May 4, 2023 • 45 mins
Leadership in EMS involves a path filled with curves and bumps. Transitioning from a provider to a leadership role isn't easy. This 7 Things podcast helps smooth the transition for new leaders and helps existing leaders stay on course. EMS leadership expert Jon Politis presents 7 practical tips you can begin to use today. Be the leader you want to be. Be the leader your organization or crew respects and looks up to.
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Episode Transcript
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Welcome to Seven Things EMS, a continuing education offering from LIMMER Education.
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Seven Things EMS is designed to give you what you need to succeed in EMS, it's conversational,
informational, and without the fluff.
Alright welcome to another Seven Things EMS episode, my name is Dan Limmer, the host.
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And I am very excited to be here with friend, mentor, leadership, guru, all around good
guy John Politis. As I said, as a mentor of mine, John taught my paramedic class,
has been very influential in my life and many people around EMS. Former chief of the Colony
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EMS department, the Brdoi fire department, recipient of the Rocco Miranda Lifetime Achievement
Award from the registry. You have a heck of a pedigree and we're very glad to have you
here John Pelaitis.
Hi Dan, how are you today? Well, you're talking about leadership.
It's good to be here with you, I think this is going to be a great Seven Things, we're
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talking about leadership today, which happens to be something that you do in your boot camps
and training sessions, and which I would recommend to people. Let's put a plug in right from
the beginning.
Well thanks a lot. I want to do that class, I like to tell people that I have a master's
degree, but most importantly, I have a PhD in making mistakes. I think just about the
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time you're getting ready to retire, I think you figured out maybe the things you ought
to be doing are the things you really shouldn't do. I was in graduate school and I thought
I was going to have some great aha moments with leadership development. It was a great
program that I went through, but during the course of the three years that I was in graduate
school, I had so many people in class say, you should be doing a program that's kind
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of like for, that's a very practical program on supervision and working with people. That
was really the genesis of the whole Supervisor Boot Camp program. That's really not a program
that's lofty leadership things. It's really often called the tactical to practical program.
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People start off in their careers and they want to make a difference and will often aspire
to take the job as a Supervisor or Leader. It can be a pretty rocky thing and there are
just some unexpected things that can occur when you step into leadership that when you
get there, you realize that life is never going to be the same ever again, that everybody's
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watching you and whatever personality traits that you have are magnified by now the power
that you have in your leadership position and the fact that you're, you know, people
are watching what you're doing and how you're doing it. It can be a pretty painful experience.
It certainly was for me and I have held a lot of leadership positions in the span of
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my career. I would tell you that I've learned a lot from all of them and I've probably learned
as much from the horrible bosses that I've had as well as the great bosses. We both had
a great boss, one of the town supervisors who worked for Fred Field. He was probably
the best boss that I've ever had and certainly one of the best leaders I've ever been around.
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And I've had some ones that were not so great and I would say that I've probably learned
as much from them about what never to do and those are some of the realities that we kind
of get into in this program and this is what we're going to do today as a little bit of
a, you know, the Supervisors Bootcamp or the Leadership Bootcamp in miniature.
Well, I think with that, it sounds like you've kind of given a little foreshadowing to number
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one, the good, the bad and the ugly of leadership. So why don't we start and take it away?
Well, I think, you know, to say that you're a leader or to aspire to leadership means
that, you know, people are willing to follow you or that they want to follow you and leadership
is really all about influencing people that when you're in a leadership position, you
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definitely have some power over people. But, you know, I don't want to steal my thunder
from the next thing we're going to talk about, which is specifically power, but, you know,
a great American general Norman Schwartzkopf said that leadership is a combination of strategy
and character. And if you have to be without something, be without the strategy because
it's really all about character, you know, do people trust you? Are they, are they willing
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to follow you? It takes a long time, I think, to realize that, you know, as a leader, you
don't have to have all of the answers. In fact, you shouldn't try and have all the answers.
But, you know, when you work with people, when you give them power, you get power. And
when you give them respect, you get respect back. And it's a, it's a paradoxical thing,
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leadership. And I think when you step into a leadership role, you have to really do your,
do your best to know yourself and to understand yourself, to know your personality, to know
your strengths and weaknesses. And certainly that, you know, over the span of my career,
I've gotten to know myself as a person a lot better, mostly through some really painful
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things. But early on, I recognized that there's some things that I really was not very good
at. And I think when details, for example, are really important to me, then I can very
much focus on details. But, you know, we both had a great friend that we worked with for
years, Paul Fink, who I knew from the outset from knowing Paul that he was really good
with details. And of course, you know, when setting up the department, Paul became the
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chief of logistics. And, you know what, the department, people would give us a lot of
credit about how well things organized. It really was a tribute to him and realising
that if you ask me about, you know, how many, you know, what should be in that cabinet and
the ambulance, I have a box in the check sheet that said, have enough crap in there, you
know, when Paul, Paul had to think very well, very well detailed out and every vehicle is
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set up the same way and all the bags are set up the same way. And that really is a, you
know, and I like to take great credit for that, but I don't, it's, it really is, for
me, it was just recognizing that that really wasn't something that I was very good at.
And I think, you know, when you're in a leadership job, I think you have to know yourself pretty
well and know what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are. And you need to
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know the strengths and the weaknesses of the people that you work with.
Well, I think that EMS certainly has a certain group, we'll call them personalities. You
know, everything from the, we're really a big part of the attention deficit crowd, you
know, short term, you know, attention span, excitement driven people. And I think that
can be a challenge, certainly as a provider, but as someone moves to a leader, I hear two
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things in what you're saying. One is you've got to embrace who you are and what you do.
And also, you know, and I don't want to go too far ahead in this as well, but it sounds
like you also have to find people that can do things better than you and accept that.
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's absolutely true. It's, and it's more than just accept
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it. I think it's embrace it. You know, it's a leadership is mentally exhausting. When
you're, when you're leading, you have to be taken care of people yet you're taking people
where they need to go, which is not always where they want to go. But it also involves
in doing your best to take good care of people along the way. And that means being as attentive
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as you can be. And also at the same time, you have to stay recharge yourself, you know,
you're like a battery on your cell phone that, you know, your battery can become pretty depleted
and you have to get yourself recharged again. And what's exhausting about it is that when
you're being attentive to the organization and the people in it, it's exhausting for
you and not just for you, but for the people around you, your family. And, you know, I
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think that's working to create a leadership role where people want to follow you, not
because they have to follow you. I think when people want to follow you, it's because they
believe in you and they trust you and you have influence over them and you're taking
them to a good place. But that can be very painful because leadership involves change
and it also involves doing things that people don't always want to do, but we need to do.
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And I think that's the difficult part of it.
All right. I think we covered the good, the bad, and the ugly. We'll go on to number two,
which you also mentioned. It's not about power. I think a lot of people start thinking it's
about power, don't they?
Yep. I think, you know, there are certainly other trappings of office that when somebody
gets promoted, you know, we have, you know, you get the helmet that's a different color,
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you get the front piece for your helmet or you get collar insignia. And well, you should
enjoy that for about five minutes and then realize that after that, really your job is
to really serve others in. And I mentioned earlier, I think leadership is a big magnifier
that when you step in a leadership, if you're a person who doesn't really understand your
power and how to use that power, it's pretty easy for you to create an organization that's
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toxic. And I guess the best way to describe that would be like, you know, Ruth and I are
going to be married 46 years here come, come June. And you know, I found ways to walk up
to Ruth and say, make my dinner. Well, first of all, she probably hit me with a rolling
pin, but, but I would, I just wouldn't do that, you know, it just wouldn't be something
that I would do because of the dynamic. But when people step into a leadership job, sometimes
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that power that they have over being able to make people do things, and you can make
people do things maybe once or twice. And after that, it's just, it really is not a
winning strategy. I think it's pretty easy to create a toxic organization, but you also
have the power in the workplace to make somebody's day or help them have a horrible day, you
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know, simply, you know, walking in and, you know, being even tempered. And, you know,
in most of what we do on emergency services, we value an incident manager or incident commander
who is able to maintain their cool, calm and collectedness. And I think people expect that
of a leader as well, that, you know, a person who acts like they have a split personality
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who is, you know, manic one minute and then depress the next makes for a very uncomfortable
working environment. And certainly if we, you know, we walk in and something pushes
our hot button and we, we choose somebody out, you know, or even just say something
that isn't very complimentary, they're going to probably have a pretty bad day. You know,
on the other hand, if you compliment good work when you see it, which is 99% of what
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we do, people have a much better day. And, you know, at the end of the day, you know,
it just makes you a much better leader. So, you know, also new leaders along with the
power thing, I think certainly can be arrogant. I'm guilty of that early in my leadership.
