{"id":7300,"date":"2021-08-07T06:42:55","date_gmt":"2021-08-07T11:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=7300"},"modified":"2021-08-07T06:42:56","modified_gmt":"2021-08-07T11:42:56","slug":"how-avoiding-fire-drill-leadership-can-build-your-leadership-effectiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/07\/how-avoiding-fire-drill-leadership-can-build-your-leadership-effectiveness\/","title":{"rendered":"How Avoiding Fire-Drill Leadership Can Build Your Leadership Effectiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If everything is an emergency, nothing is an emergency.<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

The truth of this leadership axiom is lost on many leaders who seem to lurch their leadership, and their team, from one panic-riddled crisis to another.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was once on a team led by such a leader.\u00a0\u201cAll hands on deck!\u201d,\u00a0\u201cEmergency meeting!\u201d and\u00a0\u00a0\u201cEveryone into the conference room, PRONTO!\u201d were almost standing orders, seemingly heard on a daily basis.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I call this \u201cFire Drill Leadership\u201d. Everything seems like an emergency.<\/p>\n

While these shrill calls can create tremendous urgency, even excitement in an organization, the best leaders I\u2019ve known keep these fire drills\u00a0to a bare minimum. Because they know that, overdone, keeping such a shrill tone in the organization can lead to five severe consequences.<\/p>\n

1. An actual emergency is not given proper urgency<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

This is a \u201cnever cry wolf\u201d scenario at its worst. When everything is an emergency, eventually nothing is seen as an emergency.<\/p>\n

2. The leader loses credibility<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Teams count on the leader to distinguish between minor problems and a full-blown crisis. A leader not making those distinctions will eventually lose the team\u2019s respect.<\/p>\n

3. The organization loses focus<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

In an atmosphere of constant emergencies, teams will soon abandon the strategic plan. \u201cAfter all,\u201d the thinking will go, \u201cWhy bother with the plan when it will have to be abandoned during the next inevitable emergency?\u201d<\/p>\n

4. The culture becomes one of detachment and disengagement<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve seen this happen in several organizations. Teams simply can\u2019t remain emotionally engaged when there is a seemingly constant state of panic in the air. For self-preservation people will simply tune out.<\/p>\n

5. Roles become murky<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

When the team is following the game-plan, each person should know their assigned role. In an emergency state people tend to abandon their role in order to help resolve the latest crisis. When this happens the wheels of the organization can begin to turn very slowly and sluggishly.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll never eliminate emergencies from your organization, nor should you. When a genuine crisis hits, the leader must be able to sound a genuine call to arms and \u201cup\u201d the level of urgency.<\/p>\n

But remember- if you keep\u00a0the culture of the team in a constant state of a fire drill, you will not only wear out your team, you will eventually wear out your leadership effectiveness.<\/p>\n

And for you, that really could be a crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If everything is an emergency, nothing is an emergency. The truth of this leadership axiom is lost on many leaders who seem to lurch their leadership, and their team, from one panic-riddled crisis to another. I was once on a team led by such a leader.\u00a0\u201cAll hands on deck!\u201d,\u00a0\u201cEmergency meeting!\u201d and\u00a0\u00a0\u201cEveryone into the conference room,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1017,769,738,478,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","category-culture-2","category-effectiveness-2","category-featured","category-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7300"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7302,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7300\/revisions\/7302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}