Coaching, Parenting, & Leadership. A Lesson For Motivating Firefighters

I coach lacrosse for my son’s team (u13). What I have learned with firefighting and leadership has taught me a lot about coaching and more importantly parenting. I appreciate that method of learning and it has not been easy. I still have a lot to learn with all three – firefighting, parenting, and coaching.

Firefighting has made me a better parent and a better coach. And both of them have made me a better firefighter. More importantly, they have helped me be a better leader.

We Don’t Win them all

Think about this…

When I coach, I have players looking up to me to make the right decisions. They want playing time and want to win.

I have parents there who want to see their sons play, and to see them win.

This past season, I had 18 u13 lacrosse players who are all going through some phase of puberty and I expect them to listen to me, not cry when they don’t get their way, and go back out and give 100% for their team.

I am the IC. The parents are the stakeholders. The players are the firefighters.

I cannot make everyone happy…especially in games that just aren’t meant to be won.

Give an All Out Effort

Something interesting happened at a game this past season…

My coaching style has changed over the years. I used to be loud and negative, pointing out all of the stuff the players did wrong. Now I spend a lot of time telling my players I am proud of them and very little ridiculing them. I am much more positive.

In between two of the quarters, I told them Give An All Out Effort. I thought for a second to share the other 3 rules, but I saved it. I was half way to saying Have An All In Attitude, but I didn’t want to get all weird on them. After all they have the attention span of…look a squirrel!

Of course, the other two are Do Your Job and Treat People Right.

If you don’t know what the Big 4 are, check out Fully Involved by Mark VonAppen…trust me on this!

Would you believe me if that is basically what I tell my players each practice and each game in a round about way….

Play your position, be nice to your teammates and opponents, give the team 100% on the field, and have a positive attitude. Yup, that about sums it up…ok, I probably throw in go after ground balls, overhand shots, and slide on defense a lot, but you get the drift.

Translation

If you want to be a great leader try leading children. This can be accomplished by parenting, coaching, or other ways and you will quickly learn whether you are leading or just think you are leading.

Trust me on this…

I have different styles for leading at the firehouse and at home. Mostly this is because at the firehouse I am around grown adults who luckily for the entire crew ACT like grown adults. At home, I am around two adolescent children who ACT like adolescent children yet think they are grown adults.

While the styles differ, the goal is the same. Leadership is about inspiration and motivation. If I am not inspiring/motivating those around me, I need to get out of the way. Luckily for me, I have been around our crew for several years. We have had a couple firefighters come and go, but all in all it has been a solid, similar crew. I know what makes them tick, they know what makes me tick. I know the needs of the individuals, even though I cannot always feed to individual needs, I try my best to focus on motivating at an individual level as well as a team level.

That isn’t always so cut and dry when you have so much other stuff getting in the way like hydrant testing, hose testing, classes, CE, meals, days off, and calls whenever they come in.

Each of us has a different level and understanding of what we NEED to keep us motivated on the job.

I always hear about Brotherhood this and Brotherhood that….that some firefighters don’t “Get it”…that some firefighters aren’t as motivated as others.

Do you “Get it”? If you do, do you think that others who might not think like you “Don’t Get It”? What if…they “Get It”, but their “It” is a little different from yours?

What the hell did I just say?

Follow me on this…I am typing as I think and some of my best posts come out this way with me hitting publish at the end without even proofreading. After all, I’m not writing for a magazine…I am writing for both of you, my readers…and I appreciate your attention!

I will admit that after 16 years as a career firefighter and several more previous as a volunteer I am pretty sure I “Get It”, but I don’t expect anyone around me to understand what my realization of that term is.

I don’t eat, sleep, and romanticize about fire. I don’t even have to be on every fire. By this point, I enjoy the pace I am given by the assignment I am with. Sure, I like getting dirty, but my priorities have shifted. I still enjoy the adrenaline rush of the next call, of calls that test us, and those calls where we are left wondering how we just accomplished whatever it is we just did.

I think  more about family and time away from my job than I do about being there. However, my job (the one I still love going to) offers me a balance in my life I am not certain I could have achieved elsewhere.

I need to be a firefighter. I thrive at work. I have to be around firefighters for certain periods of time. However, I don’t get all messed up when we miss a fire like some do. Sure, I like going to fires, but what sense does it make to get mad when we miss one?

One shift not too long ago, there were 3 fires in NW. We were toned out on two of them but didn’t end up doing anything. The one in between was as good as it would have gotten if we were on the ticket. Unfortunately, we were on a lift assist with our ambo. My feelings weren’t hurt…there is nothing I could have done about it.

But what about the other guys…some of them are still chomping at the bit. I appreciate that. Yet, they probably think I am act like dinosaur and look like a rookie. I’m not.

I still love fighting fire, but if we aren’t there then why worry about it.

That is why it is so important to make it count every time! We might not be on every fire, but we need to show up to every fire like we know what we are doing….and we do! We are great at our jobs, yet we have so much to learn.

We must inspire and motivate each other. We must lead when given the opportunity. We must be a positive part of the team and…

Give An All Out Effort, Have An All In Attitude, Do Your Job, and Treat People Right as Mark VonAppen shares.

– Rhett Fleitz, The Fire Critic