Leadership, Not everyone can be a leader

 In my over 40 years of being employed, I have worked for virtually every type of boss there is. From the micromanager to the "set it and forget it" as George Foreman used to say. Everyone responds well to different styles of leadership, there's no one size fits all. 

In 2022 there was a study by the Niagara Institute which was completed by 1164 professionals in 48 countries. The largest of the respondents were from the US, the UK, and Canada. There were 6 major leadership styles: Charismatic, affiliative, democratic, pace-setting, authoritarian, and laissez-faire. The Democratic was the most common at nearly forty-seven percent. The survey also showed that the top behaviors that the best leaders demonstrate are working together and as equals, creating a sense of belonging and psychological safety, and relying on their influence and relationships to get things done. It also showed the top three ways leaders connected with their employees: They asked for input, they used humor and told stories, and they met one-on-one with their employees. They recognize when their employees lose motivation and they meet with them to uncover what might be causing it.  

I will never forget the time that I was having a really bad day. I was coming out of the ER doors and there was a guy that I don't particularly care for standing near those doors. Normally, if you ask me how I am, I am going to respond with "living the dream". That day as I walked out that person who was a supervisor with my service asked me "Hey Darrin how are you?" I looked at him and responded sharply with "Not worth a crap" and kept walking. Once I got to my unit he caught up with me and said, "Darrin I have known you for a long time, and I have never heard you say anything negative like that. What's wrong?" Even though I didn't care for that person I was impressed that he realized I was not myself, that I was upset and he was concerned. 

My career in the Army was pretty short, I was on active duty for 3 years and then I worked with the Army as a contractor for 20 more years. My decision to get out of the Army was two-fold, one was I was sent to Ft. Benning Ga from Germany and the other was that I didn't want to be a Sergeant in the Army. Once you become a Sergeant you were to be in charge of people and do less of the job that you were trained for. I had a platoon Sergeant that was pushing me to get promoted but I loved working to much. I just didn't want to "be a babysitter", to me that was all you did as a leader in the Army. You got in trouble for what your people did wrong as well as anything you did wrong. I remember my squad leader(a Sergeant and a friend of mine) got in trouble because I didn't wear my heavy jacket and gloves to a formation. He got his butt chewed and them came to me and said "can you please just wear your jacket and gloves to the first formation of the day? I have a small butt and I can't take a butt chewing like that very often." Who wants all that hassle. 

When I was overseas working for the Army as a contractor I was lucky enough to learn to work on Chinooks. I was a hard worker and it was noticed by the team lead of the Chinook team. When the project that I was working on was over there were a lot of people laid off, I was lucky and picked by Bill to work on his crew. I knew nothing about Chinooks, but thanks to my team lead helping me I picked it up pretty quickly. Bill was the "set it and forget it" type, he found your strengths and set you up for success. I remember him saying, "A good leader can leave his team and they will keep going just as if they never left." I remember he went on vacation, his timeline was kept and he walked back in the door like he never left. Another thing that he taught me, he never got mad or raised his voice. He had what we dubbed the "Hanging Head of Shame". If you messed up, he would just look at you and drop his head in disappointment. That was way worse than him yelling at you. 

In EMS you see all kinds of leaders, they come and go like the wind. Some services have rank as the fire service does, and some have supervisors and assistant supervisors, it just depends on the service. You may have supervisors who are over you that don't even have the same certifications that you do, how can they supervise you when they don't even know what your job entails. We have leadership who micromanage over every supply that you get, how long it takes you to clear the hospital, and how long it takes you to get back to your coverage area. One thing that I feel is an issue, leadership doesn't get around to seeing their people. In the EMS and Fire service, we have stations where we keep our units and spend 25%(in our case) of our lives. Leadership should be coming around from time to time to see the conditions, see if their people need anything, or if the station itself needs anything. If leaders are going to be sticklers on some things then they should be sticklers in all things. 

Good leaders lead by example, they communicate well, they advocate for their profession and they lift up their teams. You can't be a good leader if you aren't well versed in the jobs that your people do, you can't be a problem solver if you don't/can't understand the situations your people bring to you. In the event of conflicts, you have to be open to explanations and empathetic to all parties involved. As a good leader, you have to fight for your craft, you need to advocate for your teams. If no new people are coming in then the environment that you have created will disappear.

Anyone can be a boss, but not everyone can be a leader.