General Disrespect
Recently I read Generally Speaking by Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy (Ret.), which turned out to be a really good book on leadership and an overall great read. I would recommend highly it to all FIRE CHIEF readers.
One of the chapters deals with Kennedy’s Army experiences that influenced her attitudes about fairness and equality. Kennedy was appointed as a member of the secretary of the Army’s Senior Review Panel on Sexual Harassment after several non-commissioned officers serving as drill sergeants at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland were charged with various offenses to female trainees ranging from sexual harassment to sexual assault and rape. The review panel used information from 30,000 soldiers worldwide gathered from surveys, focus groups, personal interviews and observations. Specific data analysis involved a cohort of 15,000 male and female soldiers across all branches of the Army.
The most valuable nugget I took from this chapter was the panel’s finding that the Army had a significant issue in an overall lack of respect and dignity, which created an environment where sexual harassment was tolerated and in some cases condoned. Kennedy wrote:
Not surprisingly, the Review Panel found that Army leaders were the critical factor in creating, maintaining, and enforcing an environment of respect and dignity. But too many leaders had failed to gain the trust of their soldiers.
The good news was that the panel also found many examples of good leadership around the world, where the leaders created high levels of respect and dignity in the harshest and most challenging work environments, even in deployments like Kuwait and Bosnia. The panel identified that these units had good leaders who:
- Set standards for the members of their organization.
- Exemplified, through their personal conduct, adherence to those standards.
- Enforced and maintained those standards for the other members of the organization.
- Demonstrated genuine care and concern for their soldiers, regardless of their rank, race or gender.
I think there’s good stuff here that can serve the fire service as well. I believe that these same characteristics are what we need to strive for to create an environment that prevents not only sexual harassment, but other forms of harassment and intolerance as well, from entering our work place, thus creating an environment for success. The Army units that were led by leaders with these characteristics were also high performing, operationally proficient units. Providing respect and dignity in the workplace will do that for you.
Related Topics: Robert Avsec, Management & Administration, Leadership
