elected officers maximum terms

[jaff]

One of the things you see posted regularly is the reference to Captains/DGOs/GOs being cemented in a dynasty in those positions.
Does this give our services the scope for change ? Would a maximum term of office be beneficial or would stability of long term dynasty leadership be better.
Brigades and organisations that have fairly regular change at the top either through succession planned change or other means, do they fair better than dynasty style organisations? I realise they are fairly open ended questions as it will very much depend on the individual leaders and suitable replacements.

Your thoughts?

Cheers Jaff

[Katrina]

As much as I can tell down here they seem to have a problem getting people to take on those positions anyway so even when some people have said that they are going to step down there has been no one else to step up to that position. (was talking about DGO's and GO's here not so much Captains as with that I am not really sure)

[chook]

There has been talk in our service about maximum terms but as Davi said Who will step up?
The problem is that once you reach UM, Captain, GO etc then you are a manager.
I'm responsible for a team of 12 people, a facility that costs 1/2 a million dollars (that responsibility is shared currently), a fairly sizable budget, equipment that would be very close to $.5mil etc.
Then you throw in the HR stuff, operational stuff and service stuff - who would want to take on that? I know I would spend 20 - 30 hours a week dealing with service stuff, the local GO about the same if not more. And with a service that is rapidly changing introducing new policies/procedures (that you may not agree with)to a group of people who at the end of the day don't get paid is hard work!
And all of the above on top of the actual emergency response role & without pay!
And without training, very little support, however some guidance.
Currently no one has expressed a wish to take over, in fact the opposite.
Other teams here are in the same boat and my guess the brigades would be similar.
So set terms in office may be a great idea, but practically difficult for everyone to achieve. And here is a thought, the most popular person in your team may not be the best boss
cheers

[rescue5271]

I can see and i am not alone in saying this,when a officer does move up into a higher position before they do they think to themselfs who will take my position and how long has that person been in the service. When a long standing captain or groupie does want to step down then who in this day and age wants the job and all that goes with it??? In my region we have  officers who have been there for a very long time and know the job well and want to step down but don't have anyone who wants to take the job on...On the other hand you have officer that have been there for years and don't want to let go or let other people have the chance of stepping up.


Its the old story,young member has some new ideas and would like to have a go but never gets a chance or the older guys don't like change...So as for maximum terms it has its place and each brigade/group needs to allow members who have the skills to step up but also remember its not a personality job..Its one that needs to be done by those that are willing and able and have the skills to do the job

[jaff]

One of the things you see posted regularly is the reference to Captains/DGOs/GOs being cemented in a dynasty in those positions.
Does this give our services the scope for change ? Would a maximum term of office be beneficial or would stability of long term dynasty leadership be better.
Brigades and organisations that have fairly regular change at the top either through succession planned change or other means, do they fair better than dynasty style organisations? I realise they are fairly open ended questions as it will very much depend on the individual leaders and suitable replacements.

Your thoughts?

Cheers Jaff

Yep agree with the posts so far. Another thing that we (CFS) as a service are starting to see, are more leadership courses coming on line,should these courses be "pushed" towards potential leaders to try to fill the void, before some of these seemingly overwhelming positions are taken on.
Cheers

[bittenyakka]

I think there is way to much extra work lumped onto captains to make the position attractive. so the people who will take that role are often left there. we need to make the admin side of the job less time consuming.

the other side of the coin is of course that you don't really want to give that time and effort then should you take on a role of such responsibility?

[SA Firey]

This is also the reason that CFA has lost a lot of Captains as they are sick of being bogged down in paperwork/policies.Considering the majority of the ones leaving are farmers,with the drought times are tough for these guys and the bills still come in,so cant spend too much time on brigade matters.

[jaff]

Perhaps one of the things some officers GO/DGOs, CAPTAIN/LEIUTENANTs dont do well is to delegate some of their workload onto other junior officers thereby lessening their burden but also to expose/mentor possible replacements.
Succession planning needs to be a greater focus of a majority? of brigades and units.
Also it appears to me some officers that keep learned knowledge close to their chests in an attempt to hold onto their power base, actually might be doing the reverse, when their close guarding of this information comes out.
Still like to hear from people what has worked well in their organisations-regular changing of leaders or dynasties.