I probably was a lot, I was, I was arrogant and probably didn't listen as well as I should
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have and realized that I was really causing a lot of problems because of my arrogance
and lack of willingness to listen. And but at the same time, I think you have to balance
that with, you know, you have to be humble and have humility and be willing to listen
to people, which is, which is hard. I think at times when you know that you have to go
in a direction, you have to be humble and have enough humility to know what direction
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you have to go in, allow people to be heard, take their advice and counsel and go where
you need to go. And certainly, you know, one of the biggest leadership challenges ever
had was to work with a lot of others to create a department from scratch where we were consolidating
a bunch of organizations and, and we had a vision for where we're going and we had mission
and purpose. And there was a core group of people that understood that and knew where
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it needed to go. But as you remember, there were an awful lot of people that didn't share
that vision. We had to proceed and we had to, we had to make changes, which is another
difficult thing when you're a leader, which is surviving, making change and working with
people to help create the change and surviving the change. Because very often people in a
leadership position is when their change agents don't survive very long. And I was fortunate
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enough to survive a long time in that environment, which is 22 years, which is longer than most.
But it wasn't easy. It was, it was, it was difficult. But I guess I was there.
Yeah, I know you were. I think the last, the last thing I would say was that, you know,
that just to wrap up the power thing, I think good leaders are keenly aware of their words
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and their temperament and how they affect others. And as a boss, if you're having a
good day, other people having a good day, if you're having a bad day, they're probably
going to have a bad day as well. And I think you have to work hard to even that out and
understand the role that you're in. And humility is a power tool. And we can all be, you know,
we all have egos and we certainly all certainly can display that and sometimes display a lot
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of humility and arrogance. But I think, you know, along your journey of leadership, you
learn how important it is to treat others well and to ask rather than tell and understand
that you don't have to know everything. In fact, you don't know everything. And quite
frankly, I think people who are leading your followers see things that a leader cannot
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see and it's really important to know the difference. So anyway,
all right, a couple things. Humility is a power tool should be a sticker or something.
It should be something that everyone thinks about. I just really love that statement.
There's two things that comes from this. And I don't want to get too much into the weeds
and you can maybe address these somewhere else or whatever. I'm an old street cop at
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heart. Everything we did in public safety like that was about respect. And you really,
if you respected your sergeant say, then it was it was easy. And the other thing I'll
say is that I think that we have to look at leadership not only from the top of the pile,
but I'd also say the educator, the field training officer, the everybody has a little bit of
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leadership in what they do. Don't they? Yeah, I think it's absolutely true. In fact, some
of the best leaders I know have never held a rank in an organization. I think, you know,
both you and I have known people and we could rattle them off because we've known each other
so long who we looked at him and said, Yep, we're all going to work for that person someday
or Yep, that person is going to be chief of the department. And it wasn't because they're
because of bad attributes. It was because of the fact that they had good leadership characteristics
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that they naturally exuded leadership ability. They treat people with respect. They were
honest. They had good character. And I think you're you're developing your leadership ability
from the first day in your establishing your reputation. I think from the first day you
stepped into a job, how you interface with people, how you treat people, the integrity
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that you demonstrate your work ethic, you know, all those things are leadership traits,
which will if you're good, will serve you well as you start to climb the career ladder.
The opposite of that, which is the flaws that you may have, the character flaws you may
have also be back come back to fight as you as you go up the career ladder. And hopefully
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you learn to manage those and to learn and to become better. But I think leadership is
is something that we develop over time. We can all become better at it from the day that
you step into a job, you're developing those characteristics. And we all know people who
exude that and have been really good at it from day one and just get better with time.
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But then of course, there are some people that their careers are stalled because they're
they don't develop. And the thing I often say to people is that you're living your
job interview, you don't come into a job interview and dazzle people. And you know, in that one
job interview is really is a is one moment in time. I think you have to look at the totality
of people and we know people that, you know, consistently have demonstrated their their
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abilities and they do so every day. And those are the kinds of people that you want to promote
into leadership positions because of what they who they are what they say, this is the
person I'd follow anywhere. And you know, you know who those people are, they they have
that was going to number three, I think we're going kind of on the human part of this sticks
and stones. That applies to leadership too, as tough as we may be as tough as our people
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may be sticks and stones doesn't go away in childhood, doesn't know I think there's a
fire chief that think influenced many of us in our generation that was renowned and
was designated by I think fire engineering magazine of the one of the most 10 influential
fire chiefs in American history and that was Alan Bernacini and he he used to say and I
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think it's very true that if you follow ugly kids home, you find ugly parents. I don't mean
their physical characteristics, but their their affect, meaning if you follow an abused
kid home, what you find is is a as a household where it's an abusive household and so many
people go into emergency services and they are exposed to abusive people who say and
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do awful things and you know, they try and run training programs like a drill sergeant
and they think that's what good leadership is and that's what good education is and
in the truth is that being a drill sergeant and barking at people doesn't really make
you a badass it just makes you an asshole. Unfortunately, that's a that's a model that
many people like to follow and the truth is, you know, the lie that we were told is children
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that you know, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me really
should be changed to sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can break my heart.
You know, as you know, I had a climbing accident this past fall and was laid up for a couple
of months and it was very painful and I don't remember much about the pain because they
gave me good medicine for one thing, but but but I can I can tell you that I remember things
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in my life that were very hurtful or things that were said to me and I can remember them
to this day and I think that's true most of us that good leaders are keenly aware of their
words and what they say to people and how they say things to people. I think as a leader,
you have to understand what your emotional hot buttons are and there's a great one of
the great sports movies of all time is a League of the Role with Tom Hanks and you know, it
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has a whole, you know, cast, which is phenomenal cast and there's a there's a great scene in
the movie where he starts chewing out one of the players who is a fielder who misses the
cutoff person and they let a tying word, you know, a tying run get on base and they lost
the lead because of that person and he chews them out and he he's yelling at her and he
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says there's no crying in baseball and he you know, she burst into tears on the field
and she you know, he chews her out and that is you know, that's something that people
just don't forget that when you choose somebody out, you can't take that back and another
leader I worked with for years and we both know Peter Berry who who I have great respect
for, you know, I had my buttons pushed one day and I gave an ass chewing to somebody
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and he came up to me later and you know, he felt comfortable enough to talk to me about
this and he said, you know, John, you can never take back a good ass chewing and that's
really stayed with me that and I think there has there's two problems.
I think first is there's never been a time when I've given an ass chewing out to somebody
where I didn't really badly regret it and I realized that I was reacting emotionally
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and not logically and in the other part of that is that today chewing somebody's ass
out in a context of a work environment is probably going to get you in a lot of trouble.
So I think you have to be really aware of that and you have to be aware of your words
and how your words matter and know what your emotional hot buttons are and you know, do
your best to keep a guard over the top of it.
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You know, we flew a flew in the helicopter for years and worked as a helicopter crew
chief and when you're flying on a kind of cable underneath the aircraft, your expendable
cargo and there's a way to pickle the cable, which you know, if the aircraft gets in trouble
and they have to auto rotate, they're going to jettison a load and there's an emergency
guard over that cable for a reason, which is you're about ready to do something really
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serious and somebody's going to lose their life to save everyone else in the aircraft
and that emergency guard protects that switch from being able to jettison the load.
And I think we don't have an emergency guard over our emotional hot buttons, but we need
to learn what those hot buttons are.
So we put a shell over it and do our best not to let anybody push our buttons and be
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really respectful of that.
And I've seen instructors give out a thing at classes, it's called a, you said a government
form, it's called a hurt feelings report.
And they walk out proudly and smuggling hand that out to the class and it's like, ah, you
have feelings, you're too bad.
You fill this report out, we'll file it and then, you know, throw it in the garbage and
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you know, and to me that just, that exudes bad education, bad leadership.
And you know, I don't think anybody learns well in an environment of blame, shame and
humiliation.
And in fact, as organizations, we all strive to create organizations where we can make
mistakes and learn from those mistakes to become better.
Because in a world that we live in, in fire and EMS, that's how we learn is by making
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some mistakes and getting better and learning from them.
All right.
Well, let's roll right into the four Rs then.
I think that may help us deal with some of the things we talked about so far.
Yeah, I think four Rs are respect, recognition, relationships and reasonable expectations.
And in this is a little, you know, at least the four Rs are a power tool for all of us,
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I think.
You might get the promotion, you might get the collar brass, you might get the helmet
or the front piece or title and your name tag that you're a leader now or you're an officer.
And again, enjoy that for a few minutes because that's about as long as it's going to last.
Your job now is to serve others.
But the real truth of it is people might respect the position that you have, but they might
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not respect you.
And I think the highest form of leadership is people do things because you ask them and
they do that out of the respect for you.
And that boss that I had earlier that I mentioned that we both had, you know, he was a leader
of our town.
He was the type of leader that he earned everyone's respect and he was the kind of man that
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you didn't want to let him down and the few times that I really made some grand mistakes,
I was sitting down and talking to him and all he had to say to me was, you know, John,
this wasn't your finest moment.
And I was crushed by that.
And he didn't have to say much else.
And it was because I respected the man so much and admired him.
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And in order to get respect from people, you have to give respect back.
And there's all of those attributes that we talked about earlier about knowing yourself,
knowing your strengths and weaknesses and working on your leadership characteristics,
the positive ones are all things that help help you develop you yourself as a leader
and in treat people with respect.
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So you know, as a leader, when things go well, your staff gets the credit.
When things go poorly, you as a leader, you were the one who has to take the blame.
