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Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table
Ep. 71: Matthew Love, Fire Chief - The Whole Package of Leadership
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The higher position you hold, the more people you work for. And I know that's simple to say, but that old school methodology of well, these people work for me or these people work for him or her, we all know who the boss is, we understand the organizational structure. But really, when it comes down to it, who are you doing all the work for? It's the people of your community, it's your employee group, it's the troops, it's the people out there doing it. And so I know that's simple to say, but I think that has been one thing that has kept me grounded and coming back to even making the hard choices that are not popular of leadership is who do I work for even if they don't know I'm working for them. Being rescued from a three story apartment building, the First Responder Liaison Network is proud to present to you the Kitchen Table Podcast.
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Join us as we explore leadership from.
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Perspectives around the globe. From firefighters to fire chiefs, civilians to.
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CEOs.
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Our conversations have one simple goal. Build more leaders.
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Good afternoon and welcome to the Kitchen Table. Today we tune into the city of St. Cloud, Minnesota as we welcome Fire Chief Matthew Love of the St. Cloud Fire Department. Today's conversation we're talking the whole package of leadership, including servant leadership, vision, the long game, and so much more. Thanks for tuning in Today to episode 71. Fire Chief Matthew Love has served in local government for nearly three decades. With the support of his wife Kristen and sons Tyler and Noah, Chief Love has served in several capacities to include District Administrator and and Chief Executive Officer of multiple independent government districts. As a fire chief since 2009 and has also served as the Deputy Fire Chief of Operations and Division Chief of Training. He has worked for many agencies across the country, beginning with the city of Colorado Springs. Prior to joining St. Cloud, Chief Love was the Fire chief of the Fort Myers Beach Fire Department and out of over 1900 government special districts, was awarded the State of Florida District Manager of the year award in 2020. He was also selected by the Fire Chiefs association of Lee County, Florida as Fire Chief for the year in 2019. A graduate of the National Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer Program, he has also earned the Distinguished Chief Fire Officer designation by the center for Public Safety Excellence. Chief Love is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, earning a Harvard Executive Certificate in Public Leadership, which focuses on state and local government administration. He holds a Master of Science degree in Leadership with an emphasis in Disaster Preparedness and Executive Fire Leadership. Graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in the Public Safety and Emergency Management, as well as holds an associate degree in Fire Science Technology and an associate degree in Wildland Fire Science. Chief Love holds many credentials in the emergency services field as well as government administration, the designation of Certified District Manager, and Certified Labor Relations Professional. The Chief served as a contributing editor for the Leadership Doc magazine, has been published by Fire Engineering Magazine, the Minnesota Fire Chief Magazine, and Florida Fire Service Magazine on multiple occasions, and has many research documents published by the United States fire administration. Additionally, ChiefLove designs and implements leadership platforms for various organizations to include executive coaching and an immersive approach to leadership growth. Chief Love's career has been strongly focused on training, departmental training, program management, building a leadership framework to help team members achieve peak levels of performance as well as so much more. Chief Matthew Love is a dedicated public servant and lifelong learner. Good afternoon Chief. How are you?
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Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
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Berlin Absolutely. You are the leadership challenge. As we talked a little bit offline, Fire Chief Stephen Dube and he and I talked about the concept of learning from everywhere. Mentors and leaders come in all shapes and sizes. Older, younger, different ranks, 10 years, all the above. And I can already see how and why he saw you as a mentor because that's quite the resume, Chief. And I am so excited to have this conversation today. So welcome. So before we get going, you are at City hall right now. You are not in the fire chief's office at the fire station. Would you mind elaborating a little bit about why you're at City hall before we get going?
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Well, thank you again for having me. And yes, I'm not in my normal office, but we received a city administrator transition late last year and so I was appointed by our mayor to be his chief of staff and city administrator in the interim as we did a national search. And so that started at the beginning of the year, but here we are in mid May and it's almost wrapped up. So in fact in June I get to go back to fire full time and get back to that normal role. So it's been kind of dual roles for the last several months.
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Dual roles. Wow. So dual roles, meaning you're the fire chief on many days and then you're obviously at City hall for many days. So my ask question is, are there any days off for the fire chief lately?
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Well, Sundays are kind of off, right?
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There you go.
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Extended to six days and evenings, but my family and I really covet those Sundays where I try not to work. Unless we get a good fire. I'll probably Find myself over there.
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That's true. That's true. So no fires on Sundays for now. Thank you again for being a guest today. And there's so much to unpack with you as far as the theme and the main talking points that we're going to cover. I'm going to lob it out there for you, Chief, and let you run with it. We're going to talk the whole package of leadership. What is it? What do you mean by, you know, the whole package and why that's important of a concept to unpack for us today?
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Well, you know, the whole package, and I call it the wp, and I'll get to that in a moment of why I call it the WP and use acronyms and so forth. But it's really a career of failures and picking back up and figuring it out and what I thought leadership was and what leadership was not. And so obviously, I've established a philosophy that will continue to change because I got a lot of years left. But I think all of us can talk volumes on the topic of leadership. Right. There's a couple of books out there, A few.
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Couple.
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That's right. That's right. And as we do that, throughout my career, I could speak volumes. I was in great graduate school, and I could talk about leadership and talk about leadership, but it wasn't until graduating and going into a curriculum that was centered around Robert K. Greenleaf's, the Father of Servant Leadership, that I found, like, a name for what I thought leadership was. And so again, kind of stumbled upon it and started to really, I'd say, research, articulate what is servant leadership? And again, thought I knew what it was, ran with it, failed a couple of times, thought I knew how to articulate it to others, failed a couple of times. And so really, when I come to wp, the whole package of leadership, it is. It is my career so far, articulation of what it really means to serve others and so forth, and. And digging down through that, you know, again, I say we can talk volumes on it, what it really means. And I would start with a little, little story. So just like most of us as chief officers or officers in the fire service, that that day comes of the promotional ceremony, you know, and I remember, you know, being there, raising my right hand and having an assortment of shiny pins affixed to my coat, you know, and then here you are, you hold the highest rank in the fire department, the chief of the fire department. Now what? And so it set in right away for me. I had a retiree come up to me and he said, you know, those vehicles are just a hunk of metal until you figure out what you're supposed to do with them and why it matters. And so really Berlin to your lead in it's resumes are great and it's really cool to read a neat bio with a bunch of letters after your name. None of that matters unless there's an action component to it of how do I actually use this stuff? And that's the hard part, right? We used to think the hard part was the resume. It's not, it's using it. And so as I kind of had that shiny badge, shiny, shiny comment made to me early, it made me think, and I learned it very quickly, what it really meant, the hard parts of that job. And so throughout my career, I think the thing that has kept me the most grounded of what the WP the whole package of leadership is, is a very simple perspective. It'll be simple when I say it, maybe harder to explain it. The higher position you hold, the more people you work for. And I know that's simple to say, but that old school methodology of, well, these people work for me or these people work for him or her. We all know who the boss is, we understand the organizational structure, but really, when it comes down to it, who are you doing all the work for? It's. It's the people of your community, it's your employee group, it's the troops, it's the people out there doing it. And so I know that's simple to say, but I think that has been one thing that has kept me grounded and coming back to even making the hard choices that are not popular of leadership is who do I work for, even if they don't know I'm working for them. And so that's kind of how I navigated this. So as time evolved, you know, we worked through this concept and we started to articulate what servant leadership was. But I made some, I made some failures. I really, you know, I was that guy and kind of working through the fad of servant leadership because it's maybe becoming more and more a buzzword. And I want to articulate what it really is and what it is not. Maybe more importantly, I started to realize that members of our team somehow kind of mixed up the meaning of servant leadership with servitude. And at first I wish I could say, oh, this is an opportunity to educate. I was frustrated. I was like, you got to be kidding me. How do we mix this up? How do we standing take place? You know, in my opinion, the fire service is the customer service profession of customer service professions. You know, we're all about service. So how could we have mistranslated this critical concept, this philosophy that I declared, you know, the philosophy of our organization? And so after I kind of shook that off and realized, okay, this is an opportunity, it became an opportunity for me to really dig in and define, articulate and vividly declare what my belief is of what servant leadership is. And again, probably just as importantly, what it is not. And so, you know, if you were to Google Servitude Berliner, things, things would come up like words like submissive and being controlled by someone and power, not things that feel very leadershipy. Right, agreed, agreed. And so this was a great opportunity to, to do a little better job of articulating that. And again, I can't emphasize it was through my failure of not articulating well what it really meant. I've been blessed throughout my career. We've had a lot of leaders that are phenomenal, you know, phenomenal intellect, great education, a genuine love for those they work for. And I think when you combine all these aspects with a servant's heart, you get the basis for what servant leadership really is. You separate them and you get servants. And so that's where I come back to the wp. That's why the acronym, if you will, the W stands for the whole package. So how do we get to the whole package? So you'll see and I use acronyms, almost a code on purpose at the bottom of my email address. Sometimes you'll see this acronym. And what does it mean? People do. Well, they ask me, Matt, what does that mean? And I get about 20 minutes now and I get to talk to you about leadership. It's a, it's a kind of a leer you in. So the full acronym is in parentheses, L +M and parentheses SH equals the WP. In other words, L +M times SH equals the WP. And so where that all came from was back to this failure of trying to articulate it better, this misnomer. I feel like when I started in leadership, almost as an amateur, I walked away with this feeling of management is bad, leadership is good. I want to be a leader, not a manager. And that was a very short sighted view of this. And so as, as if management stands alone from leadership. And so I would, I would argue this. Can we really lead others if we cannot manage the work or even manage ourselves? Right. Can we really lead others that way? Managing in order to lead is kind of my Way to fuse together what servant leadership really is. Great L's, or leaders inherently possess and cast vision. Right. Effective managers or M's tend to be known for their ability to develop meaningful processes and systems to achieve an objective. And finally, those with a genuine SH, or servant's heart, desire to take care of others and enhance their quality of life. So if we're striving to be the ultimate leader, the whole package, who wants a leader that does not know how to manage the strategy and tactics to ultimately become, you know, make the vision a reality, but also who wants a manager that can't inspire, can't articulate vision for the team, or worse, doesn't have one? Right, right. And finally, who wants a manager or a leader that doesn't genuinely have a heart for serving others? And that's what our profession is all about. And so again, that's why this acronym, that's why it all comes together. That's why I talk about it the way I do.
