. Maybe it is okay that I make mistakes and yes, of course it is. And talk about just a way to kind of, you know, lay it out there kind of on your first day or at the beginning. And that's. I, I admire that. I'll just throw that out there. That's. That's pretty awesome. I'm going to lean on one thing real quick. When you started that, you said you do officer training once a month. Wow, I've never heard of that either. I mean, are you talking like one hour, three hours? That a full day thing? What is that?
- [11:16]
Nick Langlow
Yeah. So I suppose in the interest of full disclosure, we do skip July and.
- [11:21]
Podcast Host
August because we wonder why the only sunny months.
- [11:26]
Nick Langlow
July and August. Yeah. So we, we meet on the first Wednesday of most months, right. With the exception of a couple for, for kind of high use vacation and summer breaks. But we meet on the first Wednesday of every month from nine to noon. So three hours.
- [11:41]
Podcast Host
Wow.
- [11:42]
Nick Langlow
Our training division chief is in charge of kind of the, the agenda, the schedule, the flow of, of what we want to do topically every time we get together. And then we do. So that. And like I said, that's all of our. So we are company officers, which are lieutenants, and then in our rank structure goes from lieutenant to battalion chief. And so we invite all of our chief officers and then all of our lieutenants and we invite the, the acting company officers too that are on a promotional list. Anybody who's not working a day assignment and isn't on duty that day, we pay overtime for them to be there. That's like how important we think it is. Even those guys or gals that are on a promotional list will pay overtime to be there. It's not required. We don't like take attendance and require you to be at 80% of it. But you know, we have a kind of a, hey, we'd love for you to be there and unless you got something going on, we'd love to see you. And then the other thing we started a couple years ago, which has been really, really good, is we take three of those trainings every year and we push them down to the shift level so our battalion chiefs have an opportunity to get together with their five hard barred company officers and any actors on their shift and just get to meet, you know, the, you know, the six or eight of them get to get together and kind of chat about shift specific things that maybe are a little more topical to, you know, themes or goals or culture on their own shift. Right. We, we try pretty hard at the, at Gig harbor to be, you know, uniform in like, you know, the 35,000 foot level. But I'm also super, it's also super important to me that those battalion chiefs have the autonomy to like keep it between the wide goal post and then run your shift how your shift best runs. Right. You have anywhere from 25 to 30 humans that have different needs, wants, passions, desires. They have good days, they have bad days. They have different person, like personal, like situations going on that are both good and bad. And so I want those battalion chiefs to have the opportunity to like lead and develop and mentor at a smaller level. So we kind of reframed officer training a little bit and that was before me and we've just kind of continued that moving forward. It kind of started when I was in the battalion chief office and so that's kind of how officer training works for us. You know, we get the big group together probably about, you know, seven times a year. The three shifts get together three times a year, then we take a couple months off for summer.
- [14:20]
Podcast Host
That's, that's, that's amazing. I mean we talk intentionality a lot on this show and talk about the intent, like what are the goals? You know, one of our goals sounds like it's prioritizing officer training, officer development. And once a month, I mean that's, I mean that's a Big deal. It's. I mean, I can't even get together with my buddies to play golf once a month, let alone get a bunch of, you know, leaders of an organization all together in a room and talk about, you know, that's how. How do we become better? So that's. That's awesome. Three hours once a month, obviously take several months off around here. You talked a little bit about we're all humans. One of the other topics we'll talk about is human skills. And so we've heard this a couple times. We actually heard this a little bit from Scott Booth, who's on the show. And I love this because hard skills of the job is there. Always has been, always will be. But we don't necessarily see human skill development. Right. In other words, we'll call them soft skills. I know, it's just terminology. I know Scott doesn't like the word soft skills because the connotation is that, like, they're less important because they're soft or they're weak. Obviously not the intent, but human skills of leadership. So two questions on this is, number one, do you make time once a month to talk a little bit about that, that aspect of leadership and that aspect of development? Is you touch on that, or is it simply like company officer training regarding tactics and stuff like that, but also to lob it out there, even. Even more vaguely, is. Let's talk about the human skills, the importance of that in the fire service.
- [15:42]
Nick Langlow
Yeah. I think that we effort to be vulnerable and honest. I think organizationally we, we want to. And we can do a better job of leveraging some of our time to spend on human. The human skill. Right? The human skills, absolutely. I think, like you mentioned, the hard skills are 100 absolutely important. It is a, A vital piece of, of what we do. Pull and hose, vena roof, patient assessment, cardiac, like cpr. It's absolutely a piece of what we do, and we absolutely have to train on it. Right. So when I, when I talk about, or, you know, during this podcast or in other. In other venues, when I talk about, like, spending more time on human skills, it's. It's not meant to be like the detriment or like less important hard skills. Right, right. But at the same time, you know, since I got in the fire service in 2003, my goodness, I can't tell you how many hours we spent on hard skills, and we're still going to spend a ton of it. But as a leadership core, I think that once some of those hard skills become foundational. Right. And Almost like subconscious. Not to say that they're not perishable. We absolutely need to brush up on them, but maybe we don't need to spend as much like, as high a percentage of time on them. And in turn, we can spend some more time on kind of the human factors, the interpersonal, you know, dynamics of kind of how our folks are working. Because the reality is, too, and you know this as well as I do, that our firefighters, you know, we got crews on the street right now, and while they are using their hard skills, they're also using their human skills. Right.
