Fire and rescue executives will face a variety of challenging situations throughout their careers as Chief Executive Officers of their organizations. Natural disasters, budget cuts, non-confidence votes, fights with City Hall, and periodic internal turmoil are a few of the critical incidents that will challenge your leadership. Many of you have already faced one or more of these incidents. If you haven’t, hang on because the first one is on its way.

How do you ensure your leadership capacity at critical times? What does leadership look like in critical times? How do you sustain rational thinking rather than giving way to emotional decision making?

You at times lead a very lonely life as CEO of a Fire and Rescue service. The endless commentary from the Association, the perceived or real roadblocks set up by your Chief Administrative Officer, the concerns about level of service from downtown business leaders, and internal turmoil all contribute to this loneliness. Yes, you have an administrative team, but ultimately, you are responsible.

How do you cope with these pressures? They are probably never going to disappear or if they do new ones appear? Are there strategies to employ? Is positive, proactive leadership the answer?

Contrary to popular belief, executive positions have political dimensions. In this regard, senior fire and rescue executives have complex political environments to nurture and govern. Public scrutiny, dealing with government, media, unions, internal teams, high-level political groups, and the Chief Administrative Officer all demand attention. This attention ranges from high level input to a more personal relationships and information sharing. Do you pay attention to these factors or do you take a defensive position and hope they keep their distance?

Your strategic review of the organization suggests that diminishing resources could be better deployed. Further, you realize that changing social demographics are putting pressure on the organization as demands for improved service increase. Your analysis reveals that several members of your administrative team are about one year away from retirement. With all of this you conclude the time is right to change the organization structure.

While you know the change has to start with you, where do you begin? How do you get key players on board? How will you approach Council and the Mayor? What about the CAO and Council?

Some may argue that “influence” is a dirty word for a senior executive in the fire service. The fact is if you are to be successful, you will have to exert strong influence in a variety of situations. You will have to exert influence on your Chief Administrative Officer and, at the same time, the CAO will expect you to exert strong influence on a variety of organizations including the Association, your management team, municipal, state, and provincial governments, and your professional organization.

How will you influence with professionalism? How do you effectively intervene to resolve difficult situations? How do you influence your CAO? How do you influence politicians at all levels? Perhaps most important, how do you influence the public?

What is the toughest challenge you face right now? The day’s presenters will come together to provide commentary on the toughest challenge they face at the present time. Here you will gain a deeper understanding of the issues and lessons learned from their experiences.

Round after round of bargaining turns residual rights into bargained rights and employers often ask “What happened to us?” After losing it all, we are left to question how we can now get it back. There has got to be a strategy for regaining what are legitimate management rights. How do we get it back? How do we regain control in order to have order in the workplace?

Mohamed Doma will describe how this dilemma occurs and offer sound strategies for returning management rights back to the employer.

Is this your reality? A TV news van is parked outside a major fire and the first truck is just arriving. You have been advised by the Association that a non-confidence vote in your leadership will be held next month. Your diversity training program is being roundly criticized by minority groups. A new Deputy Mayor is ready to clean house as a slow response has been blamed for the loss of several buildings downtown. Your Master Plan is under scrutiny while you view it as the road to recovery since the last one was prepared many years ago.

The reality is things will go wrong. How can you manage these situations with the commitment and passion that brought you to your position as Chief? How do you engage your team in responding to what are virtually negative attacks on your leadership?

A major incident requires you to meet with an angry municipal council and affected citizens. Things are not good and the meeting may spin out of control. You have talked with your executive team members and they gave a few opinions on the issue and how the meeting should go. You’re only as good as your team and you know it! Providing you with strategic support is one of their most important roles. Providing them with increased strategic capacity is your role.

How should you respond? Is your team’s strategic capacity capable of assisting? Is this a problem or an opportunity to demonstrate strong leadership?

In this case study, we will look at a real life scenario; a situation that one of your colleagues is working with on a day to day basis. This case study will capture the personal challenges you all face when you feel like you have lost it all. It will address the common concern that the union is running your culture and is clearly applying the international code for “bringing down the chief.” Don’t let them kill the king!

What does it take to regain management control in these situations? Perhaps this is an opportunity to demonstrate the leadership skills you were recruited for? How can you take your personal challenges on and be successful? What is your plan and how do you build it?

Is this your day? You have just been blindsided by an issue linked to internal politics and now must act. It has been revealed that a performance issue of a member was not addressed through performance appraisal. You are now in damage control with the CAO over improper external employment by an employee. The myth of poor response times has raised its ugly head again and you are preparing to meet the media.

Senior leaders often find themselves in a recovery mode where they try to salvage their reputation and retain or rebuild public confidence. How does it get to this point? Why do our long hours and hard work seem to go unrewarded? How can we move our executive leadership to a point where we are proactive, anticipating where the real career killer is lurking? Is this your world?