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I love that. That's leaders, cast vision, managers, processes, systems, you know, to accomplish an objective or a goal, and then sh, servant's heart. And that is the whole package. There's so many questions that I have, but one thing that I heard you say many times is failures. You know, a career of failures. There is failure in leadership, and there's failures at every level in one's career or life. So can you talk about that? Like, talk about, you know, moving on up, you know, going through a career, going through a life, having failures, but also embracing the failure, because knowing that it'll take place, knowing that you can grow from it, knowing that you can learn from it. So can you just talk about that, the importance of that, but embracing that?
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I think, Berlin, one thing we talk about in every level of leadership is the challenge of leading when it's not popular, leading when it's hard. And so maybe it's important for me to say that right now to your question. I don't believe servant leadership is a walk in the park. It is tough. Um, and it, it doesn't make sense at first. You're like, man, if. If everything I do every day is to take care of my team and serve others, they're going to love me. Well, no, not exactly how it works, because you're the deliverer of the. The great news. And so maybe to answer that question, I'll segue into what servant leadership is not, and that will help articulate those failures. Right? So the hard part of servant leadership is it's not all warm and fuzzy. And it takes some missteps, it takes some times of making the popular decision, not the right decision, some failures, as you said, for you to realize, wow, I made the choice that was easy there and maybe even gained me some approval rating points. But in the long run, that was the wrong choice. That was not right for the entity, the community, or even our team. And so servant leadership is anything but easy, and it's anything but without pain. It comes with pain. It positively is not a popularity contrast. And I think I say that because it's, you know, again, you see, you go into it saying, who wouldn't love me if I'm all in it for them? But you really got to think about, and I'll give a parental analogy here in a little bit, that will help. You know, you love your kids every minute, every second, but they don't understand everything you're doing for them. So here's a cool way to put it. I'm going to give credit to this was my battalion chief of training. His name was Tommy Smith at the time he became chief of the department eventually. And it was in the, the first day of my 18 week firefighter recruit academy. And so, you know, 20 recruits sat down and we got ready for the captain's welcome speech. And you know how it is on day one of an academy. You feel pretty good. I mean, after all, thousands of people competed for these 20 spots, right? You're a big deal. And as the captain spoke, that false reality that we were a big deal quickly evaporated throughout the room. When he spoke, he talked about loyalty. And he said he has loyalty to the fire service, loyalty to our department, and loyalty to those riding the truck today. Now, I'll never forget what his next statement was. He says, you do not have my loyalty. There was an ounce of selfish pride in that room. It was whisked away as he said that. And then he went in to describe that his loyalty is with the firefighters on the truck right now, the community they serve. His job was to ensure we could deliver the same level of service, dedication and compassion as those doing it today. And so as we kind of stood there with our eyes wide, he next then described his commitment. And he said, though we were not recipients of his loyalty, yet we were receiving his commitment to service. He was committed to providing every opportunity for our success, every resource available. He was also committed to providing us with an inspiring vision of the future, what the future would be with when we received his loyalty. Those actions, that captain, were not merely leadership or management. They were positively not Servitude articulated this crucial component of servant leadership. And it's not just telling others what they want to hear. It was in fact telling us something we did not expect to hear. That was a good example of the hard part of servant leadership. And sometimes it's saying, listen, if you're not going to make it through this academy, I'm not going to let you make it through this academy. Like, I have a loyalty to those on the truck today. And so that was my first introduction. I had no idea it was servant leadership until years looking back and saying, wow, what he did was very much serving us and serving others to make sure we were appropriate to ride the.
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Truck and going further with, you know, serving others and a commitment to serve everyone, but still sticking on the failure point. Something that stuck out in my head as we continue to talk about that failure point is what or how does one navigate the embracing of failures? If we'll say they're, we'll say they're bosses, we'll say, don't have the same mindset, if you will, of failures are okay, we're going to have a career of them, make them, learn from them and grow. Because there's environments where failures are not necessarily embraced. Right. How can an emerging leader or someone young in their career embrace failure and use it as a learning point if their superiors don't have that same philosophy on failures? Does that make sense?
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Yeah, it's, I mean, the best case scenario is, right, it's a cultural component, right, from, from day one, throughout embracing failure in a calculated way. And so, you know, we're certainly in emergency services and so we build systems to allow failure in controlled environments so that we have a better chance of not having failure in the uncontrolled environment. I mean, Recruit Academy is a great example of that, right? We, we shelter our recruits in the academy so they can make mistakes without everybody watching from the bleachers, right? And then they can run it again and tweak it, run it again and tweak it, run it again until they get it right. And so they've that process, but it's with the safety net. It's a failure allowing some calculated components. And so then we get into the culture of you're in the firehouse or you're in leadership, you're trying to be innovative within government and you're trying to take some chances. Ideally, as administrators, we articulate policy and things like that to give you the lanes to stay between, but a lot of opportunity to work within those lanes. And so when we, we fail within the lanes, we have the conversation about it. My best way to articulate that we have what's called a cultural framework, and that articulates our mission, our vision, our values, our purpose, our cultural non negotiables, what matters to us. And I always share with our folks, I said we can't and should not write a policy for everything you will ever do. But we have this cultural framework, and if you make decisions within this man, you can't go wrong. And even if it's not what I wish you would have done, if we come back to that document as our why, it allows us to work through the mission, the goal and the endpoint. And so maybe to get back to your question, Berlin, if the organization doesn't have said cultural framework and doesn't have that established, maybe expectations is the place to start. Maybe you're trying to lead upward as an emerging leader to a boss that doesn't completely understand that ability to fail environment. And maybe it's having the dialogue of saying, give me some lanes, Chief, you know, give me, boss, give me, give me the, the guardrails, if you will, and allow me to work within those. And if I make a misstep, let's talk about how we're going to handle that. My wife was a fifth gate teacher for years and years, and she developed this thing called the Expectations Agreement. And so at the beginning of the year, her and her students would come across this, and it was, how do we handle conflict? How are we going to treat each other? And I know that sounds elementary, but I learned from her and I do that with all of my team. We have this expectations Agreement from day one. So before there's conflict, we talk about how we're going to deal with conflict in a healthy, positive way. So getting back to your question, maybe that's the way to lead up a little bit, is saying, hey, boss, everything's good right now. I'm going to mess up one day. When I do, can we talk about how that's going to go and how I can manage that? Well, you know, wow, it could be.
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Super healthy lead up, right? That's. I love that concept. I love that. I've only heard that a few times, but we don't talk about it enough. I don't think Chief Stephen Dube, who is the guest, very big on that. Mentorship and leadership comes from everywhere. It's not just a formal leadership. It's not just a person that's been here 30 years. It's not just a person that has More experience than the people you know that work for them. But it also is the other way around. Right. Some people use the analogy of the reverse org chart, like what you said. The higher you go, the more people you serve. But talk more about how leading up works, but also why it's so important and effective.