- [17:24]
Podcast Host
Every day.
- [17:25]
Nick Langlow
Yep. Those men and women that Gig harbor have out on the street right now, they are unlikely to encounter a situation where they only have to use their hard skills, right?
- [17:37]
Podcast Host
Absolutely.
- [17:38]
Nick Langlow
They are going to have to use them in conjunction with the human skills. And they. They, in many cases, they probably need to even be more intentional about those human skills because those hard skills are going to come more innate.
- [17:51]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [17:52]
Nick Langlow
And those hard skills that they're using, they are using them to, like, manage a process or like an inanimate object, like a cardiac monitor or a hose line or a pump panel. Right there. It's the eye contact, vocal inflection, tone, word choice, like situational awareness of our company officers watching how interactions are happening with the public and with patients. Those are those human skills that are getting exercised equally as often. I just don't know that we spend as much time training on them.
- [18:26]
Podcast Host
I agree. Well, you said something so key because obviously EMS, right? I mean, EMS, you know, arguably 75, 80% of, you know, especially in our, our departments in Washington, but across the fire service, it's like when we're doing ems, we're obviously interacting with patients. And when we're interacting with patients is obviously, yes, we need to be utilizing our hard skills to take blood pressures, vitals, all that. But when we're talking about questioning, when we're talking about providing a level of, you know, showing empathy and compassion with our patients, we're talking human skills. Right. And the more competent, we'll say at those things that just a better, the. The better, you know, service that we're going to be delivering to those customers, those patients. But then also on the fire scene, we'll say, you know, or on the emergency scene, it's just not only to the citizens, we'll say, but how you're interacting with your crew members. Right. I mean, the human skills, the. The way you, you know, give orders, the way you accept orders, the way you communicate as, you know, the human skill Factor, right? Are we raising our voice? Are we, you know, short tempered? Are we receptive? That's all going to play a factor in how we then proceed to then, you know, meet the objective of whatever it is. So. I love how you say that. So a question I have is, as far as a gig harbor, is it like human skill development? Is that a part of what you guys are, you know, incorporating in some training? And if so, what does that look like?
- [19:41]
Nick Langlow
Yeah, I think what I would, what I would say is that at the company level, the human skill development of like mentoring and developing people I think is a core function of what our company officers are, are doing. Because I think we have, we have invested in them informally in, in like, like almost like informal processes to like instill that those are, that that's important. Right. So you need to, we, we're asking our company officers to, you know, spend time with their people, learning about their people, understanding what their learning styles are and how they like to learn and how they like to be presented with growth opportunities. But I don't know that we have really developed like a formal kind of road map for how we want to navigate through the, the training of on the human skill side. You know, I think everybody, well, not everybody, but probably most people in your audience are familiar with like, you know, ems, otep, Right. Like ongoing training and. Right. And so one of the things that's super important to me in, in over the next, and we're looking at, you know, the next 3, 3 ish, 3 to 5 years is developing a more formal OTEP, if you will, but ongoing, ongoing training and education program for our officers. And the goal is to do a couple things. One is to identify our industry best practices on the hard skill side so we make sure that we're consistent in how we apply those on the street. The other thing is to spend some time in, in quote, unquote, like might be out of industry, but industry best practices on the human skill side of it. Like how do we want to train our people on how to take care of our external customer at the task level? Right. Our firefighters, paramedics, lieutenants that are out there doing the work on a daily basis. And then also how do we want to train our officers to mentor and develop and lift up the next generation of leaders within our organization as it pertains to those human, those human skills. And then I think the last thing that it's going to do as we navigate through it, or I hope it's going to do, although I know hope's Not a strategy, but that I hope it's going to do is it's going to help give our emerging or aspiring leaders kind of a road map of, like, what does it take to be a leader in the Gig Harbor Fire Department? Right. What does Gig Harbor Fire Medic one expect of our. Of its leaders? So that as I'm navigating through my career roadmap, what do I need to do to get there? And so I think that's, you know, it's an opportunity for us to kind of lay that out for our folks.