And if you're the person who throws your people onto the bus, I gotta tell you, nobody's ever
going to follow you and nobody's going to respect you.
And there are so many people that I've known over the years that, you know, have an excuse
checklist that part of that checklist is that it was the staff's fault.
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They're the ones that screwed it up, not me.
And really, you have ownership.
You know, if they make a mistake, you didn't train them hard enough.
You didn't provide them the resources.
You didn't orient them.
You know, the leader owns it at the end of the day.
When things go well, then of course, staff gets the credit because they're the ones who
deserve it.
They're the ones that are working on the front lines.
You know, one of the things that's a leadership killer with a respect thing is talking, you
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know, we call it talking shit about people or speaking of people badly.
And when you're the person who's talking crap about people in your organization or outside
the organization, what it really broadcasts to people is you're a person that can't be
trusted and it just undermines your credibility as a leader and in the fact that people certainly
don't want to, won't respect you because you don't respect them.
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So respect has to be earned and at the same time, you can damage that in a second.
It can take you years to earn the respect of people and you can damage it in a second
and you have to really be very aware of that as a leader.
The other thing is recognition.
You know, every organization has some kind of a recognition program, whether it's the
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EMT or firefighter of the year or provides some special recognition and, you know, certainly
wouldn't discourage those programs.
I think they're great.
That's without exception.
Every, every one we would give out one of those awards.
It really was a huge demotivator for the rest of the staff.
And the reason was is that one person got recognized or we recognize one person because
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they happen to have the timing to be on the big call.
But the truth is most people who are coming to work, you know, we're doing the jobs day
in and day out, kind of fly below the radar and in organizations, they're often known as
the B team players.
You know, there's the A team who's often 10% of the workforce and then, you know, the
C team who's, you know, the other on the bottom end of the workforce and then the B players
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that come in who are the supporting cast for the organization that come to work, do their
job, go home.
And it doesn't really take an awful lot to keep them motivated except simply recognizing
good work when you see it.
And it can be something as simple as, you know, hey, Dan, just want to mention Mrs. Smith
called the office today and just they were really in the family.
We're so happy about the way you guys secured the house and took care of the animals and
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that meant the world to them.
And they just wanted a call to sell you to say, what a great job you did.
We're laying that out to people and simply saying, hey, good job.
And I think you got to keep things in perspective as a leader.
We have to deal with a lot of negativity because we deal with complaints a lot.
And you got to recognize that's only a very small percentage of what we do.
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And it was put in a perspective for me years ago and I worked for the state health department.
We're dealing with an issue in New York City who at the time was the city of New Yorkers
doing a million ambulance calls a year.
We were working with our EMS chiefs and he said, well, what would you consider an error
rate to be on a manufacturing operation?
Maybe 1%, hopefully less than that.
But I'm going to say, yeah, that sounds about right.
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And he goes, well, with a million ambulance calls a year, 1% of that is 10,000 times a
year.
1%, 10,000 times a year, something's going to go wrong.
But the other 999,000 times things went right.
And it's very easy to lose sight of that.
Most of the time our staff, the B team, the B players come in who's the majority, 80%
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of our staff are workforce or members.
They're doing good work every day.
You can't fail to recognize that.
And that means you got to be out with them, recognizing the good work they do, expressing
your gratitude and your appreciation for what they're doing.
You know, and as I would just finally say when it comes to recognition, one of the things
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that you should never do is say, hey, I want to thank you for everything you do out there.
You feel like you're being worked by a car salesman when that happens because it's an
empty compliment to thank you for everything you do out there.
It really is meaningless.
You know, it's not focused out to the point and you just feel like you're being worked
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for some reason.
You know, a true compliment is that you're out there watching what people are doing,
paying attention and backing them up and helping them.
And at the same time, giving them a heartfelt compliment or as a firefighter, it could be,
hey, you know, you guys did a great job of that chimney fire the other night, you rolled
out a salvage tarp so we weren't tracking stuff through the living room and the homeowner
really appreciated the way we got the smoke out of the house and just wanted to relay
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that along.
Good job tonight.
Good job tonight on taking care of the property so well, the homeowner really appreciated it.
That small compliment goes a long way for morale in the organization.
It takes the staff and just elevates them.
The last thing I would say about this is that it's a behavior that gets rewarded, gets repeated
that when you're rewarding good behavior like that, then people do it again.
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The next thing is relationships.
I think it's been studied throughout every business school that members or staff members
at work, they don't necessarily want to be best friends with their boss.
But you want to have a positive work relationship.
And those positive work relationships are based on trust and communications.
And I think a lot of that is doing what you can to spend time with staff and that means
(28:37):
going to staff meetings if you have those or shift briefings.
It means showing up at training.
It means being around for meals and not necessarily having a specific agenda but simply going
to just be present and listen to people and allow people to be heard.
I think so many times, the only time anybody goes out to a station is during EMS week when
(28:58):
we're bringing the subplotter or the donuts and it's like, here's your subplotter.
Happy EMS week.
And when the leader walks out, that's it.
There's nothing more to that.
Really the most important part of this is really the food is simply as a segue into conversation
with no particular agenda but just simply allowing people to be heard because people
often need to vent and be heard about things.
(29:19):
That could be a million things because as organizational leaders, we have to change things
that nobody wants to do but it's a pain in the neck.
Hey, we're not getting signatures all the time on our forums for Medicare compliance
and does anybody really want to do that?
And the answer is no but we have to do it and if we don't, it could be devastating to
(29:40):
our service and people need to vent about that stuff and then you'll listen and you
need to explain why we're having to do what we're doing because it really all starts with
a rationale and understanding why.
And then the fourth art is reasonable expectations.
It's really easy for a leader to get into a position where they don't necessarily understand
(30:05):
the demands of staff and this is a very complicated area.
I would tell you that I, as you know, I worked even as chief, I worked as shift commander.
I would, you know, we're somebody we'll call it a district chief or a shift commander and
I would roll in that vehicle.
I would also take, you know, we ran out of ambulances, take backup calls and flew on
(30:27):
the helicopter and treated critical patients and I sort of deluded myself into thinking
that I was a pretty good paramedic and I think I was at treating really critical patients
but I retired and went to work for a community EMS agency and it was a rude awakening.
And I would tell you that one of the things that I lost sight of was that today the job
(30:47):
of an EMT or paramedic is more complicated than it has ever been.
I would, I would have anxiety about going to assisted living and nursing facilities
where you walk in and somebody hands you a pack of papers about an inch thick and they
say, Mrs. Smith isn't feeling well today.
We think she needs to go to the hospital and we had to sort out in a matter of a couple
of minutes this complex patient who wasn't feeling well to figure out that this patient
(31:13):
has something that needed to be done right away and what was going on and assessed the
situation and, and oh by the way, our call volumes have spiked.
We are doing, you know, a far more call sitting we've ever done because of the graying of
America, the baby boomers aging and, you know, it's all going to change in another 15 to
20 years of call line.
(31:33):
We'll go back down again.
But the demands that are placed upon our EMTs and paramedics and firefighters are greater
today than ever.
And I think it's really important for us to understand in leadership the demands that
we're placing on people and doing the best we can to have reasonable expectations, which
(31:53):
is workload distribution, doing what we can to take good care of people because we're
asking them to do things that are, I think, you know, more and more difficult all the
time.
So those are the four hours and I could talk about those four hours for probably an entire
day.
In fact, in my class, we, we have discussions about it for a long time because I think they're
so important.
All right.
(32:14):
That's great.
Thank you.
So I've choose the difficult rate over the easy route.
Well, you know, we expect staff to do their jobs and our staff expects us to do our job.
And one of the, again, things that's studied over and over again is we as human beings
tend to avoid conflict in the, in our staff expects us to do our job.
(32:40):
And one of the things that's a huge morale killer is to let performance issues go unchecked.
Again, we could have a long conversation about this, but you know, one common thing or time
in attendance issues where people are kind of late to work and people are looking at
you as a leader, as a supervisor, aren't you going to do something about this?
And meanwhile, you know, you'll let it go and you'll let it go and you'll let it go
(33:01):
because you know this person, you'll like him and, and, you know, in what happens is
everybody's looking at you going, well, you expect me to do my job, show up to work on
time, but you're not doing your job and it really kills morale.
And in the difficult right is having the crucial conversation about this behavior.
And it's a high-stakes conversation.
It's tense and uncomfortable.
(33:22):
And you know, a lot of it has to do with as human beings, we like to avoid conflict.
We don't want to get in situations of conflict.
And a lot of that has to do with you as a boss, wanting to be somebody's friend or be liked.
And you have to understand that it's not a matter of like anymore that, you know, if
you just want it to be liked, you know, go, go get a dog, you know, it isn't like you
(33:45):
should walk around treating people with disrespect or be a jerk, but you have a job to do, which
is we have to make sure that we have rules that are important to follow and people need
to follow those rules.
And, and at times you have to have those crucial conversations that, that people often don't
want to have in there.
And they can be really painful for everyone, but it's necessary to have them.
(34:07):
And I guess, you know, with the time we have now left, I think not only is it appropriate
to keep our time, but also because I think number six goes with number five, I think
we can roll right into it.
