The Leadership Model in the Fire Service - Article Example

Leadership & Change Management Critical evaluation Dr. Harry Carter’s arguments about leadership model in the fire service and assessment of potential barriers in implementing Carter’s suggested changes in actual practice 1 Introduction In his article, Dr. Harry Carter argues that the fire service is a specialised field providing community service and operating in often hazardous environment thus leaders in the fire service must have attributes and skills specific to the nature and need of the fire service (Carter, 2007). Specifically, a fire service leadership model that incorporates at least 21 attributes associated with different leadership models and those specific to fire service. These include common leader attributes such as integrity, courage, honesty, pride, determination, dependability, and others and fire service specific characteristics such knowledge of emergency operations, concern for people, ability to process information quickly and accurately, ability to generate trust and motivate people (Carter, 2007). The following sections critically evaluate the level of support offered by various literatures on leadership regarding Carter’s arguments and provide an assessment of potential barriers associated in the actual implementation of suggested leadership model. 2 Critical Evaluation of the Level of Support offered for Carter’s arguments on leadership 2.1 Carter’s criteria for determining appropriate leadership characteristics for the fire service It is important to note that the criteria used to select the most appropriate leadership characteristics for the fire service specifically include six important fire service related tasks. These include rescue of endangered life, protect life of those potentially at risk, stabilization of incident, control of fire, and property conservation . Consequently, findings of Harry Carter’s literature review of leadership theories generated various leader characteristics from charismatic, situational, contingency, citizen, servant, transformational/ transaction leadership styles are appropriate to fire service . 2.2 Charismatic leadership style Carter’s rationale for selecting attributes from charismatic leadership style is the fact that fire-fighting operation is critical and best performed by a team of highly motivated individuals . Carter’s assumption therefore is to have a leader who care not only after the realisation of goals but to the well-being of people working for him . The level of support offered for Carter’s arguments in wider literature seems high as according to its renowned proponents Max Weber, Bob House, Couger and Kanungo, and Boas Shamir, a charismatic leader is sensitive to his followers needs thus can easily acquire trust, loyalty, obedience, commitment by forming a unique emotional and values-based bond with his followers . Moreover, the term “charismatic authority” is one of Max Weber’s three basic types of legitimate authority within a society described a leader that has no exceptional ability or outstanding trait who direct and followed by loyal and obedient followers (Weber 1998 as cited in ). Weber’s theory of Charismatic Leadership was further developed by Bob House in 1977 with defined characteristics, behaviour, and effects of charismatic leadership that by analysis is centred on the ability of a leader to motivate and increase followers commitment even in crisis situation . This is because a charismatic leader’s level of influence to people is measured by direct followers’ perception of their leaders vision, inspiration, moral integrity, decisiveness, and performance . The value of charisma as an inspirational aspect leadership according to is evident on theories developed since the 1980s. For instance, Bass’ theory of transformational leadership is centred of charisma such as inspirational motivation, charismatic influence, individual considerations and others. Support to Carter’s argument seems wide spread in literature include those written for the fire service mainly because having charisma is a natural leadership advantage in terms of followers loyalty, willingness, expectations, and success in achieving organisational goals . These leaders often has high self-confidence, vision, and with traits and behaviours that can significantly influence organisational behaviour . 2.3 Situational leadership style Carter’s basis for selecting some leader characteristics from situational leadership style is the need to make followers perform a particular task willingly . For this reason, a leader must have the ability to detect and understand the readiness of their followers in performing task in different situations. This according to can be realised through better leader-followers relationship, clear understanding of role and responsibility, and effective delegation of tasks that is highly supported by various literature below. In relation to Carter’s argument, the strength of situational approach to leadership is its prescriptive nature (as opposed to descriptive approaches) where leaders are asked to be flexible by using different leadership styles in different situation . Leaders who can recognise situational variables, resource limitations and constraints, and able to use appropriate leadership style and behaviours are more effective . Leadership should be based on the task, capacity of the organisation to perform such task, and priority of the moment . In essence this is only possible with better leader-followers relationship and moderating leadership style . 2.4 Contingency leadership style Some aspects of contingency leadership were chosen for the fire service model based on Carter’s assumption that focusing on people is more important than focusing on task situation . Therefore, fire service leaders should build a solid team with competitive spirit and demonstrate sincerity and concern over each member of the team . Support for the above argument seems substantial as aside from being considered as the third major leadership paradigm, contingency leadership combines the functionality of different leadership variables. These include the capability and motivation of followers, leader traits, behaviour, and experience, and situation (task, structure, and environment) . In essence, this is matching leadership style of interacting to the interaction and influence of the group where competitive spirit is key to success . In terms of leader’s sincerity, Carter’s argument is supported by authors and who believed in the importance of sincerity in building trust and stability at times when change of leadership behaviour is necessary. 2.5 Citizen leadership style Citizen leadership view traditional command and control approaches as narrow because of the assumption that each member of the team is responsible and therefore should contribute to the attainment of goals . Similar to contingency leadership principle, citizen leaders are also focused on people over the task, equitable to his or her followers but often emerged in a democracy where a person can be selected and elected by his peers to lead them . A citizen leader according to , should be flexible, interested in training of people, concern over individual ability, and aware of the role of citizen leaders in history. These attributes according to enable support for people rather than tasks and therefore appropriate for fire service leadership. The level of support for these attributes and citizen leadership style is also high as citizen leaders are generally not after the honour and reward and willingly mobilise others for the benefit of their community or group . The principle of citizen leadership not only applies to managers but to the members of the organization who should develop a leadership mind-set that in essence is positively beneficial to emergency organisations like the fire and rescue service. 