- [22:18]
Podcast Host
Yeah. Wow. That roadmap, I like that. I mean, I've never. As you talk about the otep, as you talk about like, jprs or whatever you will, the. The certain benchmarks that need to always be in place. Annual training, quarterly training, competencies in your, in your skill set. I mean, talking about building a roadmap and what it looks like a Gig harbor fire, but more even in general on, you know, what are we looking for regarding, say, human skill development? I mean, that's awesome. It sounds like Gig harbor because I never heard, you know, a lot of this stuff that what you're talking about. It sounds like Gig harbor is kind of, you know, leading the way in terms of trying to be very innovative in a lot of this stuff. And I love it. I'm gonna. After the show, you might hear from me every. Periodically to say, hey, how are you guys doing out there? And at the ela, at the Executive Leadership Academy last year, we were tasked to do officer development, and we had our small group, part of our cohort, you know, take on the adaptive challenge of what does officer development look like in the region? And we looked at it. There's six of us in our, in our group. We said, why don't we just change that to just leadership development or leader? So we're trying to, you know, instead of having just company officers, how about just the leader and the development? Because that's, that's engineer, that's senior firefighter, that's firefighter, it's recruit. And so it was kind of like it helped bridge the gap between, like, it's not just hard skills and it's not just company officers. Let's, let's, let's encompass a little bit more of everyone and everything. And that was just a. Get it going. We just started a conversation. None of the departments that worked on it have anything implemented nor a plan, I think at this moment. So I just love that there are departments out there that are kind of looking toward this and going to start building something with a hopeful plan, he said. And I hope it's not a strategy like you said, but, but it always helps. Three to five years.
- [23:56]
Nick Langlow
Yeah.
- [23:56]
Podcast Host
So I love that.
- [23:57]
Nick Langlow
I think one of the coolest things about, when I think, when I'm thinking, you think about developing a program or like, what do you need to put something like this together? And again, I don't have all the answers. Right. We're kind of like learning as we go, or we're going to learn as we go in the next three to five years. But one of the coolest things I think is that to spend time on the human skill, it doesn't require like a prop, it doesn't require tower, it doesn't require an acquired structure. What it, what it requires is, is two people, two or more people who are willing to be intentional about just being in community with each other and navigating through, like, human dynamics. That's what it takes, right? It's a coffee table, it's a back patio, it's a. Around the station. It's, you know, it can be any, it can be lots more than that, right? It can be, it can be the consultant, it can be all those things that are important, but at the, at the bare minimum, you know, it's like, well, shoot, it's awfully hard to go pull an inch and three quarter by myself and then load it back on the engine by myself, right? Or even two people. When we had two person engine companies, you know, several years ago, like, but this is just two people sitting on a coffee table talking about it because they care.
- [25:12]
Podcast Host
You're so right. You're so right. Talk about. Because I've stressed this at the company level, it's like, because sometimes we'll have drills, we'll have busy days, right? We'll have a planned out day, and then we have four calls before lunch. It's like, okay, that whole planning training is not, it's not happening now. And so you'll push it a day, you'll push it to the night, or you push it to next shift or whatever, but what you're in. And I'll always stress, like, there's always things that we could do that require nothing. And that's exactly what you're talking about. These types of things, these innovations, moving forward. It doesn't need to say, well, now, all right, I love this plan, but we cannot do it because our biggest barrier is we need $500,000 to build a tower. No, you need nothing. But like you said, like two people, three People, a willing audience, if you will, say, let's get together and, and do this because we could do it sitting right here right now. So the question I have is are, we'll say company officers, but let's just say more the department itself, receptive to, you know, where this is going in terms of like, human skill development, adding these types of trainings into the future of Gig harbor, you know, Fire Medic one.
- [26:15]
Nick Langlow
Yeah, I think, I think they are. You know, jury's out. Right? We're, you know, like, at least in my, like me in my position, we're, you know, we're four, four months into this whole, this whole, this whole ride. But yeah, and it doesn't, it didn't start with me, right. I think we, we have current and, and past leaders in our organization who have made, you've given us examples, right? Given us roadmaps on like, the importance of how to treat people right. And I think that when I, when we, when we talk to our folks and you get them in a, in a, in a super safe and, and comfortable environment and you have, you know, honest conversations about like, hey, like, I, I think we should do this. And do, do you guys think this is important? Like, like, am I crazy, right? Am I, like, am I drinking from like a crazy stream or something? And, and the answers that, you know, that I get are, are, no, it's not crazy. Maybe it isn't as fun or it doesn't have like the instant gratification that, you know, pulling a hose or cutting roof or. But, but yeah, it's absolutely important. And, and at the end of the day, I think it makes us, makes us all better. Right? And more well rounded and more better prepared just in life in general. Right, Agreed.
- [27:33]
Podcast Host
Now we get to talk about leadership and management because there's all kinds of quotes out there. There's sayings, there's authors talks about, you know, leadership is very different than management. And just because you're a good manager doesn't mean you're a good leader and vice versa. All true statements, but they're both necessary, right? Like, there need to be great leaders in an organization. There also need to be great managers. So let's just lob it out there because I know there's different philosophies or different ways of explaining or describing the difference between leadership and management, but can you talk a little bit about leadership versus management, but how they're both necessary to be effective in any industry?
