Tag Archives: skills

While you were out, there was a fire. Thoughts on Leadership from FDIC

Leadership When No One Is Watching Every year in April approximately 30,000 brothers and sisters of the fire service descend on Indianapolis, Indiana for Fire Engineering’s Fire Department Instructor’s Conference: FDIC. For the past few years I’ve been proud to count myself among them as both a student and a teacher. It is an amazing event that educates the mind, ...

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Following The Rules for Educators

While this post is in reference to an incident that occurred at a conference presentation, the rules for educators apply to any kind of education including in-house, open-to-the-public, formal academic or informal pick-up drill. If you teach, read on...

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Prepping for Change in 2015 and Beyond: Teaching Old Dogs New CPR

Charge for Change

Having had the opportunity to attend the last AHA Guidelines roll-out in Chicago in October of 2010 I wound up reading everything I could on the guidelines in the research behind them so that when I showed up to represent my state I didn’t look like some kind of dope. It was an easy digging through all those papers, but when I was finished I noticed something profound in both the recommendations and the research (though not the ACLS algorithms or courses, but that is another topic). I saw how and why we were going to have to make a CHANGE.

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Leadership Lessons: Are Your Leaders Acting like Parents or Substitute Teachers?

Fire department leadership lessons

The chief emphasized that he didn't mean that all of his people were acting like children, although the look in his eye implied that maybe some were. I wasn't suggesting anything about the maturity of his people, but rather that parents don't stop being parents when their children grow up. In fact, this is exactly what I meant by helping agency leaders acting like parents rather than substitute teachers.

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