Heat Resistant: How to Fireproof Your Leadership

By Peter Ashley and Chief Dan Jones, Ret.

"Heat Resistant" is a long-term study of transformational leadership featuring a Fire Chief. His life lessons and leadership strategies have stood the test of time and provide the reader with effective leadership techniques that cross industries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098394318

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

This book is not about me or my leadership style. If it were, it would be a lot shorter and likely less compelling. I’m skeptical of books written by successful leaders that feature themselves as the subject. Rather, this book is focused on the lessons we can all learn from a great leader who would never say that he was a great leader. Notice I did not say famous. Fame does not make a leader great. In fact, it can have the opposite effect. No, the leader featured in this case study – spanning more than 25 years – is truly great because of his approach to leadership, his choices and his character. There is a reason that leadership is one of the most researched and examined topics in business and academia – it’s central to how we live, what leaders we support, what values we hold, and what futures we envision. In much of the literature, leadership has been studied primarily from a business or political perspective.

So what does it mean to fireproof your leadership? It means building trust and engagement with your teams. It means fostering creative problem-solving in a safe environment. It means giving employees a genuine sense of ownership in decisions that affect them. By following the principles and actions laid out in this book, leaders will become more heat resistant and will be able to handle tough times more effectively.

Twenty-five years ago, I conducted an in-depth study of how transformational leadership manifested itself in a non-business situation. The study focused on how transformational leadership was expressed within the context of a fire department. Of course, living in a PC (Post-COVID) world, the lessons captured in this book are even more relevant, as leaders must be even more resilient.

The goal of the original study was to examine how a transformational leader made sense of (cognitively evaluated) different situations, and how that cognition affected communication to followers. The case study also examined the influence of leadership on the followers in terms of their role identities – basically how the followers viewed themselves enacting their roles as firefighters. The original study was conducted at the Chapel Hill Fire Department using observation and in-depth interviews. The leader’s sense-making processes were examined in the context of five critical leadership events. In terms of the leader’s influence on followers, interview analysis was conducted and ultimately revealed three categories of role identities in which the firefighters viewed themselves. Finally, follow-up interviews were conducted with Chief Jones to assess how well his leadership choices held up over time.

Results from the first research question revealed that a leader’s sense- making is most heavily influenced by prior experience, his or her goals for the organization, and salient situational features. The most highly valued and prominent cluster of role identities of the firefighters was that of responsible community servant. Firefighters also strongly valued their growing professional role-identity cluster. Findings suggested that transformational leadership and role identities can be valuably linked and require further study.

So why now? Why – after 25 years – did I revisit not only this topic, but the actual leader who was the focus of the case study? I was so impressed with the results this leader achieved after his first two years as Fire Chief, that I wanted to see if those leadership principles help up under scrutiny and over time. Chief Jones recently retired after 25 years of leadership of that same fire department. Succeeding as a Fire Chief for so many years communicated to me that he was the real deal. And unconstrained by the need for academic jargon and rationale, I was compelled to reconnect with the Chief Jones and conduct follow- up interviews to not only validate my initial findings, but also to learn more about the long-term effects of transformational leadership.

Since Chief Jones’ retirement, he has become a sought-after consultant and trainer across the country. The focus of much of his training has been leadership in the fire service, but also how that type of leadership translates into other applications and settings. His particular style of leadership articulated in the original study has proven to be effective, but also has evolved into a more nuanced, situational approach. Many hard lessons were learned that doubtless refined his leadership strategies and tactics. One thing is clear; the principles that guided Chief Jones 25 years ago, not only have withstood the test of time, they have considerable applicability to today’s leaders.

This book will set the context by revisiting the original study into transformational leadership as manifested in Chief Jones, but it also provides clear insights and concrete actions today’s leaders can adopt. Leadership is an ever-evolving concept, with new theories and magic bullets cropping up on a regular basis. This book will show how tried and true, proven strategies offer the best path to successful, authentic and sustainable leadership. In essence, leaders who wish to fireproof their leadership – enable it to withstand the inevitable heat of challenging situations – need to look no further than the example set by Chief Dan Jones.

CHAPTER 1

THE PERENNIAL IMPORTANCE OF LEADERSHIP

The Shaping of a Leader

We are all influenced throughout our lives by parents, siblings, teachers, coaches, mentors and countless others. Influence is just that – influence – not control or orchestration. It’s also not inherently positive or negative, but rather the sum total of the experiences and interactions we’ve had that shape our perspective, choices and behaviors. Chief Jones was fortunate, by his own recounting, to have many positive influencers in his life. From an early age, Chief Jones learned the value of hard work, perseverance, consistency and integrity.

My first awareness of leadership was in the Boy Scouts, with a scoutmaster who was a former Marine Corps drill instructor, Chief Jones recalled. He became a scoutmaster because he missed the Marine Corps. That was probably my first-ever exposure to real leadership, and I stayed with the Boy Scouts. It was early in Chief Jones’ life that he was drawn to more military settings for leadership – perhaps a precursor to his desire to work in the fire service. Even though he was drawn to military-type settings, Chief Jones’ view of leadership was greatly expanded over his lifetime. His basketball coach made a long-lasting impression. He was strict and set high expectations, but he was also caring and went out of his way to do things for other people. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, he was demonstrating servant leadership.

Chief Jones intended to go to law school, but soon realized he disliked it. A friend invited him to hang out at a fire station, and when he got a glimpse of that life, he skipped classes the next day and applied to four of the largest fire stations in the area. Although he did not intend to make a career out of firefighting, he found he had a real aptitude for it, particularly for administrative positions. A long and successful career was proof Chief Jones made the right decision.

When asked what contributed to his success and longevity in a challenging discipline, Chief Jones credits many mentors over the years who taught him how to learn, fail and lead.

As a rookie firefighter, he took me under his wing and in the evenings after dinner, we would sit in folding chairs out front of the fire station and he would talk to me about how to get along with everybody in the fire department better. He was probably my first professional mentor.

There are so many factors that shape leaders and leadership. Mentors, good and bad bosses, peers, family, faith are but a few. For Chief Jones, mentors and experiences taught him so much about leadership. An avid reader, Chief Jones also digested volumes on leadership to deepen his understanding. In the pages ahead, readers will get an in-depth look at Chief Jones’ leadership style and choices during his signature assignment at the Chapel Hill Fire Department.

The Questions Driving the Study

I said to myself…when I came here that my job was to get this fire department up and running using its own talent to the point that technologically and methodologically it is state-of-the-art and change oriented and pushing forward. When it begins to go on its own, I can slip out the side door and no one will notice that I left. The process will continue and whoever comes in as fire chief will have a forward-thinking organization. That is my objective to get it to the point that it does it on its own and I am not needed anymore.

– Chief Dan Jones, 1994

Chapel Hill Fire Chief Dan Jones captured the essence of effective, transformational leadership with this simple, yet powerful statement that he gave me when we had our first interview more than 25 years ago. The key notion expressed in this quotation is that effective leadership involves, at least in part, turning followers into their own leaders thus enabling