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Yeah, Well, I think. I think the. The older term is, you know, managing your manager or managing your boss or something like that. That sounds a little negative. Chief Dube said, well, you. You can learn from everywhere, and you should be open to learning from everywhere. You need to have mentors that are above you. Been there, done that. Mentors that are below you that can tell you what your leadership looks like and doesn't look like from a vantage point you don't have. That's. That's huge. Right. But I think the art form of leading up is. Starts with the humbleness of we all know who the boss is. And some bosses need to be reaffirmed on that. Right. Like, sir, I know you're in charge, and we're going to do whatever you decide. Maybe, maybe I can offer some. Some additional tools in making that decision. Right. I learned once the I wonder statement, and I use that constantly now. Everybody listening is going to know my. My tool here, but when I'm chatting with my boss and I'm trying to introduce a different concept than maybe where I think the conversation is going instead. Well, no, let's do this. I'll say sir or ma' am, I wonder what would happen if we tried this. And then I articulate that and it invites them to pick it up as their own idea and run with a little bit. So that's one way. The I wonder statement. Another thing that this is more practical application, but this could foster a little more culture. We did something what we'd have Monday morning staff meetings. And nobody loves Monday morning staff meetings. And so we were trying to find ways to make them a little more enjoyable. We started rotating who gave a leadership presentation during those. Just a short 15 minutes of leadership. And it wasn't all the bosses. In fact, we wanted the folks at all levels to deliver them. So little Matt would come in and he'd give this leadership presentation. And over time, it clicked. He's presenting to us how he wants to be led by us. And it gave him or her this platform to tell their bosses what their expectations were of them in leadership. And if you took that for a second as a leader and said, oh, my goodness, our people are telling us right now what good leadership looks like to Them and then fostering that. You could run with that, right? It's, it's, but it's coded, right? Nobody's, nobody's sitting down and saying sir, I don't like how you treat me. So to get back on track of leading up, I think you strive to find those opportunities again, acknowledging who the boss is and we're a paramilitary organization of giving them the proper chain of credit, you know, all that sort of thing. But you create these environments to where you can articulate some ideas and even tools for them to use in a non threatening way because there are bosses that man, if you said it that I won't do it and I'm not saying that's right, but we know it happens. So you're just trying to lay some resources out there and allow them to pick up the resources and run with them and maybe that's making it their idea. Super. Maybe they don't do it in front of you and pick up the tool, but they do later for someone else. I think leading up is providing resources to help your boss shine. Even if you love or hate your boss. Because when your boss shines, everybody does better and it comes back. I'll say this throughout our day. Craig Groeschel, a national speaker, uses the term when leaders get better, everybody gets better. I can't say that enough. When our leaders get better, everybody gets better. And I think even if we're feeding our boss to be a better leader, that that trickles throughout the organization.
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How effective are you seeing that? Regarding say we'll say newer employees will say, we'll say, you know, less tenured employees trying to lead up but then not having the effect that they had hope or even backfiring. We'll say where you know, they're trying to. And I say this simply because the fire services, I'm sure, you know, over the last several years basically half of our departments are comprised of newer firefighters. Have you seen it to where you know, it's a, whether it be the millennial generation, Gen Gen Z that are trying to learn the ways of the fire service, trying to lead up, trying to get the leaders to understand, you know, you know the, the new generation that's entering but have it not be receptive if you will or not, not working if you will. And, and how does one, how do you navigate through something like that?
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An example comes to mind and you mentioned different generations. I think that's a great component. Right. Every generation is looking at this a little differently, not wrong differently. And so I just recently spoke with Someone from a younger generation, and they were used to asking the why, used to challenging things a little bit more, and didn't understand why that was not going over well. Right. With their boss. And it was the conversation you and I just had. And I said, in these paramilitary structures, and they're that way for a reason, sometimes the supervisor just needs to know that you understand they get to make the choice that you understand. At the end of the day, you're the boss or whatever you say. And maybe if you find ways to just simply insert that into the conversation and reiterate. I am not asking you the why because I'm challenging you or at all articulating that your decision isn't what we do. I'm asking you the why to better inform myself and let's say as a new captain or lieutenant, so I can better inform my crew. And so I know that's a funny thing. It's almost feeding an ego potentially, if one is there. But just right off the bat, taking the time to say, chief, I know you're the chief, and whatever you decide, we're going to be behind you 100%. I'd like to provide some, some thoughts and some, some things that may work. You know, just, just that off putting comment of setting it up. I think it was a millennial I was chatting with and I just think they were not saying that part of they intended it, they just weren't saying it. And so it's like, hey, why this? Why are we doing this? And it comes off confrontational to maybe a different generation when it's really just inquisitive, trying to gain information. So yeah, that could be a cross generation thing. Right there is just paying some respect to the rank because we are rank based.
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Yeah.
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And making sure you check that box each time. Maybe that's what's necessary for generations.
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But it comes down to like, for example, I was a training officer. The way I trained and the way I learned 17, 18 years ago is very different than the way people learn now. And it's like, I'm not the expert at being a recruit anymore. I'm not the expert at being new at this job. The people that are experts at learning this job are the people that are new at this job. And so just being able to comprehend how, you know, ways that they learn, way that they perceive information is, can be beneficial to say, a training officer or a mentor or something like that. Because, you know, what worked for us many years ago may not be the most useful way for those to learn today. And I think it's just like what you're saying is just we need to understand that to a degree. And how do we incorporate that, I think is key because again, at the end of the day, if the goal is to, you know, build a very effective team, get people to learn, to get people to follow, to get people to lead, we need to find out the most effective ways that those can take place to then navigate. Not just this is the way it's always worked. So let's go ahead and navigate because sometimes that might be the most ineffective way to move forward.
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A
You hit on it right when you talked about the training academy. I think that's a place a lot of this starts. And so I think you have to be thoughtful and deliberate about who is leading that training academy and bringing some youthfulness in. We will usually bring a firefighter off the line to help instruct that academy to just what you said. Who knows best, how to. How to be a new firefighter, but somebody that just was a new firefighter. Make sure you have some aspects of that. I think that's critical. That's intentional, though, and that's just. No, not the most senior captain should probably only be the guy teaching the recruit academy. Let's bring in this gal who just started, you know, and she just went through it, and she's a year on the job. She has some perspective and something to give. I think that's. That's a crucial component.
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Let's talk about vision, Chief. The vision and the long game as it regards to, you know, the whole package in leadership. Where does all that play?
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So when I talk a little bit about vision and it's kind of under the auspices of what does this, this leadership model look like? The servant leadership model, they, certain leaders tend to value the power in sharing their rationale quite a bit. They refer to the why, which you and I just talked about. The why and that why concept has attained more and more significance in modern leadership. It's, It's. I'll call it this, the why behind the why. So the difference would be, you know, the concept of tell me everything about every. Everything I ask or I won't do it mindset is different than asking the why, as we talked about, to kind of move forward with something. And so from a servant leadership standpoint, the why is the catalyst for creating this crystal clear vision picture of the future. And so part of this, I mean, a servant leader is very much focused on the long term, not just today, not just tomorrow. How do I turn. Turn this, this person into the next captain, the next chief, et cetera. And so providing that crystal clear vision is what we do with the why. So when I talk about vision and the why and kind of putting them together, that's why. And it's, it's really to avoid that misinterpretation again of the why is not tell me everything about everything and ask lots of questions on a fire scene. Right? There's a place for that and there's not a place for that. The why is really to give our folks the tools to be able to achieve something. And so thinking of some, some different ways to, to articulate that to you, we can think of on a fire scene, you know, if we say firefighter, we need a ladder on the Charlie side and they grab a ladder off the truck and they go around open, they encounter a locked gate and they come back and say, chief, I'm sorry, I couldn't throw the ladder on the Charlie side because there were a locked gate. Had we said there's a roof crew that has been cut off from the ladder, I need a ladder on the, on the roof. I prefer it on the Charlie side. Would that locked gate have ever become a problem? Not a chance. Right? You gave them the why, you gave them the purpose and they're able to overcome the obstacles. And so when it comes back to vision, painting the picture of the long term plan, painting the picture of why we're doing what we're doing, I think gives people the tools to achieve it, especially in chaotic environments like a fire scene. But again, back to our previous conversation about different generations. I think saying why we do this has tremendous impact to them on how to achieve it, rather than just telling them one step at a time. So that's kind of where I get at when we talk about vision and giving the why. That's the concept of that and that's why I think it, it matters quite a bit.
