I recently met up with someone I had worked with on the fire department. It had been many years since we’d seen each other.
As we reminisced about memorable calls and people we had worked with, I mentioned the name of a particular officer, and my friend’s cheerful demeanor immediately darkened. He proceeded to tell me a story about a time he was driving for the officer and made a decision about placing the rig. The officer was not happy with this decision, but my friend — an experienced engineer — turned out to be correct in his judgment. Regardless, in the immediate aftermath, the officer vehemently berated him in a very insulting way for his decision — and he did so in the presence of other firefighters at the scene.
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Unsurprisingly, my friend was not happy being treated this way, especially because his decision was correct. They got through the call, but he never forgot how he felt that day. That was clear by the fact that this story came up so readily decades later.
Two lessons
There are two important lessons to be gained from this. The first is that, in the long term, this is all that my friend remembered about that officer. Not any of his other accomplishments or redeeming qualities, just that moment of disrespect and inappropriate criticism. It was an effect that far outlasted either of their careers.
But in the short term, how likely was it that this engineer would choose to step up and make an independent decision again, not only with that officer, but perhaps with anyone? Why risk that kind of humiliation when you can just keep your mouth shut and go along, and let someone else take the blame later?
This is not the kind of firefighter any officer should want on their crew. Yet officers might be creating this outcome unconsciously, through their own words and actions.
Words matter
What we say and do around our coworkers and members of the community might not seem important to us in the moment but can have a lasting impact beyond what we might imagine. Everything we do contributes to our reputation and our effectiveness, for better and for worse.
We all say and do things we regret later. We have bad days, we’re distracted, we act on bad information. Falling prey to these human foibles is not the problem. The problem is when we don’t recognize our errors and seek to correct them.
Doing this is simple, but not easy. In the situation my friend described, what if that officer had pulled him aside once the emergency was handled and said something like, “Hey, I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier. I wasn’t seeing what you saw.” And then made a conscious effort not to repeat that behavior. My guess is that the engineer would have readily accepted this apology and they could have moved on together as a team in a positive manner. Instead, a wound was created that continued to fester and outlast their time on the job.
Rarely are such incidents single events. When bad blood exists between two people, a pattern and expectation are established. You expect the other person to behave badly, and not surprisingly, this is often your perception of them, regardless of their intention. The negativity feeds on itself. And it doesn’t benefit anyone.
Small but powerful change
It’s not easy to stand up and take responsibility for behaving badly in a moment. We all get stressed out and overwhelmed and sometimes those around us take the brunt of that through no fault of their own. To be able to apologize for those moments is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, only those who are confident in themselves and who truly want to be strong leaders will step up to that responsibility.
Hearing my friend tell this story made me sad. I knew the officer he was talking about and had personally experienced how he could be on his worst days. But I also knew him to be a dedicated firefighter and someone who aspired to be a good leader. If he could have made some small changes, he could have had a very different legacy.
