Loved or Feared?

There’s a movie that I love called “A Bronx Tale” and in the movie there’s a question.. “is it better to be loved or feared?”

There’s an old study that there are only three types of Leadership; Democratic, Dictative and Autocratic. In my experience there are many more than just those three. I have been blessed to work with some of the best and worst leaders one can come across. Yes, I say that I am blessed to have been able to work with what I would consider a poor leader because their bad traits prepared me for what not to do when I was ready to become a leader. The one type of leader that I have noticed is most common in fire houses is the “Bully Leader” the one who rules with fear.

The “Bully leader” is the leader who uses their position or their title/rank to create fear amongst their people. They create an environment where they use such tactics as ostracizing what they consider undesirables, and then making quid pro quo promises to their enforcers (the one’s who carry out the toxic behavior) like promotions or bonuses. These leaders try to use intimidation to their favor by picking on employees, threatening them or by simply ignoring them as if that employee didn’t even exist (kind of like when you were in elementary school). This is a leader who has their own sense of insecurities and deep down knows that they are not properly prepared to effectively lead others. They create this form of puffing out their chest and raising their voice and establishing back room gossip about others in such a manner that the employees are so brain washed by this leader’s art of manipulation that they take part in the negative gossip and establish an environment where if you’re not with them then you’re out.

Now, one can argue that they will get their day etc, yet I’m not worried about the bad leaders getting their day. I am more concerned with the fact that we continue to promote and allow these toxic bullies climb the ranks and wreak havoc throughout our fire houses. We talk about problems in the fire houses, and problems with leaders; I can seriously log onto Facebook at any time and see someone complaining about a toxic leader in their fire house. We MUST stop allowing people to rule with fear. These people aren’t people we like to be around yet we spend so much time trying to get them to like us so we can go throughout our careers feeling like we fit in. Seriously?!? Why are we allowing this to happen to us, why are we allowing these selfish insecure bullies into our fire houses and worse yet, why are we allowing them to lead people?

我们需要开始培养受到启发，想受到启发并希望启发他人的人们。在消防部门中取得成功并不是其头盔的肮脏，也不是最咸的人。我不是一个伟大的消防员，从来没有，我遇到了一些最好的消防员，并钦佩他们的能力。我的成功源于想受到启发，这是从您启发别人启发时知道令人惊叹的感觉，就像看到他们的脸上一样，就好像“他们明白了”。我之所以成功，是因为我爱自己的工作，最近我学会了爱其他人，也不是自私的，不必担心我如何比他们更好。我开个笑话，但这是真的……“不要成为一个在电话亭里庆祝退休聚会的人。”我知道我有自己的缺陷，还有更多关于自己，人和领导力的知识，我知道我有我的敌人，但我仍然有爱我的人。我有鼓励我，支持我的人，并允许我进入他们的生活，这些人是真正的消防服务需求的真正领导者。我今天可以站在这里，当我退休时，我知道我停止使用那些欺负策略，并开始真正欣赏人们，并珍视他们是谁和他们的身份。被爱或恐惧更好吗？ I’ll take love every day, twice on Sunday.

在您所做的所有事情中，上帝保佑要照顾并保持安全！

戴夫·麦格林（Dave McGlynn）

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