- [32:08]
B
We always hear that nowadays explaining the why. The new generation wants to know the why, you know, versus just, you know, following orders and go. And there's. It's very valid to understand the why in anything that we do all generations. At what point does, and this goes to being a strong, effective leader, I think. But at what point does the why not need to be explained explicitly? What I mean by that is that the trust is there in decision making. For example, if you gave a very generic order, we'll say or assignment, we'll say today we're going to do abc. And it might be the most mundane task where the group or Individual reaction would be really. But really we're doing that. You know, explaining the why would provide context. But at what point does at a very effective leader not need to give the why? Because we wouldn't be doing mundane tasks because we are doing this today. Just trust that there is a very, very good reason. And so that team never has to ask the why because they're like, you know what? If we're being asked to do this, there is already a good reason, so there's no need to know the why versus, you know, and we'll use the word micromanager. We'll say, you know, we're just going to do everything because everything is what we do, just because. But there's times where strong leaders will say that don't need to explain the why sometimes because they're just fully trusted that if we're doing something, the why is already there.
- [33:32]
A
I think, you know, two things I would say is one, I think that's earned over time with both behavior, actions. Right. Follow through. But I think I would be lying to our audience if I said that ends someday. I think casting vision never goes away. And so we have to keep people invigorated towards the vision, and we have to keep reminding them of the why. And so I don't think that ever stops. But I do think you earn a level of credibility. Right? You would hope. And so initially, when we're going out of our way to articulate the why very vividly for folks so they trust us of why we're doing all this stuff and what the end result is. And over time, maybe you're given a little less, and over time, you're given a little less. And you go through some patches where you don't articulate the full why, but they trust you because you didn't let them down last time. I think that's all valid. But I think in my experience, again, coming back to failures of the few times where the team started to detach a little bit from the mission and the vision was because I was not articulating the vision and the why as much as I could be. And so I'm sure some of our national leadership speakers will say, when you think you've casted enough vision, double it, right?
- [34:44]
B
Yes.
- [34:45]
A
And I think they're right. I mean, that's our job as the fire chief especially, is to cast that vision so vividly that they can taste it, that they can feel it, that they are excited for it. I don't think that ever stops. I mean, we're humans. We Need a little bit of that. So I think you earn some credibility back and forth. Here's a, here's an example. Down through the grapevine into the stations, they find out big bad fire chief Matt has said, we're going to paint all the trucks pink. That's what we're doing. We're going pink. No, no more answers and so forth. And they go off on their four days and they're all frustrated and they're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe he's paying the trucks pink. And then they come back after their four day and they find out, oh no, we were just going to wrap one of the reserve engines in pink for breast cancer awareness month. Oh, okay. So a couple of times that happens maybe. And we find out the why even after the fact. And hopefully great employees, great team members will realize, well, remember last time I thought it was way off and it actually wasn't. And either that leads them to trust more or that leads them to ask for the why a little bit more so that they don't spend their four day being mad that we're painting the trucks all a different color. And so I think I want that for our team just as much. I don't want to ruin their days off because they think I did something goofy. I like it when they ask. Now here's one of the caveats to asking is giving the why does not mean agreeing with it. Right? So there's maybe a departure and we see that generationally as well. I think in leadership, we owe our team the why rarely is a great sign of leadership. Because I told you so, right? That's probably not a mark of great leadership, giving them the why. But the difference is it doesn't mean you have to agree. You deserve the why, but you don't have to agree. And here's another example. Fire chief comes out with a policy that says, we're going to jog on the treadmill for 30 minutes every shift. And the captain could go back and say, team, I'm excited. We're going to jog on the treadmill for 30, 30 minutes every shift. And the team could say, no, you're not cap, you hate, you hate to jog. Right? Or the CAP could have received the Y from the fire chief and down through the battalion chiefs and so forth and could have said, guys, we're going to jog on the treadmill for 30 minutes every day. I don't love it either. But you know that we're killing firefighters every year from heart related incidents and I want you to retire healthy and so forth. So I'm going to find fun ways to do it. But at the end of the day, that's why we're jogging on the treadmill for every day. So I don't love it either, but I get the why. I'm behind the why. Let's go do it.
- [37:04]
B
Yeah.
- [37:05]
A
Coming back to the why, we gave that captain the tools to not blindly sell the crew on something, but to give the true, true information to the crew so they could get bought in on the vision, the picture of the future. And it's a little easier to work through some of those challenging things we don't love when at least we know purpose behind it. To put a bow on that topic, I think again, I like the highlight of this has been failures. At some point, the folks trust you because you follow through and says, we're going to do this and here's what the end looks like, and you get there, but you can lose that very quickly as well. And then you have to build it back up. And so I think constantly reiterating components of the why we are here, broad purpose, vision elements, helps the team know. And I think at the end of the day, I want my team to know I care about them. Even when I make a decision they don't like, it is always because I think it's in their best interest. That'll be a good lead in probably to my. My parenting analogy. When you're ready for it.
- [38:01]
B
Yes, I absolutely. And so agreement versus alignment. That's something that we've always talked about. In fact, Bill, who you and I have talked about offline here, episode number one, one of his main talking points was exactly that. Right. It's just you don't have to agree with anything, with everything. Hopefully you agree on more things than not. But it's not about agreeing. It's about being aligned. Once you, you know, step out of the chief's office, once you go out and run the calls, is about being aligned, knowing what the mission and vision is and going and moving forward as a team, as a one, as one unit.
- [38:30]
A
So.
- [38:30]
B
But that's. Yes, it's just so key and so mission and vision, always having. Understanding what the mission and vision is of the organization. The why we're here will always keep you in line. But it also sounds like communication is key. Right? Constant communication, transparency is going to be key. And the less there is of it, the more. The more it leads to possible confusion and less alignment, we'll say. So the parent analogy. Yes. Let's I want to hear it.
- [38:58]
A
So I think, you know, for me, and I know not everybody's a parent out there, but the concept of serving others, working for them, really, really came to light when I had kiddos and they started growing up. And so you know that, that, that title, dad or mom, tough to beat firefighter, but dad or mom. Yeah. Probably takes the cake, right? Yes. That concept of everything you do for your kids is for their best interest. Every good parent. And even though they don't understand it. Right. So many times early in their life you do things they completely don't understand, but it's all for their betterment. And so I relate a lot of what we do to good parenting. And I would be shortsighted if I said servant leadership is exactly like parenting. I certainly acknowledge that the that audience are adults. Right. And I don't ever say that demeaning. In fact, I hope that my correlation to my love for my kids and the practices of loving my team at work only serves to highlight how high I hold our team at work. I mean, I love them like kids because I want to take care of them. They're not children by any means, but I love them that way. And so I believe a key component of this whole package, leadership is substantially like good parenting. And I say the good part being this genuine, unselfish, imperfect, but desiring to be the best you can parent. A parent who loves and cares for their kids no matter what, even when their kids don't completely understand that. I know when I send my 9 year old to time out, he's not going to come back and say, thanks dad, I needed that.
- [40:31]
B
Right.
- [40:33]
A
Nor will our, our team. I get that. But my hope is by him having a consequence to something he understands, Gosh, if I do that, this happens and over time that leads to him being a better, more productive member of society. Right. And obviously the stick isn't always the approach. There's a carrot concept as well. But I believe again, true character building leadership comes back to sometimes taking care of our team in the ways they don't even need know they need to be taken care of. And again, I think that's okay. Human behavior doesn't always work that way where they realize it right away. And that, you know, back to the conversation you and I had at the beginning of this whole package. Leadership is not easy. In fact, it's really, really hard. Making decisions for the team even though they don't think that's in their best interest. Wow, that's, that's challenging. I Say, just like my kids. I think my kids always love me, but there's times they don't like me very much.
- [41:31]
B
Yep, yep.
