Book Image

Flow-based Leadership: What the Best Firefighters can Teach You about Leadership and Making Hard Decisions

By : Judith L. Glick-Smith Ph.D
Book Image

Flow-based Leadership: What the Best Firefighters can Teach You about Leadership and Making Hard Decisions

By: Judith L. Glick-Smith Ph.D

Overview of this book

There comes a day when we have to make a tough decision under stress. That decision might change the course of our life. Flow-Based Leadership helps you improve your decision-making skills through the use of some great real-life stories of firefighters. The book first introduces the feeling called ‘flow’—teaching by example its importance in decision-making. Next, you’ll explore various techniques to initiate flow in critical situations and how to respond when flow doesn’t occur as expected. You will learn how to implement flow-based decision making and flow based-leadership within personal and professional circumstances. You will next encounter an extreme, experiential training program called Georgia Smoke Diver (GSD), and how it helps special military forces like Navy Seals and Army Rangers to maintain a calm focus in chaotic situations. Towards the end, the book uses the GSD program to describe the flow-based organizational framework and how it can be integrated into your life and workplace to achieve better decision-making skills. By the end of this book, you’ll be able to use flow-based leadership in your personal and professional life maintain clarity and confidence under duress.
Table of Contents (11 chapters)

Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse Fire

All of the stories I collected in my study contained elements of flow. However, the one that had 100 percent of all the characteristics of flow was the story of the Worcester, Massachusetts Cold Storage Warehouse fire that occurred on December 3, 1999. It is also a perfect example of flow-based leadership. Retired District Fire Chief Michael O. McNamee related this story to me while I was sitting at his kitchen table in Worcester in 2010.

About the Worcester Fire Department

Worcester is the second largest city in New England. The Worcester Fire Department is the second largest fire department in New England. The Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse was an enormous building. The two main sections of the warehouse were built in 1908 and 1912. Another section, which created an L-wing off the rear of the building, was built decades later. The warehouse had six floors and no windows. The walls were 18 inches thick. There were only three stairwells...