Cheers Jaff

[Footy]

I'm sure most of you on SAFF that have job outside the service will agree that its not just captains who are getting bogged down with paper work. These days everyone is accountable for every minute thing that somehow relates to their job. Across the employment board it is becoming harder to find ppl for leadership positions. From  teaching background (im only a teacher by the way, not a principal), why would you want to be a principal? Little kid falls over and grazes his knee, parents come and sue you because you are principal and in charge (not quite that bad just yet) and unlike other leadership positions, the opportunities for incentives just arent there, company has a good year, heres a bonus. School has a good year, heres a finger painting from a 5 yea old. Yay!!!
Just as being principal has its emotional rewrds so would being a captain. It's certainly not the financial gain. I gues it justtakes a dedicate person who is willing to go above and beyond for their community

[Katrina]

But the big difference here is you are at least getting paid to do a job A volunteer position that gives you no money and requires an insane amount of time etc etc Why would you do it? And to be quite honest who would want one of their workers vanishing constantly day and night or knowing that you can't give your all to a paid job because you have just spent most of the night at a job? I can understand why there are not the people wanting to do the job because it takes a lot of dedication to take up one of the positions (I have a lot of admirating for all the Captains and Group position holders who manage to juggle their work with these commitments it can't be easy at all)

[bittenyakka]

The other thing it the amount of time it take to be a captain means the position is often limited to retried and semi retired age group.

[Alan J]

Was it in the Volunteer a few years ago that someone wrote about a Canadian fire department doing something different with good results.  Hazy about details now, but it went something like this:
The Department Chief (responsibilities falling somewhere between a Groupie & a Captain) is allowed to hold that position for a maximum of 2 or 3 years. Then they aren't allowed to be re-elected for twice that time. They probably can hold some other officer role during this time.

That department had something like 5 experienced chiefs on the active list, two of whom held no rank at all at that time.  No burn-out, no "owning" the position, and plenty of leadership depth & support to the current chief.  And little social 'status' attached to the role to make a person want to hang onto the role after their use-by date.

I could see such a system working well in my brigade. Would probably work at group level too, but that takes a bit more imagination to picture happening...

Could you see such a system working in your brigade or group ?
Why, or why not ?

[Katrina]

Not in a pink fit, where are we going to find the people with the time, experience or urge to do the job. Or a job that lets them do this job? We would end up with no one in the position

[littlejohn]

Could you see such a system working in your brigade or group ?
Why, or why not ?

Unfortunately not. There just aren't the people waiting to come through the ranks.

It may well work in the semi-urban groups where there'd (hopefully??) be oodles of keen & competent people knocking on the door.

Regrettably that's not a reality in our region. Keen & competent rarely occur in the same person 'round here.

[chook]

Some Units have advertised outside of the service for the position. And it has worked, or asking persons in another unit to put their hand up.
That could also work in areas that are close by. Not much good for the rest of the state though. The trouble with putting a maximum term on is that if it is too short then by the time the person is trained up - time to change!
As I said previously the position is very different from that of the rest of the brigade/unit & unless they (the service) dumb down the requirements, then changing every two - three years is a waste.
The other problem is an organisational one - we want to be considered professional but run the service like a sporting club! No business would consider replacing their managers just because they have reached their time limit. It seems like the volunteer emergency services want the best of both worlds - democracy & competent leadership!
As times are changing & the demands on us increase maybe its time to look at the whole picture, should units/brigades be run by committee? Should management be voted in? Should there be time limits? Should managers receive proper training & a certain skill set prior to filling the position? etc
Anyway I had my rant on this - just remember without the captain,UM's you don't have your brigades & units & without them no service.
cheers

[Footy]

and remember that like everything in our society, having the Country Fire Service is driven on a needs basis. The community needs us, so we keep rocking up. If the CFS suddenly quit tomorrow, and the community suffered a massive fire, the community would (after probably a massive inquiry and lo and behold, the CFS are somehow to blame...) see a need and fill that void, they would see that they needed leadership and someone would put their hand up to fill that void...

that is how society has progressed from early days, we just seem to likemaking things better and often complicating things...

Why have a maximum term?
Encourage new people to bring new ideas, and enthusiasm to the role
Why not have a maximum term?
The leadership skills that are learnt and developed can not be easily transferred by giving someone a title, they need time to adjust to the role

So its not something i think we will easily see an answer for...

[Baxter]

Chook I can see your point and even though I have a foot in each of the services the way in which the SES goes about the process of elected officers increase the proffessionism of the service even though the CFS has managed with election system it seems out of date and antiquated in respects in to volunteer management. Having an end date on some one terms in office is not practical as the problem has already been state who will fill that void. The idea of advertising out of the service has it own conundrum as these positions will be operational then how do we cope when they come from a non service background but might have all the skills and knowledge in other parts of the job. I am not against the idea as  I have seen it work quite well in SES and I do think that it can be applied to CFS as well

[chook]

Totally agree with all that you have said mate. Apparently when they advertise the person does not need operational experience. They use the operational experience of unit members to help formulate plans, run operations etc
As I said previously I wasn't "voted in" but actively recruited and appointed, and didn't have the admin or finance experience - so I use the people in my unit that have that experience and keep a weather eye on things
I doubt if we will ever go back to elections again - not unless there is two equally qualified people who want the job. I would love to see that
cheers