Is this the new face of leadership in the US fire service?

Community Resilience

Is this the new face of leadership in the US Fire Service?

FIRE’s US correspondent Catherine Levin speaks to the new Commissioner of Philadelphia Fire Department about leadership in the service and lessons that can be learned from across the pond

T

he City of Philadelphia lies less than two hours south of New York City. Nestled in the state of Pennsylvania, it is hugely important in the history of the birth of the United States and at one time in the late 18th century, it stood as the fledgling nation’s capital.

The Philadelphia Fire Department has a new boss. Derrick Sawyer worked his way up the ranks since he joined 29 years ago and was appointed Commissioner in the summer of 2014. I recently met the Commissioner to talk about leadership and what makes good leaders in the US fire service. I wanted to know if there was something different from the UK and get his take on a range of issues facing the fire service today and in the future.

The concept of lifelong learning comes up time and time again during my time with the

“Just because he’s experienced doesn’t mean he knows the basic concepts of leadership. I believe the fire chief has to be educated”

Commissioner Derrick Sawyer, Philadelphia Fire Department with his copy of the July issue of FIRE

Commissioner. He has amassed a vast array of qualifications over the years and he is currently studying for a Masters degree in Homeland Security. I asked him where he finds the time.

“You have to make it part of your livelihood.

I am a lifelong learner. I always took classes; it’s part of my life, which makes it a bit easier”.

The Commissioner goes on to say that previously fire chiefs got to their position because of years served, not because they were viewed as progressive or even ‘right’ for the job. “Just because he’s experienced doesn’t mean he knows the basic concepts of leadership. I believe the fire chief has to be educated.”

And for the Commissioner, part of that approach to lifelong learning is to bring others along with him. He is a great advocate of mentoring and does this with staff from PFD and other organisations. “I don’t hoard knowledge; I share it” he says.

Inspired by all this talk of lifelong learning, we move on to talk about presentation as part of leadership: how you look, how you come across and how you are perceived. I draw on February 2015 | www.fire–magazine.com | 47

Community Resilience

the TED talk by Amy Cuddy, a professor at Harvard University, which has been viewed over 22 million times.

“Just because he’s experienced doesn’t mean he knows the basic concepts of leadership.

I believe the fire chief has to be educated.”

She talks about how ‘body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves’. I was taken by the concept of “power posing”, the idea that standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident, can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain and ‘might even have an impact on our chances for success’.

For the Commissioner, media is a big part of his job. He had not seen the Amy Cuddy talk but describes feedback from recent media appearances in response to a multiple fatal fire in the early days of his new role. “I was told that I had good eye contact but people don’t like my hat as it covers my eyes. People like to see my eyes.” The Commissioner’s official hat is rather grand and imposing: it could be such a simple thing to change. He goes on to say “people think that I am sincere, but if I could add that posture piece, that would help”. He’s certainly open to new ideas and improvements and I think that’s what makes him different, that openness and humbleness sets him apart.

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Philadelphia Town Hall

Executive Leadership Programme Having held every rank in PFD, the Commissioner draws on decades of experience and it is the empathy that comes with it that seems to make him so likeable. I asked him about charisma and its impact on leadership but he wasn’t convinced. It may “make people pay attention to you”, he says, “but you still have to do something with it”. He’s a firm believer that you can be a good leader but not have charisma, arguing that leadership is based on one’s influence.

We talked a little about the UK approach to leadership by looking at some of the Executive Leadership Programme that many UK Fire and Rescue Service senior managers have attended.

He is a big fan of the self-awareness strand and is characteristically unafraid of the Myers Briggs approach and 360° evaluation.

“A lot of people avoid it,” he says of the 360° approach, “but if you truly want to be able to lead, you have to know how you think you respond to things and how your team thinks.

You have to be a strong person to be vulnerable to allow someone to probe into that area and educate you and help you go forward”.