- [41:32]
A
Kind of the concept of it is sometimes the toughest parts of leadership and parenting alike is the kicking and screaming of those you serve in the process of getting them to success. Here's another analogy that maybe helps. Click. So you'll have a gentleman come into fire headquarters and he's mad about taxes. And nobody loves taxes. I get it. And when he sits down with me, he's pretty upset. And I start going into the why behind taxes? And, and here's what we do and here's how we achieve it. And the taxes allow us to get you this four minute response time and the effective force in this many minutes and all this stuff, technical stuff of our industry. When he leaves. He doesn't love taxes. Right. But he understands the choices we are making on his behalf to get him what he needs. If it was up to him, he'd say, how about two guys in a pickup truck? Can we make that work? Right? Not, I need this effective force of three engines, two trucks, a chief and a squad to take care of you. And though he doesn't know that fully when he leaves, the kicking and screaming is less from the standpoint of he knows all of this. Why, let's say behind taxes is for his betterment. It's to help him in the community achieve a level of service that they don't know they need. And so coming back to leadership, taking care of kids, giving our teammates at work what they need to get there, even though they don't know they need it, that's all just good leadership. And we're leading the community just the same by saying, you may not know you need this mini apparatus to get their pre flash over and, and take care of you. It's our job to know that. But I should be able to articulate that to you and look out for you, even if you thought two guys in a pickup truck would do the job, right?
- [43:10]
B
Yeah.
- [43:11]
A
And it's totally okay. I think it's totally okay with, for that guy to walk out of headquarters and still not love me. But at least he, he understands the assumption of goodwill, of, well, they're doing it for a reason. They're not, they're not taxing me inappropriately for no reason. And again, my hope, my prayer would be our firefighters, our captains, our battalion chiefs, they know that every decision we make, even sometimes when we miss the mark, was all with the best intention of loving them and taking Care of them just like I would my kids. Again, that. Back to that analogy.
- [43:41]
B
Yeah, absolutely, it is. And you talk about loving the kids and love. I'm gonna jump to that in just a second. What that you mentioned right at the beginning of that segment is you were talking about, you know, as parents, you know, doing the best for your kids, even if they don't know it. Right. We're always doing things in their best interest. And I remember chief Anthony Castro. So I'm sure, you know, talks about like, leadership is like parenting. It's like to become a good leader. Just like if you're trying to become a good parent, you're always trying to find out how to become a better parent, either by talking to people, you know, reading a book, you know, learning from experience, learning from failures. But you're always trying to be better. And if you treat that like leadership, you're always trying to be better. You're asking questions, you're seeking mentorship, you're reading books, you're learning about failure. It's kind of the same thing. Because at the end of the day, if you treat, you know, leadership as, you know, you got to be a good one.
- [44:27]
A
Right.
- [44:27]
B
No one becomes a parent like, you know, I hope I become a bad one. I mean, we're always trying to be a good one. So I, you talked about parenting and kids and best interest for them is it reminded me of that if I had to hold you to one chief, if there was one leadership trait, and I know obviously in good leaders we could think of 10 good leadership traits that one must possess. But let's say if there was one leadership trait that a strong fire service leader must possess, what would it be and why?
- [44:55]
A
To answer that question, in playing on what we just talked about, our team does not always know what it takes to get there, what the journey looks like, but we know what we want the end result to look like and feel like. So we've talked about vision a little bit. And my analogy that I was sharing with you was this concept of like an NFL player. So the NFL player has all that talent, all that natural born ability, that repetition built capability, but yet they still use a coach to refine it, to craft the journey to, to demand the repetitions, the diligence to lead, right? And so when we think about detaching from that coach, like we, like we know better, we start to lose some of those precious components of that process of continuous improvement. Even the mentorship you and I talked about, the minute we stop listening to our mentors of what our leader leadership looks like, or what have you done right and wrong in the past? The minute we start detaching from that, you could imagine the detriment to us. And so it's like an NFL player deciding, I don't need to go to practices, and I don't need to listen to the coach because I don't think he knows what's best for me. The coach may know the journey, Right. You've got the talent, but we still need somebody with that other perspective to help us get there again. Like our kids that we love for years, they will never fully understand the reasons why we are striving to teach them things. Sometimes we love them by allowing this failure, similar to the recruit academy we talked about, with a calculated opportunity to do it wrong and then fix it and. And learn the hard way through. Through a managed consequence. And so I think with kids, it's the same way. We allow our kids to. To make a few mistakes so they learn the hard way. But. But as parents, we're always putting a safety net under them, you know, saying, okay, this is an okay risk to take, and this is not an okay risk to take. And I think even back to some of our opening conversations of creating an environment where we can make mistakes and fix it, that's a cultural aspect that probably takes decades to create. But it certainly starts with the leader saying, I'm going to mess up. How are you going to treat me when I mess up? Give me some grace, and I'll give you some grace. So I hope I. I took that down the right road for you there, Berlin.
- [47:02]
B
I've just.
- [47:03]
A
Absolutely.
- [47:03]
B
And the road. And the word that you had wrote for me was love. Right. The word that you actually wrote out was love, and I love that. I mean, pun intended. Right. I mean, the leadership trade is to love, because I can go in so many different directions. And we talked about failures, we talked about mentorship, we talked about leading, we talk about parenting a lot about kids. I mean, there's just so much there. There's continuous improvement. The analogies of the NFL player, you know, perfecting your craft, all the above. And it's just. You use the word love, and I was like, all right, I want to see where the chief runs with this.
- [47:31]
A
I know it's a warm and fuzzy thing to say. I. I get it. But at the end of the day, I. What's the secret to great leadership? We gotta love people a little bit, right?
- [47:38]
B
Yes.
- [47:39]
A
You know, even when they don't love you back. And that's A funny thing to say, but I know every employee of our department does not love me back. I get that. That's okay. I wish they did. I like to be liked and so forth. But I'm gonna love them even when they don't love me back. I'm still gonna make choices for them that matter, even if it's rough. You remember that. I'm sure you've heard this story. So there's that story of a guy saw a snake being burned in a fire, and he decided to save the snake. And when. When he did, the snake bit him, causing him agonizing pain. Right? And the pain triggered him to drop the snake back in the fire. So then he found a stick, and he used the stick to get the snake out of the fire, saving the snake's life. And the. Somebody asked, why would you help the snake after it bit you? And the guy said, well, that's. The nature of the snake, is to bite, yes, but that was not going to change my nature, which is to help. Right. And so you're not going to retaliate against your kids because they didn't love you back when you were trying to teach them. And I think it's the same thing with our team, though it stings a little bit when they maybe don't love the decisions we make. Our nature is to love them either way and keep helping them through their journey and providing them things that maybe they don't even know they need yet. And I think that's.
- [48:53]
B
Yeah, well, you just said something, and I mentioned this just actually in the most recent podcast as well, Kirby Smart of the Georgia Bulldogs of the ncaa, he said in one of his. He was talking about leadership, and he said one of the. The cost of leadership and being an effective leader is you were going to be disliked by the majority at times. That's it just. It's the nature of it. You could do your best to the. For the. For the most and still be. Be disliked by the most. And it's. It just comes with it sometimes.
- [49:22]
A
It's absolutely true. And it doesn't. It doesn't mean we. We have to have a hard, hard shell and not care about it. It's okay to care about it. We just got to stay focused on who we work for. And I think I'm blessed to have a pretty awesome senior leadership team. Our deputy chiefs and fire marshal and that, that leadership team, the senior leaders, they get that we take care of each other in that context because we have to cheer each other on sometimes when we're making tough decisions. That's all right.
- [49:50]
B
So moving forward, Chief, was there a defining moment that you would say that shaped your leadership philosophy and the way you lead today?
- [50:00]
A
I think it was realizing that I was being led sometimes when I didn't even know it. So I was, I was given the opportunity to lead and didn't even realize that my leaders were setting me up to do that. As you discussed my background a little bit, I worked for multiple departments simultaneously. You know, what do you do if you want to get more fires? Well, you work for three fire departments at the same time and maybe you get more fires. Right?
- [50:23]
B
Maybe, though. Only maybe. Right.