- [28:11]
Nick Langlow
Yeah, sure. I think that the fire service isn't unique from the leadership perspective. But I would say that the column like the unicorn, him or her, the unicorn leader, right. Whether it's in private or public, you know, industry, the unicorn leader is an excellent leader and an excellent manager, comma, that really understands when to apply both of those tactics to a given situation or to a given like circumstance. Right. And so the thing that I, that I share with, with, I share with our officers and I shared in January when I started and I've shared at the kitchen table as a battalion chief or as a company office. I didn't create it. Right? Like, like you were sharing. Like this is out there like leadership and management is, is management is for like inanimate objects and processes and things.
- [29:10]
Podcast Host
Right.
- [29:11]
Nick Langlow
Like people are like need to be led. People don't get managed. I think what can happen is when, as leaders, when we get really busy and we get really overwhelmed and we get stressed, we revert to managing. Right. We revert to getting things off of our plate and checking the box on, on Microsoft Outlook on our to do list. Right. Like we're just moving things off the plate. And when people feel managed though, I think what, what happens is that they don't feel appreciated, valued and supported and then the leader can't accomplish what they maybe set out to accomplish because they need these teammates, they need these people to help them get where they want to go. And people that feel managed and not led, I think really, really struggle to stay like committed to the cause.
- [30:06]
Podcast Host
Right, agreed. 100 and so let's talk about that because you mentioned like leadership about people managing more about processes and things. And the unicorn has the ability to be very effective and efficient at both. But in reality, not every leader of an organization doesn't matter the industry is it going to be necessarily both. So obviously teams, it's not just an executive team, not just fire chiefs and the executive team, but having a diverse team, right? Because like, and we go use the diverse team of a crew, right? Company officer, engineer, firefighter, we'll say or you know, firefighter, engineer or sorry, firefighter, paramedic officer, all have a unique skill set, right. A lot of very focused task level, very competent others a little bit better at just leading people and what might be just. But it's all necessary to make the crew effective. So if, if a crew will say, or a team, we'll say doesn't have, you know, all the leaders on that three or five or ten person team, that's just unicorns, how important is it that that crew be then diverse in their skill sets to then become A team that is super efficient and effective in delivering what, whatever service that they're trying to deliver.
- [31:14]
Nick Langlow
Yeah, I think it's vitally important. I think if I think about, and I would challenge anybody. If you think about the best teams that you've ever been on could have been, maybe it's a sports team, maybe it's a crew at the fire station, maybe it's an executive team. If you're a chief officer, if you think about the, like, the best teams that you were ever on and you start to like, you know, either think of or be intentional about, like writing down the people that were on the team and the strengths and the weaknesses of those people.
- [31:45]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [31:46]
Nick Langlow
There's certainly going to be some commonality, but there's also going to be some difference in diversity. Right. And so I think about, you know, some of the, you know, sports teams I was on growing up and I wasn't thinking about it when you're in seventh grade playing baseball. Right. But like, you look back on it and you think about it. We had some really good pitchers.
- [32:04]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [32:05]
Nick Langlow
And we had some really good, like, outfielders. Right. And the pitcher was not the best person to be in the outfield and the outfielder is not the best person to be in the pitcher. It didn't make them any less valuable.
- [32:16]
Podcast Host
Right.
- [32:17]
Nick Langlow
Sure. There's the unicorn, right. That is the pitcher, the fielder, the hitter and the outfielder. Right. That can do it all. And that's awesome because those are superstars and you need those people to be galvanizing on your team. But there was people that were great in left field or center field that weren't great catchers behind the plate, and that didn't make them any less valuable.
- [32:37]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [32:38]
Nick Langlow
You know, we just. And so I think spending time in relationship with your teams, your company, your executive team, and identifying like, like what the, what you think your strengths and weaknesses are. Being vulnerable enough to share your weaknesses and then being confident enough to share your strength and then also having a team that is willing to, you know, agree or, or, you know, push back, not push back, and like, push back and it's still in team environment, be like, I totally agree with you. And, you know, and even, you know, like, I think, you know, some of those leaders that are vulnerable enough to say, like, maybe instead of me sharing what I think my strengths and weaknesses are, maybe you can help share what you think my strengths and weaknesses are. Right. Like perception's reality a little bit. And then it is so, you know, we say that kind of tongue in cheek, like, perception's reality. But are, you know, kind of saying like it's just kind of what somebody else thinks. But there's also some truth in the statement too, right? Where it is real, it is actually maybe a weakness for you.