Leadership is a risky business.
And you've talked about number five is one way, but I'm sure there's others.
Oh yeah, there's a lot to be said for all of these things that we're talking about.
(34:28):
But you know, when you're leading, you're asking people to change.
Some leadership positions are riskier than others.
You said that, you know, leadership and organizations, you're either, you know, building phase where
you're changing a lot or you're in a maintenance phase or you're in a phase where you're retracting
or contracting, which is also a lot of change.
(34:50):
And change really is difficult for people.
It's been said, the cliche is the only people that like change are babies or diapers.
But you're asking people to change.
We're asking people to give up something that's safe and comfortable for something that's
unknown.
That's another thing we're asking people to do.
And very often when you're doing change, people lash out at the leader who is the change agent.
(35:14):
And that can be pretty dangerous.
And sometimes we have to have crucial conversations and sometimes people who won't change, can't
change, won't do what they're supposed to do.
Sometimes enter the progressive disciplinary cycle for any one of a number of reasons.
That's another whole topic unto itself.
But you know, when someone cannot sail the change that you're trying to make, because
(35:40):
it probably is right and people realize that and we're asking people to give up something
and become busier or make them less comfortable.
What they're often do is they lash out at you and they lash out at you in a very personal
way and they look at your personality traits and flaws and come after you.
But when they cannot sail the mission, they attack the leader's ethics and behaviors.
(36:03):
So the leaders need to understand that everybody's pretty much on boss watch, paying attention
to what you're doing all hours.
You have to have a pretty strong ethical framework to be in leadership where you tend to not
last very long.
And at the same time, when you're changing things, I've had more than one elected official
(36:24):
say to me, you need to make this go away.
What that means is elected official politicians react to political noise and you're making
the change that they want to see made, but it's unpopular and people are unhappy about
it.
And they're only willing to tolerate a certain amount of noise themselves.
And what they're saying to you is that if you don't make this problem go away, you're
(36:47):
the person that's going to go away.
Even though you may be doing something right and doing the thing that they ask you to do,
that's another reality.
So particularly for chief positions, it's pretty common.
A chief in local government, typically last five to seven years because typically chiefs
are change agents that are being brought in to make changes.
(37:08):
And it's a risky place to be, which is why you often see in a chief resume that there's
some place for five years or another chief someplace else for five years and they move
along.
And it's not because they're a bad chief.
It's just because they're doing what people ask them to do, but they brought you in to
be the lightning rod to make these changes.
And then once you've done those things, then you're the one that gets discarded to move
(37:31):
on to somebody else after the change has been made.
So you understand when you step into leadership, the higher you go up to leadership, the riskier
it becomes for you.
All right.
Well, listen.
Sorry, go ahead.
Yep.
No, no, go ahead.
We've got four minutes left.
I was going to say, I think this rolls into the last one, I think relatively well.
(37:51):
I think it's always good to leave a podcast on a high note and say the good.
I think it's really important to talk about the problems and yes, change agents don't
last in doing that.
And there anything from, you've talked about the personalities and being close to people
in a small organization to being a chief and leading a larger organization.
(38:16):
But I think ending with number seven, leave a lasting legacy is, let's just leave on a
positive note because I will say, I mentioned before, you've been a mentor of mine since
my early days in paramedic, paramedic instructor and have given me advice that's gotten me
to a place that I'm very happy to be.
(38:37):
And I would say that I would look back at you and say, that's part of your legacy.
That's the way I look at you and why I've always respect you and why I asked you here.
So I think it's a great way to bring it home to talk about the legacy and the importance
of that as a leader.
And sometimes you may not even know what's going on, I would think.
(38:59):
Well, thanks.
I appreciate those, what you said Dan, it means a lot to me.
I think people who are senior people or training others that we look to, field training officers
or educators, people who are in operational management, front line supervisors, managing
officers, executive officers, we make a difference.
(39:21):
And I think one of the things that drew me into leadership was wanting to make a difference
and seeing something that needed to be fixed and saying, we could do much better than this.
One of the things I'm really proud of this occupation about is I just have seen over
the 50 years that I've been doing this, that every generation that's come through here
has raised the bar and we're continuing to raise the bar, we're maturing as an occupation.
(39:44):
And you just look at what's happened with free open access medical education and look
at the quality and the caliber of medical EMS education in the country and the quality
and the caliber of EMS systems and how we're maturing.
And that's all come from leadership, from people within the occupation.
We have been growing and developing our leaders and part of my motivation for this class is
(40:06):
that I do is helping to keep people situationally aware and also keep them alive during the
course of a career to understand what some of the common pitfalls are.
And because it takes you, it's a leadership as an art.
Yeah, there's some science, but it's an art.
It was summed up to me once, and I can't remember who said this to me, but it was, they asked
(40:28):
me the question, who was the MVP in the last Super Bowl?
Okay, I just remember it was Patrick Mahomes, but most of the times you would ask me that
question, I couldn't tell you, and you know, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor or
what was the Academy Award for Best Picture?
I feel like most people, you can't answer those questions and frankly, you don't even
(40:49):
care.
But if you're doing this job that we do in EMS and FHIR, which is we see awful stuff
and Dan and I, you and me together, and you know, the call we're talking about was probably
one of the most gut wrenching calls that I have ever been on, we did it together.
Just because we happened to be at lunch one day, we rolled in at something really awful,
(41:12):
right?
We see awful stuff.
You know, you can be as a medic or firefighter or cop for about 15 seconds, you better have
something.
But if you were to ask one of us, even though we couldn't answer the question about who
is the MVP, you're the best actor, who was somebody who meant a lot to you and your career?
Who was somebody who was there who gave you advice?
Who was somebody there who was a boss that was there for you when you needed it or a
(41:36):
teacher that helped you along the way?
And I remember you telling a story about our friend Chip once and Chip turned to you and
said, Dan, this call is yours.
And you remember that to this day.
I remember we talked about it.
I can point out the house.
Yeah.
Those are the people that we remember.
(41:56):
And I think it's important for all of us to remember that we're all heroes to somebody
and you have an obligation.
And I think when you step into leadership, and that is what you bring to the table.
Also Alan Bernersen has, there's a meme out there that I see on the internet, which is
so true, which is kindness is an attribute of the strong.
Usually we don't remember those people who are a-holes, who act like drill sergeants,
(42:19):
who blame, shame and humiliate us.
But we do remember the people along the way who mean something to us, the people that
gave us the nod to give us a responsibility to handle something because they knew we
could do it.
The people that believed in us, our first partners, our mentors.
And we all mentor each other along the way, right?
I mean, I appreciate your words, but so many times you've mentored me through things.
(42:43):
It really is a two-way street.
It really is.
We've all learned so much.
We have.
I think we all learn from each other and we've all learned through the things that we've
done and life's mistakes and the positive things and the high notes that we've had.
And I think that's the power of being in a leadership position.
And I know that today, I look at the people that are coming up and I look at where our
(43:07):
occupation has come in 50 years because I became credentialed as an EMT in 1971.
I think it's in good hands.
I think we have a lot of work to do, but the people that I see clinically and operationally
that are coming up are really impressive.
For my motivation for doing this class is to pass on at least what I know and try to
(43:28):
collect some things that have been learned in our industry and help people become better
leaders and better supervisors from a practical point of view.
So, anyway, I just appreciate your allowing me to be on seven things and we've been good
friends for over, well, 43 years.
We've been good friends for a long time.
Yes.
(43:48):
And I value your friendship and really appreciate you being on this podcast with you, Dan.
Well, I think we could go on.
This is one we keep this to about 45, 50 minutes so we can get our hour of CE for this, but
I think that we certainly could go on and I think we should do another episode someday.
I certainly, everything that you say, I feel the same way.
(44:10):
I'm very grateful to not only have had you in my life, but on this podcast and believe
that people who listen to this will get that practical element that you talk about and
that you talk about from your bootcamp to be able to get people to do that.
So thank you very much for being here.
Thanks, Dan.
(44:31):
All right.
That's it.
Another seven things EMS.
This is seven things EMS leadership.
It is painful to wrap this up, but it's a lot to learn here, a lot to do.
And I've been taking notes, John.
There's a lot of things you've said in here and maybe we'll see some politus memes coming
up because I think there were some real nuggets that were within the wisdom that I think are
(44:54):
important.
So thanks again for being here.
This is Dan Limmer from Limmer Education.
You have the opportunity to get an hour of CE from this podcast.
If you're listening on your favorite streaming service and you want the CE, you can go to
lc-ready.com to get that CE.
Thanks for listening.
Until next time.
(45:15):
Thank you for listening to a seven things EMS podcast by Limmer Education.
If you've listened to this podcast on a streaming service and you're interested in getting continuing
education credit, please go to lc-ready.com for more information.
Welcome to Seven Things EMS, a continuing education offering from LIMMER Education.
(00:12):
Seven Things EMS is designed to give you what you need to succeed in EMS, it's conversational,
informational, and without the fluff.
Alright welcome to another Seven Things EMS episode, my name is Dan Limmer, the host.
