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25 July 2025
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Featured FRI Magazine article: Empowerment by Wayne Bailey
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https://www.frimedia.org/uploads/1/2/2/7/122743954/fri_vol_3_no_7.pdf
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Empowerment written by Wayne Bailey (FRI Vol 3 no 7). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
Empowerment
By Wayne Bailey
The ability to empower others is one of the keys to personal and professional success. John Craig said, "No matter how much work you can do, no matter how engaging your personality may be, you will not advance far in business if you cannot work through others."
When you become an empowerer, you certainly work with and through people but you also do much more. Simply defined, empowering is giving your influence to others for the purpose of personal and organisational growth. It's seeing the potential of others and sharing your influence, position, power and opportunities with others with the purpose of investing in the lives of others so that they can function at their best.
The acts of empowering others can changes lives forever. When you empower, everybody wins. When you empower, you give away your authority. It has the same effect as sharing information. You haven't lost anything. You've increased the ability of others without decreasing yourself. The same as if you empower your 18-year old child to pick up his brother or sister from school instead of you doing it, you have given your authority to the 18-year old to act on your behalf.
In the fire service, empowering others is important. According to Asnat Greenberg, author of Secrets of Kindness, empowering others is one of the most important acts of kindness one can do for his fellow man. She said, “Empowering others means not criticising them, not judging them, not being cynical towards them. Empowering others means praising the struggling student in the class on his or her progress, no matter how small, curbing your ego, connecting to the best elements that lie within you, giving them the feeling that they are loved, smiling at these people, inquiring about their wellbeing, thanking them for the services they provide and wishing them a good day; being happy for them and praising them on their accomplishments or in any way possible. Empowering others means identifying with them, smiling when someone else approaches and makes the world a better place. It’s also contagious and requires little effort on your behalf.
When you give away your influence or authority, you haven't lost anything. You’re actually duplicating yourself and allowing others to continue once you’ve retired and moved on.
Kimberly Alyn said “True empowerment must include a strong leadership foundation that includes the willingness to train, develop and mentor others in the responsibility that comes with that empowerment. Many leaders are too lazy or too busy to engage in that process. They understand the need for empowerment but do not fully invest in the entire process of creating the balance between empowerment and responsibility.” The strong leadership Alyn is speaking about is when you empower others, you do it responsibly. If I empowered my apparatus driver to be responsible of a multi-million dollar budget, would that be responsible? No. Remember what is given away, can be taken back. Here is an example Alyn wrote about. A fire fighter in one particular department abused the empowerment he was afforded and needed to be disciplined. The union stepped forward and fought his discipline tooth and nail. The fire fighter and the union were subsequently surprised when management pulled back the empowerment. Surprised?
John Craig said, "No matter how much work you can do, no matter how engaging your personality may be, you will not advance far if you cannot work through others."
When we empower ourselves, we empower others. When you become an empowerer, you work with and through other people. You give away your influence in order to grow the organisation. When you believe in others to carry the touch to the next level, you’re giving you influence away for others to grow in influence.
Recently I was reading a paper “To change the world or to rule it: Applying transformational leadership theory” (Kupietz 2010). He said an issue of leadership in the fire service is the preparation of subordinates to be leaders. Empowerment of the employee goes a long way towards this goal. A more self-actualised individual is a more productive team member and a more functional team is more effective at accomplishing the goals placed before them. This situation is where transformational leadership theory really comes into play. The theory can be used to empower subordinates to help their organisations by growing not only in the position they currently hold but also by beginning to prepare for future leadership (Cochran, 2006).
Captain X, like so many fire officers, was never given that opportunity; but the cycle of solitary leadership could be broken and a new approach of empowerment could start with Captain X.
Homrig (2001) states that an important aspect of a good leader is to mentor subordinates to become good future leaders. This aspect is an important issue in the fire service. We must prepare future leaders to assume leadership positions and ensure these new leaders will have the tools needed to advance the profession.
Empowering others means you establish what is expected or the outcome. If no boundaries are given, you may not get the results you were looking for. Theodore Roosevelt put it this way, “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” If you meddle with the process, some people say it’s micro-management.
If you read number four of the 16 ‘Fire Fighter Life Safety Initiatives’, it says, “All fire fighter’s must be empowered to stop unsafe practices.” While this may appear to be a challenging or even controversial statement, it simply means that every organisation should provide an environment that allows its members to speak up regarding personal and organisational safety; without negative consequences for doing so (within a prescribed context) and without decentralising the authority of the formal leader. The resources needed for all fire service organisations to institute Initiative number four, regardless of type or size, are already at our disposal and the best part is that they are free. The goal is to have every member fully engaged during an emergency incident with a focus on doing the work in a proficient manner and looking out for one-another to avoid injuries and potential line of duty death.”
In this instance, empowerment is if you see something wrong, you have the duty to speak up without negative consequences. In some departments, a rookie is expected to keep his or her mouth shut if they see or feel something is wrong on the fire scene. I would hope you, the reader, would work towards everyone looking out for each other. One other example is empowering your engineer (driver) not to move the apparatus until everyone is buckled in with a seat belt. By giving your authority as a leader to this driver, you are empowering him with your authority, therefore providing additional safety guidelines in place where ‘Everyone Goes Home’.