- [33:45]
Podcast Host
Exactly. And it's real. Like you said to in other people's eyes. Right. Like, just because I feel like we'll say that I'm really good at something, it may not be the reality. Other people might see it as well. You actually need some development in that arena. Or my weaknesses, I feel like I'm very weak in this arena. Some people might view it as like, you actually perform very well and you're actually, you know, strong in that arena. You might want to develop other things. But I think it's all ties back into human skills. Right. As we talk about like trying to seek feedback from somebody else or trying to, to gain, you know, bring someone to the plate or someone to the table to, you know, share their ideas, that all comes back to that relationship building connection. And just that human factor of, you know, this is. We're talking about the human game here. We're talking less about that hard skill. One thing that I also want to recognize or just highlight what you said is matching strengths with responsibilities. I heard that recently. It's just, it was key. Doesn't make someone less valuable because they can't do X because they might be doing something very strong and why. And there's no one in that team that could perform in the in the wire. Chief, is there something, what we try to talk about on this show, we talk about things that might have propelled someone, maybe a failure. We talked about failures and flaws as well earlier. Was there a moment that you can, you've always say the word pivot, but we'll say a circumstance, a situation, something in your career that may not have went the way you thought it would. Maybe an assignment that you didn't aspire, but something that kind of just was like, all right, here I am. But now you can credit that to your success.
- [35:12]
Nick Langlow
Yeah. Yeah. So I, that's a really, it was a really good question. I'm glad you posed it to me before the podcast because it gave me a little bit of time to think about it. I don't know that I would have given you the same answer. In fact, I know I wouldn't have given you the same answer on the spot that I'm going to give you now. And, and, and partially it's because I think I've had like several moments in my 20 year career, 20, almost you know, a little over 20 year career that had been like, I'll call them like guiding or shaping. You know, they like push me a little bit here, push me a little bit over here. But I don't know that I would have called them like a, like a pivot moment necessarily. But I was thinking about it today, getting ready to, to sit down with you and I think the thing that came to my mind and you know, like, it's kind of like taking a multiple choice test. Like go with your gut. Right.
- [35:57]
Podcast Host
They're all there.
- [35:58]
Nick Langlow
Yep. I had a Super memorable call, 911 call that I ran pretty early in my career. It was probably, you know, well over, you know, probably 13, 14 years ago. Now. It's, I don't remember the date, you know, but I definitely remember exactly what it was, where I was in the situation. And so I ran a call. I was on, I was driving the medic unit at the time. I'm an emt, never been a paramedic, but, but our paramedic units run one medic and one EMT on them. And so I was driving for my partner. We went to a motor vehicle accident. I didn't have kids at the time. So yeah, it definitely would have been more than 14 years ago. Ran a call, we had a, a child that the secondary information was just child had been ejected from a vehicle was, you know, like multiple vehicle collision. And outside of that you didn't have a whole lot of information. Right. Like you kind of knew you're going into some kind of like level of like chaos. You knew it was serious, but you didn't really know what you're getting into.
- [36:57]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [36:57]
Nick Langlow
And so my partner and I got there first. The medicine was there, first engine wasn't too far behind us, but we got there and we kind of went into the, you know, our internal, you know, procedure of like first medic unit, you know, driver, the medic unit, triage, right. Like, and start, you know, and the medic starts triage and we just start, you know, triaging people, right. And parked in the middle, in middle of the road. Right in front of us was a citizen that was, had a, a child with, with them in the middle of the street. You know, couldn't tell the age, couldn't tell the sever know the child was in the middle of the street. And I remember my partner said, hey, you go check on the, on the kid and I'm going to go over to the car and we're just going to kind of start working the system right and making sure we get everything accounted for. And I think that, I think that the child was probably about five, maybe four or five or six kind of in that range and was not in good shape, real, real bad shape. And I had this moment, never had it in my career up until that point. And I had this moment where I kind of froze. Like I didn't really know what to do. Or at least that was the sense, right? Like, like I knew ABCs and I knew CPR and like I knew. But it was like this moment where, where I, I think I honestly, if I'm being vulnerable, like I felt a little overwhelmed, like I'm not sure that I prepared myself to see this visual, right, you know, like, or like five year old child, unconscious, barely breathing, not in good shape. I'm by myself because my partner's triaging, doing the things we need to do, waiting for the engine company to get there. And I had this, this sense where I kind of froze. And I remember, you know, looking back after the call and thinking, man, I don't know if this is true or not, but I kind of felt like I was a little bit unprepared. Like I just wasn't ready for that. And so the pivot moment for me was, I was, was telling myself, like, I, I don't ever want to feel like that again, right? So as much as I could avoid it, right? You know, you know as well as I do that there's things that you see in the job that you're like, man, I didn't, I didn't really prepare myself for that or I didn't. That's not why I do this job, right? But generally speaking, you know, I, I do remember having that feeling where like, man, I never, I never want to do that again. We never want to feel like that again. And so I said, what am I going to do? Like Nick, what are you going to do about it? And I said, well, I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to seek out the smartest paramedics we have and I'm going to talk to them about how I can be prepared next time. I'm going to seek out the smartest like or, or my mentors within the fire service company officers. Like, hey, have you ever gone through something like that, right? And can you help me like navigate how I can not find myself in that spot where I'm like, man, what am I supposed to do here? You know, seeking out people outside of the fire service just from the, from the, like, whether it's whether it was cathartic or just informal, like actual therapy, that was happening for me, right. Like, I don't want to feel like this again. What do I need to do? How do I better prepare myself? So I think that. And that stuck with me the whole time, right? Just the idea that, like, not. Not that the. The tragedy has stuck with me, although, like, I don't. I'm never gonna forget it. But the. That feeling of, like, all right, I don't want to feel unprepared again, so what do I need to do? So every step in the or, like, in my. In my career journey, preparing for being a lieutenant, preparing for being a battalion chief, and preparing for being a deputy chief, like, what do I need to be doing to try and limit the possibility of me feeling like I'm not ready to go? And then the other thing that came out of that, that I think I want to share, that I think is really key, is that got some really good advice from several people. When you get it from, like, multiple people, you're kind of like, this is probably really good.
