Fire Strategic Plan revised July 2002

Home

Action Plan AP 2.16 Training Division will develop a training session on empowcrmcnt as part of the overall officer developxnent program. PRIORITY 3. AP 2.17 Administration Division will include on the agenda for chief s staff ineetings discussions on the progress of empowerment in RFD and will work to continually develop and promote an empowered organization. PRIORITY 5. Leadership Leadership is having the capacity and ability to lead (to show the way to, by going in advance}. It is a skill and an attitude that enables one to get others to accomplish established goals and objectives. Dwight Eisenhower defined leadership as "gctting others to do the things you want done because they want to do it." Management is the skill of controlling resources or functions during the accomplishment of thosc objectives. Leadership is doing the right thing, while management is doing things right. Neither will accomplish much without the oiher. While leadezship can be defined, it is difficult to achieve all the attributes of a great leader. �t is the goal and passion of this adrninistration to embody those attributes of superb leadership and movc RFD to the pinnacle o£ the fire service. For our departmcnt to beco�ne a true service leader, we must have effective leadership at all levels. Great leaders can push our organization to levels never achieved in the past. This creates an energized cnvironment that will benefit our internal and our external customers. Our productivity and our performance will surely improve with great leadership at ail levels. With the appointment of a career f�re chief in 1994 came the opportunity to reevaluate the way we do business. The process of appointing a new chief's staff was completed in January 2000. This change in upper management created new expectations for leadership in the department. In January 2002, the department added a cazeer assistant fire chief. With these newly appointed staffpositions comes new goals and objectives, and a change in the way we operate. In addition to the new chief's staff, all capta.in and lieutenant positions were appointed (or re-appointed} in a cornpetitive process that was cornpleted in Apri12000. Now there are new expectations for all officers at RFD. The members are sti�l evaluating the c{uality of the new leadership and the chief's staff is also evaluating the quality of lcadership frorn the line officers. The administration has raised the benchmark of expectations and stanciards of perFormance for all officers and has confidently observed that an effective leadership team is ta.king root. Objectives 16