(00:36):
And I am very excited to be here with friend, mentor, leadership, guru, all around good
guy John Politis. As I said, as a mentor of mine, John taught my paramedic class,
has been very influential in my life and many people around EMS. Former chief of the Colony
(00:57):
EMS department, the Brdoi fire department, recipient of the Rocco Miranda Lifetime Achievement
Award from the registry. You have a heck of a pedigree and we're very glad to have you
here John Pelaitis.
Hi Dan, how are you today? Well, you're talking about leadership.
It's good to be here with you, I think this is going to be a great Seven Things, we're
(01:17):
talking about leadership today, which happens to be something that you do in your boot camps
and training sessions, and which I would recommend to people. Let's put a plug in right from
the beginning.
Well thanks a lot. I want to do that class, I like to tell people that I have a master's
degree, but most importantly, I have a PhD in making mistakes. I think just about the
(01:41):
time you're getting ready to retire, I think you figured out maybe the things you ought
to be doing are the things you really shouldn't do. I was in graduate school and I thought
I was going to have some great aha moments with leadership development. It was a great
program that I went through, but during the course of the three years that I was in graduate
school, I had so many people in class say, you should be doing a program that's kind
(02:06):
of like for, that's a very practical program on supervision and working with people. That
was really the genesis of the whole Supervisor Boot Camp program. That's really not a program
that's lofty leadership things. It's really often called the tactical to practical program.
(02:26):
People start off in their careers and they want to make a difference and will often aspire
to take the job as a Supervisor or Leader. It can be a pretty rocky thing and there are
just some unexpected things that can occur when you step into leadership that when you
get there, you realize that life is never going to be the same ever again, that everybody's
(02:48):
watching you and whatever personality traits that you have are magnified by now the power
that you have in your leadership position and the fact that you're, you know, people
are watching what you're doing and how you're doing it. It can be a pretty painful experience.
It certainly was for me and I have held a lot of leadership positions in the span of
(03:09):
my career. I would tell you that I've learned a lot from all of them and I've probably learned
as much from the horrible bosses that I've had as well as the great bosses. We both had
a great boss, one of the town supervisors who worked for Fred Field. He was probably
the best boss that I've ever had and certainly one of the best leaders I've ever been around.
(03:30):
And I've had some ones that were not so great and I would say that I've probably learned
as much from them about what never to do and those are some of the realities that we kind
of get into in this program and this is what we're going to do today as a little bit of
a, you know, the Supervisors Bootcamp or the Leadership Bootcamp in miniature.
Well, I think with that, it sounds like you've kind of given a little foreshadowing to number
(03:53):
one, the good, the bad and the ugly of leadership. So why don't we start and take it away?
Well, I think, you know, to say that you're a leader or to aspire to leadership means
that, you know, people are willing to follow you or that they want to follow you and leadership
is really all about influencing people that when you're in a leadership position, you
(04:15):
definitely have some power over people. But, you know, I don't want to steal my thunder
from the next thing we're going to talk about, which is specifically power, but, you know,
a great American general Norman Schwartzkopf said that leadership is a combination of strategy
and character. And if you have to be without something, be without the strategy because
it's really all about character, you know, do people trust you? Are they, are they willing
(04:39):
to follow you? It takes a long time, I think, to realize that, you know, as a leader, you
don't have to have all of the answers. In fact, you shouldn't try and have all the answers.
But, you know, when you work with people, when you give them power, you get power. And
when you give them respect, you get respect back. And it's a, it's a paradoxical thing,
(04:59):
leadership. And I think when you step into a leadership role, you have to really do your,
do your best to know yourself and to understand yourself, to know your personality, to know
your strengths and weaknesses. And certainly that, you know, over the span of my career,
I've gotten to know myself as a person a lot better, mostly through some really painful
(05:19):
things. But early on, I recognized that there's some things that I really was not very good
at. And I think when details, for example, are really important to me, then I can very
much focus on details. But, you know, we both had a great friend that we worked with for
years, Paul Fink, who I knew from the outset from knowing Paul that he was really good
with details. And of course, you know, when setting up the department, Paul became the
(05:41):
chief of logistics. And, you know what, the department, people would give us a lot of
credit about how well things organized. It really was a tribute to him and realising
that if you ask me about, you know, how many, you know, what should be in that cabinet and
the ambulance, I have a box in the check sheet that said, have enough crap in there, you
know, when Paul, Paul had to think very well, very well detailed out and every vehicle is
(06:05):
set up the same way and all the bags are set up the same way. And that really is a, you
know, and I like to take great credit for that, but I don't, it's, it really is, for
me, it was just recognizing that that really wasn't something that I was very good at.
And I think, you know, when you're in a leadership job, I think you have to know yourself pretty
well and know what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are. And you need to
(06:29):
know the strengths and the weaknesses of the people that you work with.
Well, I think that EMS certainly has a certain group, we'll call them personalities. You
know, everything from the, we're really a big part of the attention deficit crowd, you
know, short term, you know, attention span, excitement driven people. And I think that
can be a challenge, certainly as a provider, but as someone moves to a leader, I hear two
(06:55):
things in what you're saying. One is you've got to embrace who you are and what you do.
And also, you know, and I don't want to go too far ahead in this as well, but it sounds
like you also have to find people that can do things better than you and accept that.
Yeah, I think it's, I think it's absolutely true. It's, and it's more than just accept
(07:16):
it. I think it's embrace it. You know, it's a leadership is mentally exhausting. When
you're, when you're leading, you have to be taken care of people yet you're taking people
where they need to go, which is not always where they want to go. But it also involves
in doing your best to take good care of people along the way. And that means being as attentive
(07:36):
as you can be. And also at the same time, you have to stay recharge yourself, you know,
you're like a battery on your cell phone that, you know, your battery can become pretty depleted
and you have to get yourself recharged again. And what's exhausting about it is that when
you're being attentive to the organization and the people in it, it's exhausting for
you and not just for you, but for the people around you, your family. And, you know, I
(08:00):
think that's working to create a leadership role where people want to follow you, not
because they have to follow you. I think when people want to follow you, it's because they
believe in you and they trust you and you have influence over them and you're taking
them to a good place. But that can be very painful because leadership involves change
and it also involves doing things that people don't always want to do, but we need to do.
(08:24):
And I think that's the difficult part of it.
All right. I think we covered the good, the bad, and the ugly. We'll go on to number two,
which you also mentioned. It's not about power. I think a lot of people start thinking it's
about power, don't they?
Yep. I think, you know, there are certainly other trappings of office that when somebody
gets promoted, you know, we have, you know, you get the helmet that's a different color,
(08:48):
you get the front piece for your helmet or you get collar insignia. And well, you should
enjoy that for about five minutes and then realize that after that, really your job is
to really serve others in. And I mentioned earlier, I think leadership is a big magnifier
that when you step in a leadership, if you're a person who doesn't really understand your
power and how to use that power, it's pretty easy for you to create an organization that's
(09:13):
toxic. And I guess the best way to describe that would be like, you know, Ruth and I are
going to be married 46 years here come, come June. And you know, I found ways to walk up
to Ruth and say, make my dinner. Well, first of all, she probably hit me with a rolling
pin, but, but I would, I just wouldn't do that, you know, it just wouldn't be something
that I would do because of the dynamic. But when people step into a leadership job, sometimes
(09:37):
that power that they have over being able to make people do things, and you can make
people do things maybe once or twice. And after that, it's just, it really is not a
winning strategy. I think it's pretty easy to create a toxic organization, but you also
have the power in the workplace to make somebody's day or help them have a horrible day, you
(09:58):
know, simply, you know, walking in and, you know, being even tempered. And, you know,
in most of what we do on emergency services, we value an incident manager or incident commander
who is able to maintain their cool, calm and collectedness. And I think people expect that
of a leader as well, that, you know, a person who acts like they have a split personality
(10:21):
who is, you know, manic one minute and then depress the next makes for a very uncomfortable
working environment. And certainly if we, you know, we walk in and something pushes
our hot button and we, we choose somebody out, you know, or even just say something
that isn't very complimentary, they're going to probably have a pretty bad day. You know,
on the other hand, if you compliment good work when you see it, which is 99% of what
(10:45):
we do, people have a much better day. And, you know, at the end of the day, you know,
it just makes you a much better leader. So, you know, also new leaders along with the
power thing, I think certainly can be arrogant. I'm guilty of that early in my leadership.
I probably was a lot, I was, I was arrogant and probably didn't listen as well as I should
(11:06):
have and realized that I was really causing a lot of problems because of my arrogance
and lack of willingness to listen. And but at the same time, I think you have to balance
that with, you know, you have to be humble and have humility and be willing to listen
to people, which is, which is hard. I think at times when you know that you have to go
in a direction, you have to be humble and have enough humility to know what direction
(11:27):
you have to go in, allow people to be heard, take their advice and counsel and go where
you need to go. And certainly, you know, one of the biggest leadership challenges ever
had was to work with a lot of others to create a department from scratch where we were consolidating
a bunch of organizations and, and we had a vision for where we're going and we had mission
and purpose. And there was a core group of people that understood that and knew where
(11:50):
it needed to go. But as you remember, there were an awful lot of people that didn't share
that vision. We had to proceed and we had to, we had to make changes, which is another
difficult thing when you're a leader, which is surviving, making change and working with
people to help create the change and surviving the change. Because very often people in a
leadership position is when their change agents don't survive very long. And I was fortunate
(12:13):
enough to survive a long time in that environment, which is 22 years, which is longer than most.
