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)

Kyle Wilson Story

This story was the impetus for my doctoral work. It was told to me by my brother-in-law, Steve Strawderman, retired Battalion Chief of Prince William County, Virginia, Department of Fire and Rescue (PWCDFR). It is the story of a line of duty death that happened on his watch. On April 16, 2007, Technician 1 Kyle R. Wilson, a firefighter in service with the PWCDFR, lost his life in the line of duty. Steve was one of the battalion chiefs assigned to that fire. A few months prior to this incident, Steve viewed the training video of the classes conducted by the Worcester Fire Department.

At 6 a.m. on April 16, 2007, a call came into PWCDFR. It was a three-alarm house fire. By the time Steve arrived at the scene, firefighters were already engaged. An assumption had been made that there were people still in the house. As it turned out, everyone had managed to get out. The incident commander, not knowing this, sent in Kyle and his partner to evacuate the building. The...