Don’t Be United, TRUST.
The more I read and research leadership, culture, and performance; I am struck with the immense influence TRUST has not only on leadership but culture, performance, work satisfaction, employee engagement, retention, and much more. I always feel compelled to share this because of the vast importance.
One failure of leadership I want to point out is the incident that happened with United Airlines a few years ago and now once again. The first incident, Dr. Dao boarded a full flight but before they took off, he was asked to depart the plane to allow a United employee to travel to their destination for work. United had a policy that stated, if employees needed to take the flight to get to their next destination for work, their priority would bump other passengers off the plane. Dr. Dao was asked to depart the plane and take the next flight to allow a seat for the employee. He refused due to his circumstance with work. Below is Dr. Dao during and after the incident. Dr. Dao was forcefully removed from the flight and as the picture shows, suffered injuries.
How does this play into leadership or even trust? First, the environment at United was fractured. It was based on fear. All the employees were expected to be cogs in the wheel and follow the policy, never stopping to consider if their actions were right or wrong. They lived in a fear-based environment. Simon Sinek in Servant Leadership in Action points out the poor culture and leadership which perpetuated this incident all because of a lack of trust. It was a failure to developing a trusting environment to allow employees to act in the best interest of the customer but rather employees who were embedded with fear-based actions, they never considered the severity of the incident which lead to Dr. Dao and is injuries.
This incident happened a few years ago, but United obviously did not learn their lesson as they have been in the news several more times for similar incidents over the last year and a half. Even after the Dr Dao incident, they addressed the issue and promised to make changes, but that was obviously not followed through with or not espoused throughout the organization.
How does this relate to the fire service? Do you ever find yourself questioning what’s right and concerned you’re going to get in trouble because you did the right thing while violating a policy? The environment of fear handcuffs the members of our teams to act outside of the rules when they deem it necessary. When leaders can’t trust the employees to make appropriate decisions, they create policies, and in a fear-based environment that usually ends poorly. We hamstring our employees by black in white when the world operates in grey. This is bad policy and will eventually end in a negative outcome. Trust employees and allow them to operate in their ethical and moral boundaries. This allows them to do the right thing and ensure service to the community.
Reflecting on this, I am sure we can all find times when we seriously consider our actions and wonder when the write-up is coming. Know what is right and not doing it because the fear of getting in trouble is not a fun feeling. A little piece of advice, do the right thing and if they feel it’s necessary for you to get written up, so be it. At the end of the day, we are here for public service and the top priority is always the citizens. We need to serve, just make sure whatever you are doing is safe.
I will share a story. I was told of an incident where a crew was out in their jurisdiction and came across a broken-down car in the roadway. An apparatus not stopping for a broken-down car could look really bad to the citizens, so they stopped. The crew assisted the occupants of the car and moved the car out of the way and tried to help them mitigate the issue. On returning to the station, excited about their service to a citizen, they shared their experience with the crew. Soon after, they were called to the office and were scolded for not wearing their PPE while assisting the car off the road. First, safety is of the utmost importance, and think they should have been reminded of that, but this should have been approached differently. Again, Did they break a policy, yes. Their actions should have been re-enforced with positive approach to acknolwedge the action of customer first but cautioned on the safety. Approach is everything.
The way this event went down showed poor leadership. Do we think that crew will ever stop to assist another person in need of help as they drive by? No, they will be so concerned about getting in trouble, they will go against their values and the mission of the organization to help the citizens at all cost. This is where leadership comes in. The leader’s job is to create an environment to feel safe and safety is trust. We need to build trust with our crews. We need to trust them to follow the rules most of the time, but when doing the right thing overrides the rules, we need to let them know that we trust their judgment and encourage these acts over any other.
If you hear comments about not doing what’s right because of the fear of getting in trouble, you have a cultural problem, an environmental problem, and a trust problem. Create an organization that values doing the right thing over all else. Don’t make the same mistake United did. Create an environment built on trust. If we can successfully do that, our ability to fulfill the mission will never be questioned.