- [40:44]
Podcast Host
Yeah. Yep, exactly.
- [40:45]
Nick Langlow
And the advice was, as much as you prepare, you are probably never gonna feel like you're absolutely ready to take the next step. Right. You're not gonna, you know, the. Like the chief of the fire department or the ops chief that's promoting lieutenant. Like, when I think about it, like, I'm not as the ops chief, I'm not going into it promoting the. Those that are already equipped. Right. I'm promoting the people and choosing the people, and then I'm gonna spend time and investing in them and equipping them as we go. Right. So I'm never, you know, that was some really good advice to me was like, yes, absolutely. You know, prepare for the job you want, Prepare for the. The job you have, but don't think you're going to have it all figured out before you. Absolutely. And we'll train you as you go.
- [41:34]
Podcast Host
So that feeling of unprepared, right. Whether the listeners today have that feeling, like, maybe there's some listeners here that are like, you know, I'm prepared for it all. There's something in all of us that has a sense of, you know, there's some things that I probably aren't going to be fully prepared for, or there's some things out there that I won't know I was unprepared for until you're in that circumstance. But I think the key takeaway that what you're talking about here is you there was a moment. And I'm sure at that point in time, say you were on the job for five years, that you were competent and felt good in the position that you were in at five years. Right. Had it not been you on that day, had it been just the other shift or you were on a shift trades, we'll say, and you were off, you never would have experienced that moment. To then get you to the point where you say, you know, I was unprepared for that and now I need to start doing X. But the takeaway here is we may or may not run into those six situations, right? And I guess what's key to highlight is what is your weakness now? Like, what are the listeners. What are those weaknesses now? Because it's hard. You can't quantify a negative. I know that we've talked about that here too, is like, if I start preparing for X amount of things, that's great, I won't. And then at that point you won't know or won't run into that call, we'll say or situation where you felt unprepared to then propel you to say, you know what, I don't want to run into that situation ever again. But that's a good thing, right? That because of what you've done up front. So in this case, it's about what are your weaknesses to the listeners? What are those things? Work on those now. Focus and develop those so you don't run into those situations where you're like, wow, I don't ever want to have that feeling again of unpreparedness. So what you're doing. And I'll highlight this part, you said limit the chance or limit the percentage. Because certainly if I think of 10 weaknesses that I have right now and I focus the next two to five years working on all those 10 weaknesses, I still may run into a situation where I have that feeling of unpreparedness. But what you're saying is focus on those things, limit that chance or probability of being unprepared in a situation. And you do that. So by identifying your weaknesses, having some humility, develop those. And the key thing that I think you said was you reached out to the best paramedics in this case to then develop you. You, you actually sought the. From other people. It wasn't just, you know, I got to study this harder. You actually went out and told people, ask them to help develop you so you wouldn't be in that situation again. Because I'm sure you probably shared the story with those Paramedics. Right. And those other EMTs and senior people. All right, we're still talking action items. You were going to talk to two groups here, Chief. The first one being a new firefighter. What's some advice that you would give to them to help propel them early in their career?
- [44:12]
Nick Langlow
I think the first thing I would share with them is just reinforcing to them. You know, I think you brought up a good, a good venue, right. At their graduation, right. There's just fresh out of the fire academy, they think they're like, I'm brand new. I haven't even had a day on the job. Right. And the last thing they're probably thinking about themselves as is leaders. But from the first day they put the uniform on and show up to work, the community thinks of them as leaders.
- [44:35]
Podcast Host
Agreed.