But it wasn't easy. It was, it was, it was difficult. But I guess I was there.
Yeah, I know you were. I think the last, the last thing I would say was that, you know,
that just to wrap up the power thing, I think good leaders are keenly aware of their words
(12:34):
and their temperament and how they affect others. And as a boss, if you're having a
good day, other people having a good day, if you're having a bad day, they're probably
going to have a bad day as well. And I think you have to work hard to even that out and
understand the role that you're in. And humility is a power tool. And we can all be, you know,
we all have egos and we certainly all certainly can display that and sometimes display a lot
(12:57):
of humility and arrogance. But I think, you know, along your journey of leadership, you
learn how important it is to treat others well and to ask rather than tell and understand
that you don't have to know everything. In fact, you don't know everything. And quite
frankly, I think people who are leading your followers see things that a leader cannot
(13:20):
see and it's really important to know the difference. So anyway,
all right, a couple things. Humility is a power tool should be a sticker or something.
It should be something that everyone thinks about. I just really love that statement.
There's two things that comes from this. And I don't want to get too much into the weeds
and you can maybe address these somewhere else or whatever. I'm an old street cop at
(13:43):
heart. Everything we did in public safety like that was about respect. And you really,
if you respected your sergeant say, then it was it was easy. And the other thing I'll
say is that I think that we have to look at leadership not only from the top of the pile,
but I'd also say the educator, the field training officer, the everybody has a little bit of
(14:05):
leadership in what they do. Don't they? Yeah, I think it's absolutely true. In fact, some
of the best leaders I know have never held a rank in an organization. I think, you know,
both you and I have known people and we could rattle them off because we've known each other
so long who we looked at him and said, Yep, we're all going to work for that person someday
or Yep, that person is going to be chief of the department. And it wasn't because they're
because of bad attributes. It was because of the fact that they had good leadership characteristics
(14:29):
that they naturally exuded leadership ability. They treat people with respect. They were
honest. They had good character. And I think you're you're developing your leadership ability
from the first day in your establishing your reputation. I think from the first day you
stepped into a job, how you interface with people, how you treat people, the integrity
(14:50):
that you demonstrate your work ethic, you know, all those things are leadership traits,
which will if you're good, will serve you well as you start to climb the career ladder.
The opposite of that, which is the flaws that you may have, the character flaws you may
have also be back come back to fight as you as you go up the career ladder. And hopefully
(15:10):
you learn to manage those and to learn and to become better. But I think leadership is
is something that we develop over time. We can all become better at it from the day that
you step into a job, you're developing those characteristics. And we all know people who
exude that and have been really good at it from day one and just get better with time.
(15:31):
But then of course, there are some people that their careers are stalled because they're
they don't develop. And the thing I often say to people is that you're living your
job interview, you don't come into a job interview and dazzle people. And you know, in that one
job interview is really is a is one moment in time. I think you have to look at the totality
of people and we know people that, you know, consistently have demonstrated their their
(15:55):
abilities and they do so every day. And those are the kinds of people that you want to promote
into leadership positions because of what they who they are what they say, this is the
person I'd follow anywhere. And you know, you know who those people are, they they have
that was going to number three, I think we're going kind of on the human part of this sticks
and stones. That applies to leadership too, as tough as we may be as tough as our people
(16:21):
may be sticks and stones doesn't go away in childhood, doesn't know I think there's a
fire chief that think influenced many of us in our generation that was renowned and
was designated by I think fire engineering magazine of the one of the most 10 influential
fire chiefs in American history and that was Alan Bernacini and he he used to say and I
(16:44):
think it's very true that if you follow ugly kids home, you find ugly parents. I don't mean
their physical characteristics, but their their affect, meaning if you follow an abused
kid home, what you find is is a as a household where it's an abusive household and so many
people go into emergency services and they are exposed to abusive people who say and
(17:08):
do awful things and you know, they try and run training programs like a drill sergeant
and they think that's what good leadership is and that's what good education is and
in the truth is that being a drill sergeant and barking at people doesn't really make
you a badass it just makes you an asshole. Unfortunately, that's a that's a model that
many people like to follow and the truth is, you know, the lie that we were told is children
(17:32):
that you know, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me really
should be changed to sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can break my heart.
You know, as you know, I had a climbing accident this past fall and was laid up for a couple
of months and it was very painful and I don't remember much about the pain because they
gave me good medicine for one thing, but but but I can I can tell you that I remember things
(17:57):
in my life that were very hurtful or things that were said to me and I can remember them
to this day and I think that's true most of us that good leaders are keenly aware of their
words and what they say to people and how they say things to people. I think as a leader,
you have to understand what your emotional hot buttons are and there's a great one of
the great sports movies of all time is a League of the Role with Tom Hanks and you know, it
(18:20):
has a whole, you know, cast, which is phenomenal cast and there's a there's a great scene in
the movie where he starts chewing out one of the players who is a fielder who misses the
cutoff person and they let a tying word, you know, a tying run get on base and they lost
the lead because of that person and he chews them out and he he's yelling at her and he
(18:41):
says there's no crying in baseball and he you know, she burst into tears on the field
and she you know, he chews her out and that is you know, that's something that people
just don't forget that when you choose somebody out, you can't take that back and another
leader I worked with for years and we both know Peter Berry who who I have great respect
for, you know, I had my buttons pushed one day and I gave an ass chewing to somebody
(19:04):
and he came up to me later and you know, he felt comfortable enough to talk to me about
this and he said, you know, John, you can never take back a good ass chewing and that's
really stayed with me that and I think there has there's two problems.
I think first is there's never been a time when I've given an ass chewing out to somebody
where I didn't really badly regret it and I realized that I was reacting emotionally
(19:28):
and not logically and in the other part of that is that today chewing somebody's ass
out in a context of a work environment is probably going to get you in a lot of trouble.
So I think you have to be really aware of that and you have to be aware of your words
and how your words matter and know what your emotional hot buttons are and you know, do
your best to keep a guard over the top of it.
(19:48):
You know, we flew a flew in the helicopter for years and worked as a helicopter crew
chief and when you're flying on a kind of cable underneath the aircraft, your expendable
cargo and there's a way to pickle the cable, which you know, if the aircraft gets in trouble
and they have to auto rotate, they're going to jettison a load and there's an emergency
guard over that cable for a reason, which is you're about ready to do something really
(20:10):
serious and somebody's going to lose their life to save everyone else in the aircraft
and that emergency guard protects that switch from being able to jettison the load.
And I think we don't have an emergency guard over our emotional hot buttons, but we need
to learn what those hot buttons are.
So we put a shell over it and do our best not to let anybody push our buttons and be
(20:33):
really respectful of that.
And I've seen instructors give out a thing at classes, it's called a, you said a government
form, it's called a hurt feelings report.
And they walk out proudly and smuggling hand that out to the class and it's like, ah, you
have feelings, you're too bad.
You fill this report out, we'll file it and then, you know, throw it in the garbage and
(20:53):
you know, and to me that just, that exudes bad education, bad leadership.
And you know, I don't think anybody learns well in an environment of blame, shame and
humiliation.
And in fact, as organizations, we all strive to create organizations where we can make
mistakes and learn from those mistakes to become better.
Because in a world that we live in, in fire and EMS, that's how we learn is by making
(21:18):
some mistakes and getting better and learning from them.
All right.
Well, let's roll right into the four Rs then.
I think that may help us deal with some of the things we talked about so far.
Yeah, I think four Rs are respect, recognition, relationships and reasonable expectations.
And in this is a little, you know, at least the four Rs are a power tool for all of us,
(21:43):
I think.
You might get the promotion, you might get the collar brass, you might get the helmet
or the front piece or title and your name tag that you're a leader now or you're an officer.
And again, enjoy that for a few minutes because that's about as long as it's going to last.
Your job now is to serve others.
But the real truth of it is people might respect the position that you have, but they might
(22:04):
not respect you.
And I think the highest form of leadership is people do things because you ask them and
they do that out of the respect for you.
And that boss that I had earlier that I mentioned that we both had, you know, he was a leader
of our town.
He was the type of leader that he earned everyone's respect and he was the kind of man that
(22:25):
you didn't want to let him down and the few times that I really made some grand mistakes,
I was sitting down and talking to him and all he had to say to me was, you know, John,
this wasn't your finest moment.
And I was crushed by that.
And he didn't have to say much else.
And it was because I respected the man so much and admired him.
(22:46):
And in order to get respect from people, you have to give respect back.
And there's all of those attributes that we talked about earlier about knowing yourself,
knowing your strengths and weaknesses and working on your leadership characteristics,
the positive ones are all things that help help you develop you yourself as a leader
and in treat people with respect.