- [50:26]
A
The point in my career where I, I drove a ladder truck in the city and then I get off in the morning and I go to my 40 hour chief job in the county as a chief officer. That though that's crazy. It was kind of nice because it gave what a dramatic perspective. One day driving a ladder truck and the next day you're a deputy chief of operations and then back and forth. I think that was helpful to keep me remembering what, what the attributes of the leadership actually looked like on the line. So as I was doing that, I, I promoted in one of those organizations while still driving the truck in the other, which gave me tremendous perspective. I was asked to be the training officer. And after that I fell in love with the job and led to being the training chief, et cetera, just the best job in the world. And one day as I promoted to deputy chief of operations and I was feeling kind of the loss of being the training chief, missing that job I loved so much. But I realized the part of that job I loved the most was what I would call now leadership development. Constantly finding ways for our folks to get the tools to up their leadership game. So from then on I realized I could do that really at any rank, but more and more I could create more impact as I promoted and I started feeling a little better about promotion and leaving training. From then on, my mission became fostering leadership growth through all aspects of the organization. And again, that quote from Craig Groeschel of Leaders. When leaders get better, everyone gets better. And so as the fire chief or the deputy chief, I was able to insert just leader little leadership elements throughout everything we did, whether it be a meeting, a video we would watch over lunch with the captains, anything to just instill some neat leadership concepts. But you know, as, as time goes on, there's a hiccup. And, and just because I was all in, it didn't mean those, those exposed to My methodology were all in, right? Just because I had realized, oh, this is incredibly important to me, it doesn't mean everybody was bought in. And so you can lead a horse to water. You know, you use the carrot, you use the stick. But the intrinsic motivation to want to be a better leader matters. And. And we can't just hand that to somebody. So I would say coming back to defining moments, finding ways to allow them to experience it. And so I opened this question by saying I was put in a leadership position by someone else not even realizing they had done it. The defining moment for me was I became a leader and looked around and didn't realize what they had done. Right. I was entrusted to be in a leadership role, didn't even realize it when all the time, you know, my leaders were leading me towards it. They were leading me to the horse, to water, but they were allowing me to make the step myself. And so I know that was a lot of words to answer the question, but defining moment for me was when I realized my great leaders around me that were just. They brought me right to it. But I had to take that step and say, okay, you're right. I want to do it. You know, that's awesome. Sometimes that step is raising your right hand and agreeing to do it. Maybe that step is coming off of shift work into the. The office, you know, office hours, whatever it takes to actually do the job. But that defining moment for me was, I love training, I love building this. How can I impact people even more? So it's through leadership development. And leadership development is kind of a generic term, right? That could mean a thousand things to a thousand people. To me, it's just, how can I provide leadership resources so our team can become leaders on their own? You know, how do I enable them to get there? I can't, say, read a book and all of a sudden you become the world's greatest leader. You. You've got to get there on your own. It's just we've got to create an environment and give you the resources to achieve it.
- [54:02]
B
Okay, well, let's stay there for a minute, because I do ask this quite a bit on this show because I think that's what it's all about. It's about how do we do things? How do we navigate? What are other people doing? How do we learn? What can we incorporate things that others are doing? Sometimes, you know, development doesn't have a financial cost to it. There are things we could do on our own, starting today, right now, that have no financial cost to it. Some Obviously do. But in your current fire department chief or in your position at city hall or in previous fire departments you worked for, what are some of the tangible leadership development pieces that you knew worked and, or what are you doing currently? And what would you suggest, you know, some of our listeners start doing to attain some of this leadership development for themselves, for those around them?
- [54:47]
A
Well, I think first off, you know, one size does not fit all. And so if you say this is our way of doing it, that is not going to reach every member of your organization. Some will gain from it, some will not like it. Right? And so I've certainly learned again through failures of you've got to be very dynamic in how you deliver that. And so we talked about one a few minutes ago of that opportunity. We called 15 minutes of leadership and letting different people teach the team what leadership looks like to them. That involves them in the process of teaching their leaders what leadership looks like. But everybody gains from it, right? So leadership development can't just come from the people with bugles on their collar. It can come from any level. And I think this articulates it. So 15 minutes of leadership is what we call it. We either begin or end. Every staff meeting, every senior leadership team meeting, every command staff meeting, all has 15 minutes of leadership in it. But it's always done by somebody else, somebody different. And it rotates around and so we get perspectives that way. Another thing we did for quite a while was what we called leaders lunch. And so figure you got to eat lunch, right? Why not eat lunch and watch a movie? And so we said we've been coming up with our leadership classes on our own, but there's some amazing speakers out there and we can watch a 30 minute video of an amazing national speaker and learn from it. And so we started having leaders lunch. So everybody brown bag it. They'd bring their lunch and we'd all sit there and watch this amazing video and then chat about how it applied to our organization. I think one of the neat things about that one is it allowed me to really get out of the fire service in leadership. We watch. We watched one just last week and it was a restaurant owner. It had nothing to do with fire service, but we picked up some really awesome customer service elements and some, some neat ideas from watching this, this video. So that was another way. A third way I'll share is, and I'll be honest, this is probably the least enjoyed by some folks is we would read a book together, fairly short book, but we would spend 12 months reading it as an Officer group. And the purpose was to just read a little bit and then use it. Right. Go, go to work tomorrow and practice that stuff. And so, and we talk about it as a group and so forth. I think the negative is obviously that comes off a little bit like doing book reports and things like that. Oh my gosh, that's too much like school. And that's okay. Like I said, some things work for some people. Some people would rather watch the video, some people rather teach a class. All that is fine. It comes in so many ways and it's okay to come in so many ways. We just want to make sure that they're constantly some aspect of leadership. And so those are a couple of actionable items just right away that I think you can use very easily within your organization. Small group, big group. In fact, as you said, I brought it with me to city hall. And so we just had a city hall leaders lunch a couple weeks ago when I brought every department executive together in the entire city. We watched lunch and or watched the video and ate lunch together and that trickled down throughout a 600 employee group. So that's fantastic.
- [57:45]
B
15 minutes of leadership. I love that. I sit in some meetings at times and some of them are short meetings. It's hard to tell everyone, let's do a 15 minutes leadership when the whole meeting by itself was only a 10 minute meeting. But maybe it's a 5 minutes of leadership. Right? Maybe start somewhere. But I like leaders lunch book club. This is awesome. So thank you for that. The question I have on this is initially talk about the first time this was incorporated. Was it, did you find it kind of like not bought in and then obviously it got bought in and now it's part of culture or how hard was it to incorporate some of these? The leaders lunch, right? Hey, next week we're going to do leaders lunch. Here's what it is, here's what it means. Did you find that 60 of the people didn't attend? 60% of the people were like, yeah, I'm not doing that. I'm just looking at the transformation and then how did it become successful?
- [58:32]
A
I think the answer is going to be the opposite of what you'd expect. So being with a couple different fire departments as the chief, I've been able to try things, they didn't work, refine them, and then 10 years later, here I'm in a different place and I'm using different tactics. Right. The truth is, when I originally created some of those things or came up with them, it happened very organically. An example in one meeting, I said, hey, while we're at a meeting together, I'm going to give a little spiel on this type of leadership. And then the next time we said, hey, it'd be cool if somebody else did. And it was everybody's idea. And then somebody else did so very organically, 15 minutes of leadership just happened. But it was everybody's idea. Now, you would think I could have refined that really well. And then when I went to a new fire department, I could have said, here's the package, here's how. And that's. And that's what I did. But my guess is it was received more as a package, not organically. Right. And so now at another department, I can say, hey, we're going to do this thing called Leaders Lunch, and here's how it's going to go. And we're going to watch this video and I'll have materials for you. It doesn't feel as organic. And I realized that. And in fact, just recently, understanding some of these things that happened organically in my past that everybody said, oh yeah, let's start doing this, had more buy in. So now down the road, I'm needing to come up with some ways to organically maybe come up with some new ideas that our folks help generate rather than Matt's idea that worked somewhere else, right? Yes, it may work, but I would love everybody to be involved in the idea of how we create what, what works. So to sum that up, I don't know if I got better at it over time. I almost think over time I might need to recreate it a little bit. I might need to reinvigorate it because the most successful times it was organically created by everybody thinking, hey, that'd be neat if we did that. And we were all bought into it. And so maybe the leadership lesson there is don't stay stagnant with any of this stuff. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. And I think that also speaks to the generational concept of we need to constantly evolve what leadership might look like. The book review may not work well. The movie might work better. Something else might be better. Be open to that. The minute we think we have the leadership chart on the wall and we just follow the chart and we're good. I think we're, we're missing the market.
- [60:48]
B
We're in trouble. Yeah, we're in trouble. It goes to the whole adage of like, you know, we do this because we've always done it, okay? We, we know it's ineffective, but let's continue to do it. I mean, think about that statement. It's just, there's no statement, just says everything. No, you don't do it because you always done it. You change it. And you constantly look at it and evaluate to make sure we're doing things because people can buy in and it's effective. The end of the, at the end of the day, it's got to be effective.
- [61:15]
A
To, to your point earlier, though, like, you're not going to make everybody happy. We know that. Right. And the larger the organization gets, the more challenging that gets. And so even doing the book review, I had several officers come to me talking about how much they liked it where others are. Like, we're doing a book review. Right. So I don't think it's about finding the one avenue that everybody loves. It's about changing it up enough to, to appeal to the different groups, the different learning styles of the different, the different people in your organization. Now, by doing that, some people are going to love sometimes and not like the others, and that's okay.