That combination of strength and vulnerability comes across a lot during our discussion. I am not surprised when he modestly disagrees that he, despite being the highest-ranking officer in the PFD, is not a Level 5 Leader. He knew about the work of Jim Collins, an expert in leadership, who argued that the key ingredient that allows a company to become great is to have a Level 5 Leader, “an executive in whom genuine personal humility blends with intense professional will”.

“I think it’s a great phrase”, says the Commissioner, “but you can’t achieve it by yourself. I am definitely not there yet, but it’s one of my goals”.

Returning to the UK approach to developing leaders, we talk about political acuity. The Commissioner is a political appointment; this is a strongly Democrat city, led by a Democrat mayor who has been in office for six years.

“The reality is that now you have become a politician,” he says of his promotion to Commissioner, “if you are not aware of it, you cannot make that transition effectively.”

I asked him how he earned his ‘political wings’, how he learnt how the politics worked.

He made some interesting points about community, about how if you know the people you serve, have a relationship with them that is outside of the emergency response, and then they will look after you. He meant at the ballot box.

He is not elected by the community but “if you take care of them (the community), then they will take care of you in the long run”. He even goes so far as to say of his own staff, “if you are on a fire station and the people who live on your block don’t know you, then you are not doing your job”.

Community Resilience

He referred to budget cuts and station closures – the latter has not been an issue, but he was convinced that the community would come out to advocate on behalf of the PFD. This is a story that could be in any city or town, in the US or the UK. And this is entirely in keeping with his forward thinking approach to fire prevention (known as Community Risk Reduction or CRR).

Unlike many fire services in the US, the PFD is a great supporter of the prevention agenda and, inspired by the UK, has been carrying out home safety visits for a number of years.

Confirming that there are no performance indicators to track achievement in this area and raise its profile politically, the Commissioner considers that it could change in the future.

Most Diverse Staff Ever Commissioner Sawyer is a great advocate for fire prevention both for his own department but also at a federal level. He is a key player in the US Branch of the Institute of Fire Engineers’ Vision 20/20 programme and is a Board Member of the Fire and Life Safety Committee of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

This forward thinking approach also translates to his early decisions about the management team that support him. “I have the most diverse senior staff ever of the PFD”, he proudly states. He has stuck to his guns about nurturing talent and shook up his management team, giving the PFD its first female Deputy cCommissioner.

Taking this opportunity to remind the Commissioner of the poor record of the New York Fire Department, the FDNY, which at this time had only 41 women in its uniformed ranks of over 10,000, I ask him about the PFD’s record. I’m slightly surprised that he does not have the exact number to hand: he estimates it is 100-150 (out of more than 2,000 uniformed staff).

He talks about making sure women have opportunities and a voice; that he “provides a safe haven for them” and that women should not be ostracized. I suggest that this all sounds like women are a bit helpless but he does not agree “it’s not about being helpless, it’s about knowing (one’s) voice can be heard”.

So for a man who never wanted to be a firefighter, who ended up in the PFD after time in the US Air Force servicing fire engines, Derrick Sawyer has done incredibly well. He, like many African Americans, did not consider the fire department as a career.

He’s grown up in a department that in the 1980s failed to reflect the demographic profile of its own community and until two years ago tried to remedy that with a racial hiring policy that saw 12 African American hires for every 100 white hires. But no longer. With a staff now 28 per cent African American, Commissioner Sawyer has his sights on recruiting from new emerging communities,

“It is the office that has changed: the Commissioner never behaved like this before. This is the new normal”

Philadelphia firefighters experience the forward thinking approach of the current Commissioner

from parts of Asia and in particular from Russia.

His challenge is to lead an organisation that is flexible and responsive to change. He cites social media and the “smarter, younger fire department” where his staff has better access to information than ever before. He wants to listen. Already staff has noted his accessibility and know that he has not changed. He is authentic. It is the office that has changed: the Commissioner never behaved like this before.

This is the new normal.

He will lead the PFD holding tight to his values, “because I am a life long learner, I should be able to identify emerging problems.

You can never stop learning because the fire service is always evolving.” He really believes in this and I, for one, have no doubt it will serve him well in the next five years he remains Commissioner. The big question is what next?

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