Leadership

By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer Update: I’ve updated this post because I was moved by the courageous post I read today from a fire service colleague, Angie Hughes, Captain (Ret.) Baltimore County (Mary.) Fire Department. Or today, if it’s early enough in the day. Men in the fire service need to “step up” and call out sexist and misogynistic ...

So, if a strong and articulate and bright woman can feel like this over the course of her career (Remember, she rose through the ranks and retired as a captain), how are other women dealing with these issues and anxieties?

These three steps are more than just individual or group tasks. Collectively, they constitute leadership and mentoring on your part. By doing so, you’d also be creating expectations for attendance at future conferences by you and members of your department.

Chief Avsec writes of the need for a "third corner" in the company officer's hat of responsibilities: risk manager. “If we are to continue making positive strides towards making the job of a firefighter safer, we must develop company officers who can recognize and manage risk in both the emergency and non-emergency arenas.”

They initially used focus groups of firefighters and officers to collect data but after a couple of groups the research team had already learned something about firefighters...

I’ve said it before in this space, and I’m saying it again, white males have created this culture in the fire service and only white males can fix it. And this is not a problem to be fixed with training and education. 

How can any person feel that they’re doing a good job as a fire chief when their officers and firefighters are not being guided by policies—the governing documents for any organization—that are up-to-date, congruent with all federal and state laws, rules, and regulation, and focused on “doing the right thing”?

By: Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer This is the title of a recent post from my fire service colleague and attorney, Curt Varone, on his blog, Fire Law: Fairfax County’s Highest Female Officer Resigns From Women’s Program Officer Position WOW! There’s no other word that even comes close to describing my thoughts after reading Chief Stanley’s letter of resignation. After ...

In today’s blog, I’m going to discuss what I believe is the fundamental role for any company officer: Being an effective role model. Every single day. Why do I believe that? My experience has shown me that a company officer’s success in any of their other roles, e.g., supervisor, teacher, mentor, fire ground commander, is predicated on the level of respect and confidence that they’ve developed with their firefighters.

By Robert Avsec, Executive Fire Officer Bringing more women into your fire department is not going to add value or capabilities to your organization unless your department’s leadership recognizes and addresses its barriers to inclusion. In a recent piece for FireRescue1’s on-line trade journal, 7 steps to an inclusive fire department culture, I wrote: Diversity is about counting people. Inclusion ...