- [44:36]
Nick Langlow
So what I would, what I would share with them, not from an element or not from, not from a position of like, where they should feel stressed about it, but I would just reinforce to them that, hey, you are leaders, right? You're going to be presented with situations and you are going to be a leader to somebody, right? You think about like, hey, you're going to spend a bunch of time, you know, being the one that's doing the patient assessment, you know, being the one that's talking to the, to the homeowner that's being the one that's, that's doing, you know, the very functional, like foundational task level things to them, to the people you're talking to. You are a leader. So I would encourage them just to, just to, just to know that they're a leader. The other thing that I would, I would encourage them to do is I would encourage them to push their formal leaders. And what I mean by push is to push them, push those leaders to lead them, right? And that's a little bit going back to what I talked about in leading and managing. Like, I would push the leaders, say, hey, like, man, I want to be led. I want to be taught, I want to be, I want to be encouraged, I want to be, I want to feel valued and appreciated, right? Not from the standpoint of like, like, I'm more important than anybody else here, but like, I really want to learn and I really want to be really, really good at what I do. And I really want you to teach me and lead me and how to get there. And then I would, I would share with them along those lines and be vulnerable enough to, to tell your leader that you're feeling managed, if you're feeling managed, right? And there's a time and a place and, and, and a level of respect that the, that our formal leaders have earned and should be given. Right. I'm not, I'm not, you know, contending that that should be like, given away. Right. They are the company officer, they are the captain, they are the lieutenants. And that, and that absolutely, like, warrants a level of respect. But that doesn't mean that you can't professionally, quietly, but intentionally say like, hey, I'm just not feeling like I'm feeling managed, you know, I'm just feeling like I want more. And I know that, I know you're the, I know you're the guy or the gal to give it to me, and I just want it and I want to dig in. And so that's what I would share with them is, is just be vulnerable enough to ask, like, I don't think I'm getting what I need and I want it to be you and I.
- [46:59]
Podcast Host
Want you to lead me. Oh, that's powerful. That's powerful. I mean, that's what I'll say on there.
- [47:03]
Nick Langlow
That's.
- [47:03]
Podcast Host
That's powerful. You talk vulnerability, honesty, and then I'm just going to add this element. The company officer must be receptive to that. Right. In their role.
- [47:12]
Nick Langlow
Right.
- [47:12]
Podcast Host
Because it's one thing for. To have and we want that. Right. Let's just go ahead and say we want our newer firefighters to come to us and tell us what are your needs, what can we do or I do to help, you know, encourage you, to help you be successful and reach your potential. Like, we want that. Let's just go and say we all need that and want that, but the company officer must be receptive to that. And so that's that. That is, that's so key. I love that honesty and vulnerabilities. I think that's what we're talking all day to day about. So then let's just jump right to emerging leaders. Right? This could be company officers, but this is someone that's been there a few years, someone that's maybe taking on enough a new formal role in leadership. What's something that they need to be doing or thinking about or working on to grow their leadership potential.
- [47:55]
Nick Langlow
One of the things that I shared with a couple of the folks that had an opportunity to do promotional interviews with kind of in my new OP operations chief role. And then I also shared with our company officers when I meet, when I met with them at the first of the year is that mentoring and developing your people is, is not optional. So if your desire was to get into the role, the, for the formal leadership role, Lieutenant for US Battalion Chief, you know, could be captain or deputy chief or anything in any other organization. But if your motivation was the bugle or the bugles or the bar or the bars, I think you're in it for the wrong reasons. Right. That can absolutely be a motivating factor, but that cannot be the driving factor. If you want to be kind of go back to we talked about earlier. If you strive to be the unicorn leader, which I'm not a unicorn leader. Right. I'm an aspiring unicorn leader.
- [48:55]
Podcast Host
Right.
- [48:56]
Nick Langlow
But, but I'm not that. But if you want to be the high level leader and the high level manager and know the difference of when to apply those tactics, your motivation cannot be the, the position or the status. It's got to be the people. And so what I share with them is if you want to be a leader, formal leader in our organization, mentoring and developing is like it's pay to play. It's not optional. You know, we started doing, I'll give you a functional example of that. We, we instituted a, an officer task book for our officers that want to test for lieutenant Battalion Chief. You have to, you have to complete a task book to be able to act in the role, to be able to swing some, you know, some places called swing up or whatever the different organizations call it. Yeah. And one of the things we instituted with that this year is you had to have a sponsor. Right. So if you're a firefighter that wants to test for the permission only tenant that you have to have a sponsor that's essentially going to help walk you through that book. Right. To make sure that you are getting what you need there. Well, shocker. They're leading you through the book, right?
- [50:01]
Podcast Host
Yes, yes.