- [61:47]
B
So this being a leadership podcast, we just spent a great deal of time talking about the whole package of leadership. What that is. We talked about failures and a whole wide array of things. If you were talking to just say, young members in the fire service, young leaders, we'll call them, what's one advice you would give to that group to start growing in their potential of leaders with a long career ahead of them?
- [62:11]
A
You know, the word I'll say is optimism. But let me, let me expand on that. It's important for the newest firefighter, the newest leader, as you said, to know that there are fantastic leaders out there who will absolutely pour into them, who will love you each day, who will take care of you throughout the end of your career and beyond once you think you found one. Make the determination for yourself. First off, don't make the decision. You know, we talk about the Kitchen table podcast. Don't make the decision of if they're a great leader necessarily around the kitchen table. Give those leaders a chance. But when you find one that's willing to pour into you, realize how valuable that is. When they come along, know that they love you, know that they care, know that everything they do is for your betterment, even if you may not see it at first on the surface. And when you, when you question it, take the time to go ask and talk to them. You know, assume goodwill. We've talked about that quite a bit in this podcast about just asking some questions to understand the why. And I Talked about the pink truck and working out on duty and getting the whole story. There's leaders out there that will pour everything they have into you and make you a better leader yourself. But we need to get the. Get the information. You know, go to them and get the information. Yes, there are people out there who are not great, informal leadership positions, and you will come across them as well. But there are also amazing ones out there. You just, you got to give them a chance to impact you, similar to what I told you. They might not even see themselves as a leader until you approach them for leadership. And that's a really funny way to say that. But when you give people the chance to shine and be great leaders, there's some phenomenal leaders out there, but we have to enable that. And that's not just from the top. That can be from the lower level of saying, boss, lead me, you know, help me. I ask questions, ask for mentorship. So to end that question, specifically to our newest folks in the fire service, our newest leaders, look for that leader that's willing to pour into you and then open yourself up to it. Ask them for it, and they may very much rise to that challenge and take good care of you.
- [64:19]
B
So with that being said to the emerging leader, maybe even company officers, those that have been there some time, they're, you know, growing in their role and emerging forward in their fire service career, what's something that you would suggest they do to take on that role as new leaders?
- [64:35]
A
Well, we hit on it. But I'll say it again. It can be really hard. Like, it's okay some days. You know, leadership can be really tough, but it sure feels good having led, having known you led properly. Right. And so it can be really tough, but it is really worth it. And so I would say to our emerging leaders, make sure your focus is on the long term. Just like, you know, who our kids will be someday, even after they're out of the house. We must be in it for the long term, for the long game. You're not just developing an employee. You're developing a person, you know, that has a family at home that has other parts of their life. And if you're. You're all about the whole person, I think you have a better chance at really taking care of people. It's whether right or wrong. Again, when the coach believes they know the right path and they lead you to it, success is about following that coach. Your leadership toolbox needs to be thoughtful. Even when you get some pushback and you're going to get Some pushback as a leader, be prepared for it. Again, it's okay for it to frustrate you when you don't have a high approval rating. You will work so hard for the betterment of others. You'll be away from your family, sometimes crazy long hours, giving other people all you have and, and some will still rub you in the dirt. They'll kick you when you're down. You try to take you out. Sometimes in leadership, that can hurt a lot, especially if you are genuinely leading out of love. So you must be rooted in your why. You must be. You must trust that they may not see it yet, but that does not change your responsibility as a leader just because they don't see it yet. Just like the community that wants to save tax dollars and says, send me two firefighters and pickup truck, we know that's not right. We know we're going to not give that to them. We're going to give them what they need. But when the rubber meets the road, you take care of people. It's like, you know, again, back to the why. And some of the. Sometimes people aren't mature enough quite to receive that, but they will get there over time. And at the end of the day, as a leader, your team deserves the why even if they don't agree with it. Like we said, they still deserve the why because you're giving them that long term vision, you're paying that picture. And if we help them align on that picture, it's tough. It's easier to get through the tough stuff. Because I told you so is rarely a mark of great leadership. But strive to inspire folks through the, through those challenging times. But know it's worth it. It's worth it in the long run, even though it hurts a little bit, you know, in the middle. And again, back to the parenting analogy. Yeah, hurts. It hurts a little bit when my little guy's mad at me. But I know I'm doing what's right by him in the long run, whether he knows it or not.
- [67:21]
B
And leadership is hard, right? I mean, it's hard. So what would you say to just tag along a little bit further on that is, you know, you just talked about, you know, individuals may not necessarily appreciate or understand what you're doing. You might be, you know, knocked down. You're already down and you're getting knocked down further despite your efforts to try and do the best for others and the best for most. But leadership is hard. And you know, you could take a sideline and, you know, not lead with all your effort. And we'll just call it what it is. I mean, there's leaders out there that will, will view leadership as, you know, as an easy road. We'll say or not poor. You use your words. They're not going to pour all of your effort, energy into others to not servantly lead. But leadership is hard. So why is it so hard?
- [68:09]
A
I don't know who said that quote. They said, you know, if you want to be liked by everybody, don't be a leader, be the ice cream man. It's kind of funny, but you're right. You could take a sideline approach, but that's not leading. And quite honestly, I mean, if you get back rooted into your purpose of what leading actually is, it's taking care of people, even if they don't think they need to be taken care of. So for me, and similar to like I talked about an organization getting back to their cultural framework, their purpose, that's my suggestion to the great leaders of. It's hard. How you get through the hard time is come back to your purpose. What if your purpose is to, to build great firefighters and, and build great community members and love your people and take care of them? Do your actions match that? And if they do, even though they're not being received well right now, you can sleep well at night knowing you're achieving your purpose. And so that's probably a deep statement to share, but I think getting through that is you got to have some, some purpose. Right? Nobody made you become the leader. Right? And especially if we're talking about the fire service rank, like you had to raise that hand and say, I will do it. And with that came this huge responsibility of, wow, I gotta now, like, like I, like I opened with those hunks of metal on your collar. Now what, you know, what are you gonna do with those things that you're gonna impact people's lives. And so, gosh, yeah, I would never want to, to set one of our future leaders up for, man, this is gonna be a walk in the park or this is gonna be all. It's not, it's not, but it's, it's, it's the good work. It's, it's true leadership is tough. It's back to that algebraic equation, right? It's, it's really good leadership plus really good management multiplied by having a true servant's heart. That's what the whole package is. And you remove an aspect of that and it's not, it's not whole package leadership. And it doesn't mean it's not valuable, but yeah, if you're going to be all in, if you're going to be the ultimate leader, you need to be prepared to take a few hits but be rooted in what's right.
- [70:07]
B
All right. Well, the name of the show, chief, is the kitchen table. You know, I can only imagine you've had a lot of kitchen table conversations, a lot of kitchen table experiences, stories and memories, both at city hall and then obviously at the fire station, going up through the ranks. Do you mind sharing one of your most fondest kitchen table memories or conversations?
- [70:29]
A
I have a couple, so I had to narrow it down. Right. A lot happens in the kitchen table. Very fond of those kitchen tables.
- [70:36]
B
It's a great name, by the way. It's a great name, isn't it?
- [70:40]
A
So one, I'll share a story about what happened at the kitchen table, but the dialogue is much less impactful than the observations we made from the kitchen table. When I worked in one of the city's busier stations, everyone would both the engine company, the truck company, the battalion ship, we'd still all come together and sit down at the kitchen table in between alarms to eat dinner. We'd hang out a little bit afterwards, and sometimes we even play cards for dishes and things like that. And one evening after doing this, we got to chatting quite a bit and we noticed the captain. There's a kind of a glass window from the kitchen table into the office, and you could see the captain in there on his computer working late into the night doing captain stuff, you know, captain stuff. As a captain, he managed programs, budgets, all the administrative side of our operational job. And so you would see him every night, this captain, he brew a big pot of coffee after dinner. And while we worked out or talked or played cards or had some fun, he would go do his captain stuff. And he did this because he decided that the day was for us all day. We'd run lots of calls, we would train constantly, he would constantly spend time with his crew. But he was a captain and he had to do his captain stuff. So he wasn't going to let that captain stuff sacrifice his time with us. He wasn't going to let it take away from our day together to mentor us, to lead us. So he made the choice to stay up late, sometimes till two in the morning, getting that captain job done. So I remember sitting at the kitchen table vividly watching him through that glass as we played around and he worked. And I remember being so proud that I had a captain who cared enough about leading me that he was Willing to sacrifice other time so that he could do quality program management and take care of his crew too. I think it's a critical story because it acknowledges the balance between those administrative program management functions and the operational responsibility we have have. And still being a team player with the crew, it also demonstrates responsibility. Being the boss who can still be enjoyable to be with, but maintains a healthy separation at times. Doing his captain stuff, it's hard articulate some of the challenges I think we've talked about of leadership, but from the kitchen table, it's articulated successful leadership to me. It articulated what successful leadership looks like to me, and it really guided the rest of my career of if I chose to take that promotion. It also meant not playing cards around the table. Sometimes I'm doing my captain stuff, but I never wanted my crew to feel like I wasn't pouring into them as well. And so this captain just balanced that so eloquently. And as I sat at the kitchen table watching him work, I just remember that being this amazing, enlightening moment of wow, the things he does for us. Right? Servant leadership. Right. Feels pretty good to. To feel like your captain's all in for you, even if it means staying up till two in the morning.