(23:07):
So you know, as a leader, when things go well, your staff gets the credit.
When things go poorly, you as a leader, you were the one who has to take the blame.
And if you're the person who throws your people onto the bus, I gotta tell you, nobody's ever
going to follow you and nobody's going to respect you.
And there are so many people that I've known over the years that, you know, have an excuse
checklist that part of that checklist is that it was the staff's fault.
(23:30):
They're the ones that screwed it up, not me.
And really, you have ownership.
You know, if they make a mistake, you didn't train them hard enough.
You didn't provide them the resources.
You didn't orient them.
You know, the leader owns it at the end of the day.
When things go well, then of course, staff gets the credit because they're the ones who
deserve it.
They're the ones that are working on the front lines.
You know, one of the things that's a leadership killer with a respect thing is talking, you
(23:53):
know, we call it talking shit about people or speaking of people badly.
And when you're the person who's talking crap about people in your organization or outside
the organization, what it really broadcasts to people is you're a person that can't be
trusted and it just undermines your credibility as a leader and in the fact that people certainly
don't want to, won't respect you because you don't respect them.
(24:17):
So respect has to be earned and at the same time, you can damage that in a second.
It can take you years to earn the respect of people and you can damage it in a second
and you have to really be very aware of that as a leader.
The other thing is recognition.
You know, every organization has some kind of a recognition program, whether it's the
(24:37):
EMT or firefighter of the year or provides some special recognition and, you know, certainly
wouldn't discourage those programs.
I think they're great.
That's without exception.
Every, every one we would give out one of those awards.
It really was a huge demotivator for the rest of the staff.
And the reason was is that one person got recognized or we recognize one person because
(24:59):
they happen to have the timing to be on the big call.
But the truth is most people who are coming to work, you know, we're doing the jobs day
in and day out, kind of fly below the radar and in organizations, they're often known as
the B team players.
You know, there's the A team who's often 10% of the workforce and then, you know, the
C team who's, you know, the other on the bottom end of the workforce and then the B players
(25:23):
that come in who are the supporting cast for the organization that come to work, do their
job, go home.
And it doesn't really take an awful lot to keep them motivated except simply recognizing
good work when you see it.
And it can be something as simple as, you know, hey, Dan, just want to mention Mrs. Smith
called the office today and just they were really in the family.
We're so happy about the way you guys secured the house and took care of the animals and
(25:45):
that meant the world to them.
And they just wanted a call to sell you to say, what a great job you did.
We're laying that out to people and simply saying, hey, good job.
And I think you got to keep things in perspective as a leader.
We have to deal with a lot of negativity because we deal with complaints a lot.
And you got to recognize that's only a very small percentage of what we do.
(26:06):
And it was put in a perspective for me years ago and I worked for the state health department.
We're dealing with an issue in New York City who at the time was the city of New Yorkers
doing a million ambulance calls a year.
We were working with our EMS chiefs and he said, well, what would you consider an error
rate to be on a manufacturing operation?
Maybe 1%, hopefully less than that.
But I'm going to say, yeah, that sounds about right.
(26:27):
And he goes, well, with a million ambulance calls a year, 1% of that is 10,000 times a
year.
1%, 10,000 times a year, something's going to go wrong.
But the other 999,000 times things went right.
And it's very easy to lose sight of that.
Most of the time our staff, the B team, the B players come in who's the majority, 80%
(26:48):
of our staff are workforce or members.
They're doing good work every day.
You can't fail to recognize that.
And that means you got to be out with them, recognizing the good work they do, expressing
your gratitude and your appreciation for what they're doing.
You know, and as I would just finally say when it comes to recognition, one of the things
(27:08):
that you should never do is say, hey, I want to thank you for everything you do out there.
You feel like you're being worked by a car salesman when that happens because it's an
empty compliment to thank you for everything you do out there.
It really is meaningless.
You know, it's not focused out to the point and you just feel like you're being worked
(27:29):
for some reason.
You know, a true compliment is that you're out there watching what people are doing,
paying attention and backing them up and helping them.
And at the same time, giving them a heartfelt compliment or as a firefighter, it could be,
hey, you know, you guys did a great job of that chimney fire the other night, you rolled
out a salvage tarp so we weren't tracking stuff through the living room and the homeowner
really appreciated the way we got the smoke out of the house and just wanted to relay
(27:51):
that along.
Good job tonight.
Good job tonight on taking care of the property so well, the homeowner really appreciated it.
That small compliment goes a long way for morale in the organization.
It takes the staff and just elevates them.
The last thing I would say about this is that it's a behavior that gets rewarded, gets repeated
that when you're rewarding good behavior like that, then people do it again.
(28:15):
The next thing is relationships.
I think it's been studied throughout every business school that members or staff members
at work, they don't necessarily want to be best friends with their boss.
But you want to have a positive work relationship.
And those positive work relationships are based on trust and communications.
And I think a lot of that is doing what you can to spend time with staff and that means
(28:37):
going to staff meetings if you have those or shift briefings.
It means showing up at training.
It means being around for meals and not necessarily having a specific agenda but simply going
to just be present and listen to people and allow people to be heard.
I think so many times, the only time anybody goes out to a station is during EMS week when
(28:58):
we're bringing the subplotter or the donuts and it's like, here's your subplotter.
Happy EMS week.
And when the leader walks out, that's it.
There's nothing more to that.
Really the most important part of this is really the food is simply as a segue into conversation
with no particular agenda but just simply allowing people to be heard because people
often need to vent and be heard about things.
(29:19):
That could be a million things because as organizational leaders, we have to change things
that nobody wants to do but it's a pain in the neck.
Hey, we're not getting signatures all the time on our forums for Medicare compliance
and does anybody really want to do that?
And the answer is no but we have to do it and if we don't, it could be devastating to
(29:40):
our service and people need to vent about that stuff and then you'll listen and you
need to explain why we're having to do what we're doing because it really all starts with
a rationale and understanding why.
And then the fourth art is reasonable expectations.
It's really easy for a leader to get into a position where they don't necessarily understand
(30:05):
the demands of staff and this is a very complicated area.
I would tell you that I, as you know, I worked even as chief, I worked as shift commander.
I would, you know, we're somebody we'll call it a district chief or a shift commander and
I would roll in that vehicle.
I would also take, you know, we ran out of ambulances, take backup calls and flew on
(30:27):
the helicopter and treated critical patients and I sort of deluded myself into thinking
that I was a pretty good paramedic and I think I was at treating really critical patients
but I retired and went to work for a community EMS agency and it was a rude awakening.
And I would tell you that one of the things that I lost sight of was that today the job
(30:47):
of an EMT or paramedic is more complicated than it has ever been.
I would, I would have anxiety about going to assisted living and nursing facilities
where you walk in and somebody hands you a pack of papers about an inch thick and they
say, Mrs. Smith isn't feeling well today.
We think she needs to go to the hospital and we had to sort out in a matter of a couple
of minutes this complex patient who wasn't feeling well to figure out that this patient
(31:13):
has something that needed to be done right away and what was going on and assessed the
situation and, and oh by the way, our call volumes have spiked.
We are doing, you know, a far more call sitting we've ever done because of the graying of
America, the baby boomers aging and, you know, it's all going to change in another 15 to
20 years of call line.
(31:33):
We'll go back down again.
But the demands that are placed upon our EMTs and paramedics and firefighters are greater
today than ever.
And I think it's really important for us to understand in leadership the demands that
we're placing on people and doing the best we can to have reasonable expectations, which
(31:53):
is workload distribution, doing what we can to take good care of people because we're
asking them to do things that are, I think, you know, more and more difficult all the
time.
So those are the four hours and I could talk about those four hours for probably an entire
day.
In fact, in my class, we, we have discussions about it for a long time because I think they're
so important.
All right.
(32:14):
That's great.
Thank you.
So I've choose the difficult rate over the easy route.
Well, you know, we expect staff to do their jobs and our staff expects us to do our job.
And one of the, again, things that's studied over and over again is we as human beings
tend to avoid conflict in the, in our staff expects us to do our job.
(32:40):
And one of the things that's a huge morale killer is to let performance issues go unchecked.
Again, we could have a long conversation about this, but you know, one common thing or time
in attendance issues where people are kind of late to work and people are looking at
you as a leader, as a supervisor, aren't you going to do something about this?
And meanwhile, you know, you'll let it go and you'll let it go and you'll let it go
(33:01):
because you know this person, you'll like him and, and, you know, in what happens is
everybody's looking at you going, well, you expect me to do my job, show up to work on
time, but you're not doing your job and it really kills morale.
And in the difficult right is having the crucial conversation about this behavior.
And it's a high-stakes conversation.
It's tense and uncomfortable.
(33:22):
And you know, a lot of it has to do with as human beings, we like to avoid conflict.
We don't want to get in situations of conflict.
And a lot of that has to do with you as a boss, wanting to be somebody's friend or be liked.
And you have to understand that it's not a matter of like anymore that, you know, if
you just want it to be liked, you know, go, go get a dog, you know, it isn't like you
(33:45):
should walk around treating people with disrespect or be a jerk, but you have a job to do, which
is we have to make sure that we have rules that are important to follow and people need
to follow those rules.