- [50:02]
Nick Langlow
And what I shared with my company officers was the people on your crew that want to take the promotional test, you're their sponsor. So if somebody comes to you and says, like, hey, like I want to take the test, I need a sponsor and you're my frontline supervisor, you're my sponsor. Like, saying no is not optional. Like, that's not, like you cannot do that. Right. So like, well, I don't, you know, like if I'm a lieutenant or like I'm not sure that I have the skills, well, then we're going to get you the skills and we're going to help you learn how to get there. But being a mentor and a developer of people, not optional. Yeah. The other thing that I would share with them is as much as possible. Be consistent. Be consistent. Because if you were. And I would, I would share with people like, you probably should have started being consistent long before you ever promoted into the position. But if you were the, like, fast and loose on the rules firefighter, but then you get promoted to a company officer and you want to be the taskmaster, you want to make, you want to hold people accountable to the rules. We have smart people. They're going to see right through that. So you just got to be consistent. Yeah. You know, be who you are and deal with the consequence.
- [51:17]
Podcast Host
Yes.
- [51:18]
Nick Langlow
Yeah, absolutely.
- [51:19]
Podcast Host
Be authentic. Be authentic as well. And hopefully authentic is real and real is consistent, and that would be the unicorn. Ish. If you will.
- [51:27]
Nick Langlow
Yep.
- [51:28]
Podcast Host
But I'm not going to highlight too much because you said it well. What I will highlight is just what you said. Mentoring and developing people is not optional. I know mandatory and requirements are harsh words sometimes that we don't like to float around, you know, in the fire stations. Oh, you have to do this. You shall do this. But let's leave it at this that mentoring and developing people is not optional. The leadership challenge chief is perhaps my most favorite part of the show, simply because we get to continue the conversation of leadership in the fire service. So this leadership challenges allows us to ask you, is there a leader out there that you would like us to reach out to, to bring onto the show to continue to add perspective on leadership in the fire service?
- [52:20]
Nick Langlow
Yeah, I do have. I do have a name, and I'm really hopeful that, you know that you're. We're able to. Or you're able to get. Get it scheduled with him because he's. He's as solid as they come. And I think that he's a really good fire service leader, but he is a better human. And I think that he was. He would be. He'd be awesome. And so he's a captain for a neighboring fire department. His name's Nick Harris. Yes. He does have a cool name. Right, Nick.
- [52:46]
Podcast Host
I get it. That's not why. That's not why I see the theme here. Human scales at Nick.
- [52:51]
Nick Langlow
That's not why. That's not why I nominated him again. Yeah. So Nick Harris is just a great human, and I think he'd be. I think he'd be great and offer some great perspective. So I've known Nick for a long, long time. Nick was. Nick was a youth group leader for me when. When I was in high school and he was in college, and I'd never met him before, and we've Been, you know, friends now, and we're, you know, we're in the same industry. We've been friends now for, you know, almost 30 years. And so I think he'd be a real great addition to the podcast. He is a captain, so he, you know, from a formal leadership position, but he's also a dad and a husband and just a good human. So I think he's leading every day of his life.
- [53:31]
Podcast Host
So absolutely. What the Puppers, Dick.
- [53:33]
Nick Langlow
He works for West Pierce Fire and West Pierce.
- [53:36]
Podcast Host
Okay, Absolutely. Yeah. All right, so what I'll do is I'll reach out to Captain Nick Harris. I'll gather his information from you and see if he'd be willing to take the other Nick on his leadership challenge here on the kitchen table. So I just want to say I appreciate your time here, Chief, for taking up this in short time. I think we just emailed each other like a week or two ago maximum, and you said, let's do it. So I love it. So thank you for taking the time today on this beautiful day. I hope you get outside. But before we officially close on the kitchen table, what are your lasting leadership thoughts that you would like the listeners to walk away with as we close today?
- [54:09]
Nick Langlow
It's kind of like that question at the end of an interview, right, man? Where they're like, is there anything else you'd like to tell us? You're like, man, I feel like if I don't say something, then I'm really leaving something on the table.
- [54:19]
Podcast Host
I'm not grading you.
- [54:20]
Nick Langlow
Yeah, no, that's all good. So what I would share is, is. Is just this. This thought, this couple, couple sentences, and it would be whether you're an emerging leader, whether you want to be a leader, whether you're a formal leader within your organization of any rank, or you're the brand new firefighter, like I said, that the community sees as leaders from day one. I would say that every day you have an opportunity to make a difference, to make someone feel appreciated, valued, understood, and cared for. And that every day you will encounter people who are battling through something you might know nothing about. Compassion does not take any clinical competence. It only takes intentionality that says, I care and I'm here. They may not remember the words you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel. And we lead people and we manage processes. It's never the opposite.
- [55:22]
Podcast Host
Thank you for tuning in today to the kitchen table. We truly hope you found this time valuable. We hope that we've inspired you to take action, to lead and to spread the leadership conversation. Till next time. Be safe, be intentional, stay curious.