In recent months I’ve worked with more than a dozen clients in five different states and I’ve found that two different leadership issues are damaging many of them.
In five of the agencies, leadership indecision is killing morale, stopping staff participation and has virtually halted all of the organization’s forward progress.
Leaders in all of these agencies are trying very hard to be well liked, make a majority endorsed decision and thereby end up being popular as a leader. In one case, the entire Board is gridlocked because all of the Board members are entrenched on different sides of the issues and are trying to pander to their cliques, the ones that elected them…sound familiar?
Just like our leaders in Washington, these service leaders have forgotten the bigger picture and the overarching purpose of their task…in Washington to do the people’s business and run the country and, in the case of these clients, to make sure that when 9-1-1 rings and someone needs an ambulance, there is a unit staffed and ready for the response.
As I have told each of these clients in the course of our consultations … “you are not running a social club or a good ‘ol boy’s network, you are charged with a mission and the public’s trust”.
Indecision stops progress…if you are an effective leader you CAN NOT make everyone happy. Every decision impacts people, some positively, some not. You must make your decisions in the best interest of the organization and the community you serve, not individuals…including yourself.
If you do this, you will lose some people in the process. Those who try and hold the service hostage unless their point of view is endorsed, even when their view is in opposition to the best interests of the service and the community. These team members should be thanked for their service, handed a plaque and shown the door. Holding endless meetings, making no decisions and stopping forward momentum drags the ship down causing morale and participation to stop, ending up with everyone at each other’s throats and putting your service on the path to self-destruction.
Equally dangerous is indifference. In the remaining services, leaders are abdicating authority for a variety of reasons. In one case, the second in command has more leadership experience, but also has a very autocratic style…it’s his way or the highway. The service Chief’s style is more collaborative; however, the Chief’s indifference is causing confusion and disruption because the team knows the leadership team is divided.
In several other cases, the service Chiefs are well meaning volunteers who are ‘taking their turn’ running the service without any training or mentoring in advance, without a lot of leadership experience and without the time to do it right. In one case the Chief is trying to run a one million dollar a year organization by remote control relying on, and reacting to, memos from others. The common complaint from the team members, which is killing the service, is that “no one gives a s#%*!
Leadership training, insuring that well prepared people step into the job and that there are clear mission, vision and strategic plans to guide the decisions are a must.
And just because someone needs to say it…
“There are several agencies that have outlived their capacity to serve. They do not have enough people to answer the relatively few calls that they get, they are spending ridiculous amounts of money for paid staffing, they do not have a leadership team who has adequate time to run the organization on a daily basis and they do not have the resources needed to operate effectively. It’s ok, let’s combine smaller, ineffective services into larger, well run, effective ones. That way people can still work/volunteer/respond, there will be more depth to get tasks done, and the economies of scale will be better helping to make ends meet.”
– Bob Holdsworth
We all have the ability to make decisions when treating patients. It’s time that we put that same skill set to use and triage our agencies…where are you on the survivor scale, green, yellow, red or black?