2.6 Servant Leadership Style Carter’s rationale for selecting some attributes from servant leadership style is again his emphasis on benefits of people-first orientation where a leader serve rather than being the boss, make himself available as resource, care rather than controlling people, morally correct, enthusiastic, receptive to the needs of others, and accept people as they are . Servant leadership is generally accepted due to the potential of a servant leaders (if given a chance) to provide positive impact on people and organisation . This is because these leaders are often authorised to lead not because of educational achievements, managerial expertise but trustworthiness, selflessness, and ability to make right and equitable decisions . Another is the fact that ethical and servant leadership style share many characteristics such as respect for moral principles, demonstrate human integrity and credibility, and create positive image of the organisation . 2.7 Transformational /Transactional Leadership Style Using the same rationale from people-oriented leadership approach, Carter considered transformational leadership over transactional because the former support the concept of employee-worker centred support for the people doing the work . Transformational leaders in this context are interested in the relative worth of team members in relation to the needs of people and the organisation. In contrast, transactional leaders are more task and reward and punishment oriented thus can only inspire loyalty, commitment, involvement when leader expected outcomes are met. Since, Carter’s intention is to have a fire service leadership that can gain the greatest support from people, his preferred alternative is transformational leadership . 3 Assessment of Potential Barriers to Achieving Carter’s Suggested Changes in Practice Carter’s suggested changes in the fire service leadership model is centred on the fact that a unique organisation doing community service and often operates in unfavourable condition requires relevant, effective, and need specific attributes and skills. For this reason, Carter developed a criteria based on six critical fire service related tasks and embarked on a literature review to find the most appropriate for attributes and skills for the fire service leadership. Consequently, Carter came up with a leadership model with at least 21 common and specific attributes of a fire service leader . Analysis of the proposed model, a leader in Carter’s suggested Fire Service Leadership Model must be knowledgeable of the fire service work, able to plan, a leader who care more for his people, intelligent and with unquestionable integrity. Therefore, a fire service leader should be confident, enthusiastic, communicate effectively, educated and well experienced in fire service work, and a visionary with big ideas of what the fire service could and should be . In assessing the potential barriers associated with the actual implementation of this model, its list of primary attributes of a fire service leader may be the first barrier as it is probably difficult to find a person with such impressive profile. For instance, finding a leader with initiative and courage may be easy but that leader may not have the required endurance, determination, and integrity for the fire service standard. Moreover, reliability and decisiveness can be learned from training but not determination and honesty that are inherent personal qualities . In the real world, Carter is right that the fire service requires a leader who is able to command respect and loyalty, motivate and coordinate during a crisis situation but instating such a leader may be difficult when traditional “seniority” mind-set is still present in a particular fire service organisation . Another problem is resistance to change that according to existing in some fire service organisation that is still dogmatic in the belief that they are adhering to acceptable practice for many years and therefore need no change . According to , leadership is crucial for effectively managing the fire service but leadership style are affected by the culture and tradition of the fire service thus individual perception of good and bad leadership varies depending on the situation and culture of those being led. 4 Conclusion Dr. Harry Carter recognised the fire service as a unique organisation with often-critical tasks thus requires a leader who possesses relevant attributes and skills. The new leadership model proposed for the fire service contains useful attributes adopted from different leadership style and theories. Carter’s Fire Service Leadership model is centred on people-centred leadership thus the model’s primary leader attribute include concern for people, ability to motivate and build trust are primary attributes. The common attributes are integrity, courage, honesty, pride, determination, dependability, and others while knowledge of fire service operation, information processing, and ability to motivate and generate trust are fire service specific. Carter’s model seems an ideal leadership style for a paramilitary organisation like the fire service as it incorporates almost all good qualities of an effective leader particularly those in the military. The model recognised the power of charisma in acquiring trust, loyalty, obedience, and commitment among members of the fire service, the benefits of understanding the ability of team members, limitations and constraints, effective delegation of tasks, and importance of flexibility in leadership. Carter’s proposed leadership model also took into account the importance of competitive spirit, advantage of a solid team, leader sincerity and concern over the welfare of the fire service personnel. However, the implementation of this model may hindered by several barriers such as difficulty in hiring a person with such extra ordinary attributes and skills. Another is the enduring fire service tradition where seniors regardless of leadership ability assume leadership of the organisation. The dogmatic belief in the fire service of adhering to best practices and fire service culture that will likely view Carter’s leadership model as unnecessary and unsuitable for the fire service. 5 References Banerjee, S. & Erçetin, Ş. Ş. (2014). Chaos, Complexity and Leadership 2012, Springer Netherlands Boyd, J. (2008). A Servant Leader's Journey: Lessons from Life, Paulist Press Buckman, J. M. & Chiefs, I. A. o. F. (2005). Chief Fire Officer's Desk Reference, Jones and Bartlett Publishers Carter, H. 2007. Approaches to Leadership: The Application of Theory to the Development of a Fire Service-Specific Leadership Style. International Fire Service Journal of Leadership and Management, 1, 37. 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