And, and at times you have to have those crucial conversations that, that people often don't
want to have in there.
And they can be really painful for everyone, but it's necessary to have them.
(34:07):
And I guess, you know, with the time we have now left, I think not only is it appropriate
to keep our time, but also because I think number six goes with number five, I think
we can roll right into it.
Leadership is a risky business.
And you've talked about number five is one way, but I'm sure there's others.
Oh yeah, there's a lot to be said for all of these things that we're talking about.
(34:28):
But you know, when you're leading, you're asking people to change.
Some leadership positions are riskier than others.
You said that, you know, leadership and organizations, you're either, you know, building phase where
you're changing a lot or you're in a maintenance phase or you're in a phase where you're retracting
or contracting, which is also a lot of change.
(34:50):
And change really is difficult for people.
It's been said, the cliche is the only people that like change are babies or diapers.
But you're asking people to change.
We're asking people to give up something that's safe and comfortable for something that's
unknown.
That's another thing we're asking people to do.
And very often when you're doing change, people lash out at the leader who is the change agent.
(35:14):
And that can be pretty dangerous.
And sometimes we have to have crucial conversations and sometimes people who won't change, can't
change, won't do what they're supposed to do.
Sometimes enter the progressive disciplinary cycle for any one of a number of reasons.
That's another whole topic unto itself.
But you know, when someone cannot sail the change that you're trying to make, because
(35:40):
it probably is right and people realize that and we're asking people to give up something
and become busier or make them less comfortable.
What they're often do is they lash out at you and they lash out at you in a very personal
way and they look at your personality traits and flaws and come after you.
But when they cannot sail the mission, they attack the leader's ethics and behaviors.
(36:03):
So the leaders need to understand that everybody's pretty much on boss watch, paying attention
to what you're doing all hours.
You have to have a pretty strong ethical framework to be in leadership where you tend to not
last very long.
And at the same time, when you're changing things, I've had more than one elected official
(36:24):
say to me, you need to make this go away.
What that means is elected official politicians react to political noise and you're making
the change that they want to see made, but it's unpopular and people are unhappy about
it.
And they're only willing to tolerate a certain amount of noise themselves.
And what they're saying to you is that if you don't make this problem go away, you're
(36:47):
the person that's going to go away.
Even though you may be doing something right and doing the thing that they ask you to do,
that's another reality.
So particularly for chief positions, it's pretty common.
A chief in local government, typically last five to seven years because typically chiefs
are change agents that are being brought in to make changes.
(37:08):
And it's a risky place to be, which is why you often see in a chief resume that there's
some place for five years or another chief someplace else for five years and they move
along.
And it's not because they're a bad chief.
It's just because they're doing what people ask them to do, but they brought you in to
be the lightning rod to make these changes.
And then once you've done those things, then you're the one that gets discarded to move
(37:31):
on to somebody else after the change has been made.
So you understand when you step into leadership, the higher you go up to leadership, the riskier
it becomes for you.
All right.
Well, listen.
Sorry, go ahead.
Yep.
No, no, go ahead.
We've got four minutes left.
I was going to say, I think this rolls into the last one, I think relatively well.
(37:51):
I think it's always good to leave a podcast on a high note and say the good.
I think it's really important to talk about the problems and yes, change agents don't
last in doing that.
And there anything from, you've talked about the personalities and being close to people
in a small organization to being a chief and leading a larger organization.
(38:16):
But I think ending with number seven, leave a lasting legacy is, let's just leave on a
positive note because I will say, I mentioned before, you've been a mentor of mine since
my early days in paramedic, paramedic instructor and have given me advice that's gotten me
to a place that I'm very happy to be.
(38:37):
And I would say that I would look back at you and say, that's part of your legacy.
That's the way I look at you and why I've always respect you and why I asked you here.
So I think it's a great way to bring it home to talk about the legacy and the importance
of that as a leader.
And sometimes you may not even know what's going on, I would think.
(38:59):
Well, thanks.
I appreciate those, what you said Dan, it means a lot to me.
I think people who are senior people or training others that we look to, field training officers
or educators, people who are in operational management, front line supervisors, managing
officers, executive officers, we make a difference.
(39:21):
And I think one of the things that drew me into leadership was wanting to make a difference
and seeing something that needed to be fixed and saying, we could do much better than this.
One of the things I'm really proud of this occupation about is I just have seen over
the 50 years that I've been doing this, that every generation that's come through here
has raised the bar and we're continuing to raise the bar, we're maturing as an occupation.
(39:44):
And you just look at what's happened with free open access medical education and look
at the quality and the caliber of medical EMS education in the country and the quality
and the caliber of EMS systems and how we're maturing.
And that's all come from leadership, from people within the occupation.
We have been growing and developing our leaders and part of my motivation for this class is
(40:06):
that I do is helping to keep people situationally aware and also keep them alive during the
course of a career to understand what some of the common pitfalls are.
And because it takes you, it's a leadership as an art.
Yeah, there's some science, but it's an art.
It was summed up to me once, and I can't remember who said this to me, but it was, they asked
(40:28):
me the question, who was the MVP in the last Super Bowl?
Okay, I just remember it was Patrick Mahomes, but most of the times you would ask me that
question, I couldn't tell you, and you know, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor or
what was the Academy Award for Best Picture?
I feel like most people, you can't answer those questions and frankly, you don't even
(40:49):
care.
But if you're doing this job that we do in EMS and FHIR, which is we see awful stuff
and Dan and I, you and me together, and you know, the call we're talking about was probably
one of the most gut wrenching calls that I have ever been on, we did it together.
Just because we happened to be at lunch one day, we rolled in at something really awful,
(41:12):
right?
We see awful stuff.
You know, you can be as a medic or firefighter or cop for about 15 seconds, you better have
something.
But if you were to ask one of us, even though we couldn't answer the question about who
is the MVP, you're the best actor, who was somebody who meant a lot to you and your career?
Who was somebody who was there who gave you advice?
Who was somebody there who was a boss that was there for you when you needed it or a
(41:36):
teacher that helped you along the way?
And I remember you telling a story about our friend Chip once and Chip turned to you and
said, Dan, this call is yours.
And you remember that to this day.
I remember we talked about it.
I can point out the house.
Yeah.
Those are the people that we remember.
(41:56):
And I think it's important for all of us to remember that we're all heroes to somebody
and you have an obligation.
And I think when you step into leadership, and that is what you bring to the table.
Also Alan Bernersen has, there's a meme out there that I see on the internet, which is
so true, which is kindness is an attribute of the strong.
Usually we don't remember those people who are a-holes, who act like drill sergeants,
(42:19):
who blame, shame and humiliate us.
But we do remember the people along the way who mean something to us, the people that
gave us the nod to give us a responsibility to handle something because they knew we
could do it.
The people that believed in us, our first partners, our mentors.
And we all mentor each other along the way, right?
I mean, I appreciate your words, but so many times you've mentored me through things.
(42:43):
It really is a two-way street.
It really is.
We've all learned so much.
We have.
I think we all learn from each other and we've all learned through the things that we've
done and life's mistakes and the positive things and the high notes that we've had.
And I think that's the power of being in a leadership position.
And I know that today, I look at the people that are coming up and I look at where our
(43:07):
occupation has come in 50 years because I became credentialed as an EMT in 1971.
I think it's in good hands.
I think we have a lot of work to do, but the people that I see clinically and operationally
that are coming up are really impressive.
For my motivation for doing this class is to pass on at least what I know and try to
(43:28):
collect some things that have been learned in our industry and help people become better
leaders and better supervisors from a practical point of view.
So, anyway, I just appreciate your allowing me to be on seven things and we've been good
friends for over, well, 43 years.
We've been good friends for a long time.
Yes.
(43:48):
And I value your friendship and really appreciate you being on this podcast with you, Dan.
Well, I think we could go on.
This is one we keep this to about 45, 50 minutes so we can get our hour of CE for this, but
I think that we certainly could go on and I think we should do another episode someday.
I certainly, everything that you say, I feel the same way.
(44:10):
I'm very grateful to not only have had you in my life, but on this podcast and believe
that people who listen to this will get that practical element that you talk about and
that you talk about from your bootcamp to be able to get people to do that.
So thank you very much for being here.
Thanks, Dan.
(44:31):
All right.
That's it.
Another seven things EMS.
This is seven things EMS leadership.
It is painful to wrap this up, but it's a lot to learn here, a lot to do.
And I've been taking notes, John.
There's a lot of things you've said in here and maybe we'll see some politus memes coming
up because I think there were some real nuggets that were within the wisdom that I think are
(44:54):
important.
So thanks again for being here.
This is Dan Limmer from Limmer Education.
You have the opportunity to get an hour of CE from this podcast.
If you're listening on your favorite streaming service and you want the CE, you can go to
lc-ready.com to get that CE.
Thanks for listening.
Until next time.
(45:15):
Thank you for listening to a seven things EMS podcast by Limmer Education.
If you've listened to this podcast on a streaming service and you're interested in getting continuing
education credit, please go to lc-ready.com for more information.
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