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)

Index

A

action/inaction continuum, 76

adrenaline rush, 62

ALEAS Simulations, Inc., 15, 183, 189

Alexandria, Virginia Fire Department, 48

Allen, Jerry, 49

ARSENAL. See Awareness, Rest, Support, Exercise, Nutrition, Attitude, and Learning

autocratic leadership style, 98, 115

autotelic, 21, 22, 23

Awareness, Rest, Support, Exercise, Nutrition, Attitude, and Learning, 85

B

Baggett, Gary, 172

Barksdale, Ben, 28, 31, 37, 98

Battalion Chief, 8, 27, 33, 110, 115

Board of Elders, 125, 144, 174

Boyd, John, 87, 191

broad framing, 88

Buddhist Middle Path, 62

Bureau of Land Management, 38

C

Cobb County, Georgia Fire Department, 33

cognitive ability, 62, 64, 75, 78

collaboration, 170–71

collaborative leadership style, 98, 115

Colwell, Paige, 27, 31, 42, 62, 84

commanding officer, 96

communication, 145

continuous feedback, 76

creative suspension, 55, 74, 75, 79

creativity, 172–74

crew resource...