Your Calling Corner
A fall leadership series by Chief Tully
You Can Make A Difference
We are going to start utilizing our website training again. You know it as Tactical Edge Tuesday, but moving forward, lets refer to it as our training page. This week’s post will be titled Your Calling Corner, a fall leadership series. I feel that this can be a vital part of our training moving forward. I would like to thank Brandon for bringing this idea to our department. I have asked several people to put together classes, and if you would like to do one, please build the class, type it up and send it to me, if you would like to include a video that will be even better. The only way this will not work is because you choose not to participate. Let me encourage each of you to take the time, be intentional about visiting our training page. Make it important….that’s right, more important than the Book of Faces. If you spend just a small portion of time on your phone with Tactical Tuesday as you do the BOF, you might learn something. If you want our department to be ELITE… you have to be ELITE…. Anything else is below the Standard.
The greatest book ever written teaches that within the body of The Church there are many people with gifts. Some gifts might be more visible than others, but all gifts are important within the body of Christ. You can take that principle and apply it to our department; some of the jobs are more visible…they might be viewed as more important and the smaller non-visible jobs less important. There is nothing that is farther from the truth. Every job, duty or requirement on this department is instrumental for the success of our mission.
So let’s take a look at some of the smaller things. First of all is response. We had “When Called We Respond” put on our apparatus, our seal, and everything else that involves us in the public view. It’s just 4 small words, but those 4 small words are the most important words we say as far as our department goes. Those words are who we are, they are what we do, and most importantly they are what our citizens expect from us. Even though some calls are larger than others, no call is unimportant, if we are not careful, we will choose our calls. No one wants to get up at 0300 in the morning and go to a helicopter call. I mean we are going to do the same thing…go to the helipad…wait on the ambulance, watch them take off and go back home. Nothing important about that…well, have you ever thought how important it is to the pilot, medic, nurse and patient on that helicopter to know that we are there with enough equipment and firefighters that if something goes wrong we will do everything we can to save them. Sometimes we might need to look at the importance of the call from the people who are calling us.
What about our equipment, when is the last time you took the time to inspect the apparatus to see if everything is there and in working order? When is the last time you led the way to cleaning and washing them. When is the last time you checked the ice and water or made sure the air packs were full. How important is this, when is the last time you checked your gear to make sure everything is the way it should be. Don’t forget who’s wearing your gear… that might make it a little more important.
Do you want to make our department Elite, do you want to be Elite… take care of the little things. Do the things that no one else wants to do. Clean the bathrooms, sweep the floors, take out the trash. Check the equipment and apparatus. Remember the most important job doesn’t have to be the most visible. But I’d be willing to bet you that if you do the little things…someone is taking notice.
If you want to get noticed, if you are here for the credit your will bring to yourself, you are in the wrong place. President Ronald Reagan said, “ There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit”. There is a book called The Purpose Driven Life, and the first four words of the book are “It Is Not About You”. The same applies here…it’s about us if you want to make it about you go to Hollywood, we don’t need movie stars. We need people who are willing to make the sacrifice, to make it about everyone except them. “ You want to be a leader…. Then learn how to serve, at least that’s what the Bible says.
I have attached 2 videos for you to watch; one is Admiral William H. McRaven 10 lessons from Basic Seal Training. The second one is from COMTAC Training – The little things matter.
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Admiral William McRaven's 10 Life Lessons
The Little Things Matter
Reminder: Log your training appropriately with our Training Form. Everyone can add this in as officer training. If you are not an officer, this officer training will fall into the company training bucket total, and you can log this in either category.
Log this as : Leadership Training : You Can Make A Difference
When called, We Respond!
BE ELITE!
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