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Empowerment written by Wayne Bailey (FRI Vol 3 no 7). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
Empowerment
By Wayne Bailey
The ability to empower others is one of the keys to personal and professional success. John Craig said, "No matter how much work you can do, no matter how engaging your personality may be, you will not advance far in business if you cannot work through others."
When you become an empowerer, you certainly work with and through people but you also do much more. Simply defined, empowering is giving your influence to others for the purpose of personal and organisational growth. It's seeing the potential of others and sharing your influence, position, power and opportunities with others with the purpose of investing in the lives of others so that they can function at their best.
The acts of empowering others can changes lives forever. When you empower, everybody wins. When you empower, you give away your authority. It has the same effect as sharing information. You haven't lost anything. You've increased the ability of others without decreasing yourself. The same as if you empower your 18-year old child to pick up his brother or sister from school instead of you doing it, you have given your authority to the 18-year old to act on your behalf.
In the fire service, empowering others is important. According to Asnat Greenberg, author of Secrets of Kindness, empowering others is one of the most important acts of kindness one can do for his fellow man. She said, “Empowering others means not criticising them, not judging them, not being cynical towards them. Empowering others means praising the struggling student in the class on his or her progress, no matter how small, curbing your ego, connecting to the best elements that lie within you, giving them the feeling that they are loved, smiling at these people, inquiring about their wellbeing, thanking them for the services they provide and wishing them a good day; being happy for them and praising them on their accomplishments or in any way possible. Empowering others means identifying with them, smiling when someone else approaches and makes the world a better place. It’s also contagious and requires little effort on your behalf.
When you give away your influence or authority, you haven't lost anything. You’re actually duplicating yourself and allowing others to continue once you’ve retired and moved on.
Kimberly Alyn said “True empowerment must include a strong leadership foundation that includes the willingness to train, develop and mentor others in the responsibility that comes with that empowerment. Many leaders are too lazy or too busy to engage in that process. They understand the need for empowerment but do not fully invest in the entire process of creating the balance between empowerment and responsibility.” The strong leadership Alyn is speaking about is when you empower others, you do it responsibly. If I empowered my apparatus driver to be responsible of a multi-million dollar budget, would that be responsible? No. Remember what is given away, can be taken back. Here is an example Alyn wrote about. A fire fighter in one particular department abused the empowerment he was afforded and needed to be disciplined. The union stepped forward and fought his discipline tooth and nail. The fire fighter and the union were subsequently surprised when management pulled back the empowerment. Surprised?
John Craig said, "No matter how much work you can do, no matter how engaging your personality may be, you will not advance far if you cannot work through others."
When we empower ourselves, we empower others. When you become an empowerer, you work with and through other people. You give away your influence in order to grow the organisation. When you believe in others to carry the touch to the next level, you’re giving you influence away for others to grow in influence.
Recently I was reading a paper “To change the world or to rule it: Applying transformational leadership theory” (Kupietz 2010). He said an issue of leadership in the fire service is the preparation of subordinates to be leaders. Empowerment of the employee goes a long way towards this goal. A more self-actualised individual is a more productive team member and a more functional team is more effective at accomplishing the goals placed before them. This situation is where transformational leadership theory really comes into play. The theory can be used to empower subordinates to help their organisations by growing not only in the position they currently hold but also by beginning to prepare for future leadership (Cochran, 2006).
Captain X, like so many fire officers, was never given that opportunity; but the cycle of solitary leadership could be broken and a new approach of empowerment could start with Captain X.
Homrig (2001) states that an important aspect of a good leader is to mentor subordinates to become good future leaders. This aspect is an important issue in the fire service. We must prepare future leaders to assume leadership positions and ensure these new leaders will have the tools needed to advance the profession.
Empowering others means you establish what is expected or the outcome. If no boundaries are given, you may not get the results you were looking for. Theodore Roosevelt put it this way, “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” If you meddle with the process, some people say it’s micro-management.
If you read number four of the 16 ‘Fire Fighter Life Safety Initiatives’, it says, “All fire fighter’s must be empowered to stop unsafe practices.” While this may appear to be a challenging or even controversial statement, it simply means that every organisation should provide an environment that allows its members to speak up regarding personal and organisational safety; without negative consequences for doing so (within a prescribed context) and without decentralising the authority of the formal leader. The resources needed for all fire service organisations to institute Initiative number four, regardless of type or size, are already at our disposal and the best part is that they are free. The goal is to have every member fully engaged during an emergency incident with a focus on doing the work in a proficient manner and looking out for one-another to avoid injuries and potential line of duty death.”
In this instance, empowerment is if you see something wrong, you have the duty to speak up without negative consequences. In some departments, a rookie is expected to keep his or her mouth shut if they see or feel something is wrong on the fire scene. I would hope you, the reader, would work towards everyone looking out for each other. One other example is empowering your engineer (driver) not to move the apparatus until everyone is buckled in with a seat belt. By giving your authority as a leader to this driver, you are empowering him with your authority, therefore providing additional safety guidelines in place where ‘Everyone Goes Home’.