Why Leading First Responders is Unique
The subject of leadership is well researched, defined, and taught by many brilliant people who can impart valuable lessons to people who want to lead well.
This Primer is focused on how to lead first responders. The same general principles taught in leadership texts apply, but there are specific goals and skills needed to lead people who put themselves in harms way to keep their community’s safe.
Why is the work unique?
-
It never stops. An unprecedented flu virus may have decimated staffing levels, but someone has to be there,ready and able to take the next call.
-
First responders experience events they find traumatic at rates up to 100 times what members of the public face. Police and fire training has focused on member safety. Making sure a member can be safe and go home at the end of a shift. However, it is now understood many members are receiving Operational Stress Injuries. Most often the injury is cumulative, from numerous events. The number of members affected is extremely high. A leader of first responders has to find ways to keep members both safe and mentally well.
-
The types of crimes, the drug use patterns, and safety concerns faced today are unique to this time. The law has become more complex and difficult to navigate in order to obtain the evidence needed to have charges laid against those who hurt others. There is a dramatic increase in violent behaviours arising from mental illness. More and more people are unhoused. These changes will continue, making change management a fundamental skill for a police leader.
-
A fundamental pillar of our society is having the community trust that first responders, particularly police, are operating from an ethical core and solid integrity. That trust and bond with the community is fundamental in a democracy where the success of law enforcement is linked to the cooperation between citizens and the police.
There are two primary goals that must be ever present in a leader’s mind:
The Mission - Make the Community Safe
The Members – Keep Your Members Well
Neither goal is completely within the control of any leader.
The mission requires overcoming many obstacles, from resource limitations to external factors like the influx of a new street drug. Police also often decry the limitations of the court system, referring to the revolving door syndrome, or the lack of mental health resources to interdict with people who present a risk to others. Those factors are relevant and often make progress towards the goal of making the community safe more difficult. However, they must be seen as challenges to be overcome rather than explanations for why the mission cannot be achieved.
Keeping members well can also seem overwhelming. Members will continue to go to hard calls. Bad things will happen and members will rush in to help and find themselves dealing with devastating events. In addition, what will keep someone well will depend on each member’s background, resilience, and willingness to get help when needed.
However, a police leader who remains focused on these two goals, can make a community safer, and can create a workplace where more members can stay well and even thrive.
Members know what a good leader is. You can ask any seasoned member what made a boss they had good. There are essential qualities members must have in order for members to see that you are a leader, as opposed to someone they have to deal with just because you are sitting in a boss’s chair.
The following leadership Primer is divided into two parts:
Leading Members to Accomplish the Mission
Keeping Yourself and Members Well
The two goals are intertwined.
Before getting down to specifics, there is one more thing that must exist. It is about you. Who are you at your core. Do you have integrity and do you do your work because you actually care about the community and your members. Bluntly, if you don’t have those two qualities, no book, no lecture, no primer and no amount of time will make you a leader. So let’s start with quality one. Are you self-aware.