- [73:34]
B
Get his other Was, was that appreciation communicated to him by you or the crew? And if so, how did that. I mean, right. It's a phenomenal story. The impact that it made that you hear telling this on a podcast today, many years later. I mean, how did that conversation, you know, transpire? And what was the. How was this individuals, this captain's response to it?
- [73:56]
A
You know, like any typical fire station, I think rather than us sitting down and saying, captain, thanks for loving us so much, probably not how it went. Right? We probably joked and played some games and found some way to make a joke, see what you're doing of what you know. So we probably made fun of his captain. Dude, I know something.
- [74:15]
B
Oh my gosh, you gotta.
- [74:16]
A
Gotta have a pot of coffee to stay up all night, cap. But I think, you know, this captain was so good at joking back and so forth. I think, I think the message was received loud and clear. And I guess he's not sitting here to say that, but I think in the fire service we have funny ways of telling each other we love you, funny ways of caring about each other. And I think we would have done anything for that captain. You know, he was so in it for us. And I think we translated our appreciation to him by bending over backwards for him, helping fill the gaps and maybe his blind Spots and his shortfalls. I remember helping him with some administrative work because maybe he wasn't as good at typing this up. And I would do that for him. Right. I was a firefighter, fighter. But I think doing some of that stuff to make your boss shine, that's how we translate it back to him. He knows we have his back because he has ours. I think I would applaud our crew even for recognizing that, because it's easy to just not notice and go do your own thing. Right. It's a little tougher to recognize what a leader might be sacrificing for you. And back to our conversation. Even when we don't like the decisions that leader is making, for somebody to be mature enough to say, man, look at all the things she is doing for us, or look at all the time away from his family he's given to give us. What I don't like every decision he makes, but wow, he's all in for us. Takes a pretty mature person to say it, you know, and you hope folks in the fire station that eventually get to that point and realize it. But again, we're going to love them even if they don't love us back. And that's part of the.
- [75:46]
B
Thank you for sharing the impact that the kitchen table can have. You know, in the fire station, those conversations, like you mentioned observations, sometimes is, you know, things happen around, you know, pot of coffee and sitting there at the table. So thank you for sharing that. Well, I do want to say thank you again, Chief, for being a part of today's show. Thank you for sharing your perspective and thoughts on leadership so we can continue to foster this conversation and spread it to many. But that's not the end of it. Right? So Chief Debayer challenged you. This brings us to our leadership challenge. Our goal is to spread this conversation, plus more by continuing to add diverse perspectives for the listener base. Is there someone that you would like to challenge to be a future guest on the kitchen table?
- [76:31]
A
Absolutely. And like you said, there's so many leaders out there. We can choose some great people. And. And it took me a little time to decide how to narrow it down, but I also wanted to strive to get to different parts of the country for you as well.
- [76:42]
B
Appreciate it.
- [76:43]
A
Get some diverse. Some diverse background. And so Executive Chief Tim Kreiss with a Phoenix Fire Department is going to be my leadership challenge. And so Tim's just a phenomenal leader. He has come up through the Phoenix Fire Department. His father was in the Phoenix Fire Department, worked very closely with Chief Bruno Scene, the names we all know. And now Tim is in such a critical role within the Phoenix Fire Department. But I admire his enthusiasm for the job. He writes articles on this and that, the technical aspect of firefighting. But then we talk about the leadership more, the adaptive component of our business. And I think he's just a really dialed in, astute firefighter, chief officer, human being. I am related to him through some family connections, so I get to spend some time with him and actually hear from what he's doing. One other thing I'll say is, you know, Phoenix Fire Department is known for being best in class. I think they have a phenomenal reputation, well earned. I am constantly asking Tim for, hey, can I have a policy on this? What do you guys do with this? You know, how can I try and match it? A true mark of a leader is being able to, like I said, mentor up, mentor down, go in different directions. And Tim called me once saying, hey, we're dealing with something we haven't quite dealt with before. What do you do in Saquon, Minnesota? And I thought, wow, the Phoenix Fire Department's asking me how we do something. Right. Appreciated that, but it was really. It just showed. I don't know if you want to call it humility or just the ability to learn from anyone of getting different views and saying, hey, you might have done this a few more times than we do because of your dynamic with the Mississippi river whatnot. How do you attack this? I really appreciated that. I think that was a mark of a great leader to be willing to even be in a best in class organization and say, we don't know everything. We can reach out to others and learn some things, and there's still some tools in the toolbox out there. So my challenge is to Tim. I think he will absolutely not disappoint by coming on your show and sharing some amazing leadership attributes and. And things about the long career he's had with the Phoenix Fire Department.
- [78:40]
B
Oh, that's awesome. Well, thank you so much, Chief. That's. That's going to be a phenomenal conversation as I could already. I could already see it. We've had a couple members of the Phoenix Fire Department, and so this is going to be just, again, another great addition. So I will reach out to Chief. How do you pronounce his name? Is it Chief Tim Kreiss? Is what I heard you say. Okay, got it. Well, thank you so much again, Chief, for spending the time with us on the kitchen table today. I understand that you write articles. You've written articles. You contribute, you're an author, and you teach around the country. How do we find Chief Love in the future if we're looking for you?
- [79:12]
A
Well, thank you for asking. And you hit the nail on the head. I'm just so passionate about leadership development. And as you and I said, people define that very differently. And so I've kind of recently gotten really into building these real immersive leadership platforms for organizations and departments and so forth. And so I love doing it. And so thank you for asking. I think the best way to get a hold of me is simply going to our fire department's website. I mean, I love funneling people to that. So the St. Cloud, Minnesota Fire Department, you come there and you can get my email address, my phone number. Best way to get a hold of me. But I'd love people to reach out if they're looking for something. I just, I can't get enough of leadership development and building these platforms and watching businesses succeed because they're taking care of their people, stuff like that. So love to share that any way I can.
- [79:55]
B
Awesome. Thank you so much, Chief, for sharing. So with that, before we close today on episode 71 of the Kitchen Table, what are your lasting leadership thoughts that you'd like to leave our listeners with before we close?
- [80:08]
A
Well, certainly a recap. We hit so many things today. One of them being leadership is hard and genuine, caring leadership despite public opinion is even harder. Right. That's what real leadership is, though. So this is probably the reason not everyone is up for for it. However, if you are up for it, go at it with everything you have. Go at it with your whole heart. Be the leader that changes other people's lives, knowing you won't always see it, but it's happening. An amazing and admiral admirable profession like ours deserves the absolute best in leadership. The fire service is absolutely amazing. And so we deserve to have the best leaders. We deserve to have leadership in everything we do. So each of us has that optimum leader inside of us. But it takes work to bring it out, to refine it and make it what it really can be. And even before all of that, you have to raise your hand to do it. You have to make the deliberate choice to take it on. We change lives in the community every day in our profession, and we absolutely change lives of the team members we work with as well. Though being the whole package of leadership is hard work, it's absolutely worth it. And so I still have plenty of my career left, but I can tell you, even as hard as leadership has been. It's worth every step of the way. I know I'm giving back to my team. I'm giving back to my community. I'm changing lives every day with the leadership. And again, rooted in kind of your purpose and making sure you know what leadership is about to you, you know, what you want to give to people makes some of those harder times a little more powerful.
- [81:47]
B
Thank you, everyone, for tuning in today to the kitchen table. We truly hope you found this time valuable, and we hope we've inspired you to take action, to lead and to spread the leadership conversation. Till next time, be safe, be intentional, and stay curious.