Keli Samsing, one of the Journeyman Fire Conference organizers, posted a long and thoughtful FaceBook observation after teaching at the Fire Department Instructor’s Conference:
The REAL civil war in the fire service is between those that want to be the best, the elitists; they go to conferences, watch fire porn, teach, and the ones they look down on, the ones who don’t follow similar pursuits. You know who I’m talking about. You are probably an elite guy/gal, one of those passionate firefighters who is never comfortable resting on their laurels. You always want to train and improve for your brothers and your citizens.
Being an elitist isn’t always a bad thing. I lump myself into that group. I go to as many training events as I can and I’m constantly trying to improve myself. But at some point in my journey of self improvement, I started to grow angry with those around me who didn’t share my passion. I viewed them as employees and spoke down to them. I quoted Navy SEALs and genuinely thought I was better then them.
Then one day I looked around and I was outside training by myself. While some would view this as an indication of my dedication, I eventually realized it was a tragedy. I had alienated everyone around me because I thought I was better than them. I wasn’t preaching to a choir, I was preaching to an empty church. See, here’s the thing: the fire service is not an elite fighting force. It’s made up of many individuals with varying motivations and passions.
Tribal Leadership
In response to Samsing’s post, Anthony Correia points out the role of tribal leadership. Logan, King & Fischer-Wright describe organizations as a set of small towns, with each small town of 20 to 150 people behaving like a tribe.
Tribes are the basic building block of any large human effort, including earning a living. As such, their influence is greater than that of teams, entire companies, and even superstar CEOs.
In companies, tribes decide whether the new leader is going to flourish or get taken out. They determine how much work gets done, and of what quality. (Logan, King & Fischer-Wright 2008)
Logan, King & Fischer-Wright describe five phases of tribal leadership:
- On the Verge of a Meltdown
- Disconnected and Disengaged
- The Wild, Wild West
- Establishing Tribal Leadership
- Life is Great
Stage 3 is described as the zone of personal accomplishment, representing about 48% of professionals. Stage 3 professionals feel that they are putting more into the organization than they are getting out of it. Personally very successful but frustrated in the system (small town/tribe) they are working in. “I am great, you are not.”
A Personal Epiphany
Moving into Stage 4 usually requires a personal epiphany, with significant insights:
- What Have I Achieved?
- How Can I Fix This?
- What’s the Real Goal?
The epiphany begins with noticing that people haven’t achieved what they thought, that victories they thought were tribal are only personal. As the epiphany continues, people often try to achieve group victories using Stage Three behavior, which never works.
People eventually see that the goal of Stage Three—winning on a personal basis—is self- defeating. Most people notice that power is a zero-sum game in Stage Three: the more you take from others, the more you have and the fewer others have. By contrast, power in Stage Four is abundant: the more you give to others, the more you get back.
Seeing that the only real goal is the betterment of the tribe. Ironically, as people act to build the tribe they achieve everything they sought but couldn’t achieve at Stage Three: esteem, respect, loyalty, legacy, and enduring success.
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Logan, David; King, John, & Fischer-Wright, Halee (2008) Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization. New York: HarperCollins.
Discussion of fire service zero-sum issues: “The trees are on your side, Lieutenant”
Feature photo from (2018 November 15) “Eldorado Tool: Second roof fire in two years” Milford Mirror. Accessed April 27, 2019, from https://www.milfordmirror.com/92630/eldorado-tool-roof-fire-shut-part-of-boston-post-road-this-morning/
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