Vital Organ Leadership

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Of all the organs in the body, not one works as hard as the heart.? It is an organ that never rests, it is pumping blood 24 hours a day. If it stopped working, the body dies.? We attribute feelings and emotion to it. “We say,” Follow your heart” or “my heart is not in it”.? The heart truly is the core of our being and if it gets sick or ineffective, it threatens our life.

Just as the heart is the most important organ in the body, the Chief is the most important member of the department. The Chief is the one who has the hardest job in the organization, one that is truly 24/7. The Chief is the best indicator of the health of the department. If the Chief is sickly or ineffective, the health of the department is at risk.

The heart as an organ has the responsibility to recirculate blood throughout the body. It pumps fresh oxygenated blood out to the farthest extremities and accepts the stale blood in return. That stale blood is refreshed and made good again, then pumped back out. If the heart is not strong enough to pump that new blood out to the fingers and toes, then those limbs suffer and atrophy.? Communication is the “blood” of any organization, and it is the Chief’s primary job to push information out to the entire department and not just to a few select command team members at the top. Officers and civilian staff need to know what is going on and why. They need to know the direction of the department and their place in that direction. That “fresh blood” of communication keeps them engaged and productive.

The” stale blood” coming back to the heart is also part of the communication process. The Chief is required to hear the feedback, questions and problems from the extremities and run them through his “heart”. During this process, he engages his resources and solves the issues, sending the solutions back out as “new blood” to the troops.? This is a constant never-ending process that successful departments use to fully engage their entire organization to achieve excellence in service to the community.?

Sometimes in the human body, there is a blockage in a vein, or an artery and the blood flow is restricted. The remedy to that is often surgery. In an organization there may be a blockage as well, either of the Chief’s communication out to employees or the employee’s communication back. ?It is important to find and remove that blockage and sometimes “surgery” is required to remove that blockage as well.

What happens if the Chief does not communicate effectively with the troops? In the absence of truth, people fill in the gaps and “make stuff up”. ?No one wants to be left out of the loop, so in trying to stay in the loop, employees fill in the blanks with their own understanding. Most of the time, that information is negative and not accurate. ?Timely, accurate communication can remove resistance and negativity.

That kind of sounds exhausting you say. It is!? The job of the Chief is exhausting if done right. How can this difficult job be done? The heart powering the Chief in this case must be a “servant’s heart”.? There is not enough money, power, or fame to drive the ship for very long if a Chief does not have a servant’s heart. The motivation that will keep a Chief engaged in the often-thankless job of running an organization has to be knowing his purpose for the position.? If the Chief has a “heart” for his people and the community, he can sustain the effort it takes to work so incredibly hard. Just as the human heart is embedded within our chest and not visible to the outside world, the Chief’s motivation must be internally generated.?

The human body has one heart, but what if it had more than one? Could it be more efficient? What if every supervisor acted like a “heart” and helped pump blood effectively at their level. What if Lieutenants and Captains added some pressure to the circulation of communication and assistance in “refreshing” that communication on its way back to the Chief? What if the department made the whole process easier on the Chief? It might prolong the life of the “Heart” and create a healthy body that all the different components enjoy and prosper.

How is your Heart, Chief?? What can you do to improve your department’s health??