The role of gold and the gold commander

The position of gold and the gold commanderThis chapter exiting examine the purpose of amber, attempt to identify what sours an potent funds air force officer, and seek to fix the extent to which the inter attain between flamboyant and Silver requires technical fellowship and understanding. The chapter bequeath also explore the cultural compvirtuosont of Gold Command, and whether formational culture places informal barriers in the path of pass entrants universe accepted to under take away the agency within the Fire Rescue Service.The author intends to define and apologize the interrogation question in the context of white plague of contemporary ideas and thinking, and to develop a good understanding and insight into relevant previous research and the trends that manage emerged (Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003)The Gold Commander is expected to exercise leadership, which tradition every(prenominal)y would fool been developed whilst operating at the running (a) and tactical train (following the normal cargoner progression path). However, the youthful appointment of senior managers within the Fire and Rescue Service (FRS) who take hold joined as direct entrants since the introduction of saucily appointment and promotion regulations, which has allowed multi-tier entry (ODPM, 2004) bequeath have evidenced lead skills, which will generally have been developed as a result of working in other occupations.As has been mentioned in a previous chapter, Adam Crozier is an example of a businessman who has demonstrated an expertness to adapt and excel in different occupations, and exercise effective leadership with support from subject takings experts. With jobs as diverse as the Football Association and Royal Mail, is it possible that given an beguile level of support, and a nominal amount of training, Crozier could also demonstrate effective leadership as a Gold Commander?A business leader whitethorn lead a team and take on difficult f indings through an economic crisis, in the same way that the Gold Commander is responsible for leading(a) their team, albeit remotely from the personnel who will be working at Bronze and Silver level. As it is treasure that effective leadership processes represent a critical factor in the success of teams in government activitys (Zaccharo et al., 2001, quoted in Flin et al., 2008 132), it is clear that the role of the Gold Commander in leading the team is vitally important to a successful outcome. The leader guides to be effective in order to play a appointed role in the resolution of an happening, and it is at that placefore requisite to define what effective actually means, Oxford Dictionaries online simply states its import as successful in producing a desired or intended result (http//oxforddictionaries.com accessed 24/11/10). However the measure of that success, and therefore effectiveness, is very subjective, indeed in the case of a tragic accident involving loss of life, the quality of the leadership may be subject to scrutiny by judicial refreshen or public enquiry.The Role of the Gold CommanderDuring an emergency it may be appropriate to put on strategic or Gold command, however the FRS will r bely instigate a Gold Commander solely for an FRS operation, which has minimal impact on other organisations. However, whilst a Principal Officer1 may be the ensuant Commander at a large, complex, or high profile incident, they will be operating at the tactical level when in command. In this situation Gold command is not applicable, although some co-ordination at Silver level is likely to be demand.If the same incident requisite a higher degree of interoper susceptibility and a Strategic Coordinating Group (SCG) were formed (HMG, 2009), it will require the attention of a commander, who may be a lower ranking officer, but who nevertheless should have an appropriate level of invite and authority to act. This individual, formally known as the Fire Gold Commander, will nail down tactical parameters for Silver to manoeuvre within, and will not be expected to direct or take charge of operations on the actual incident ground. As soon as circumstances let the Principal Officer should assume command, indicating that the positions are role related (ICS, 2008, p.21-24).However, the Police will routinely sharpen Gold Commanders, who will assume overall command and have ultimate responsibility and account dexterity for the rejoinder to an incident. The Police Gold will have a secondary role to establish and chair the SCG in order to coordinate the emergency or major incident (ACPO, 2009 p.26). This would decamp a different hope of the role of the respective Gold Commanders, with the levels of culpability/accountability appearing to contrast somewhat. If the Police Gold Commander is call for to ratify and revaluation the progress of Silver Commanders tactical plans (ACPO, 2009 p.25) and the Fire Gold Commander is required to set tactical parameters for Silver to operate within, and prioritise the personnel and resource demands (ICS, 2008), the latter suggests a to a greater extent than hands-off approach. This may explain why Police Gold Commanders appear to be more antipathetical to accept direct entrants at the senior level.1 chief, Deputy or Assistant Officer2 Gold Silver BronzeExperiential ending MakingThe definition of an appropriate level of experience as stated above is subjective, and clearly open to debate. It raises the question of whether the skills required for effective command at the operational and tactical level, are identical to those required for strategic command? Since 1985, researchers have been trying to establish how decisions are made during stressful non-routine situations, with Fire Commanders being of particular interest (Klein et al, 1993). The study of Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) is concerned with how experienced people, working as individuals or groups in dynamic , uncertain and often fast paced environments, identify and assess their situation, firebrand decisions and take actions whose consequences are meaningful to them and to the larger organisation in which they operate Zsambok and Klein (1997) (cited in Flin and Arbuthnot, 2002. p. 207). It has been stated that decisions made under stress do not follow traditional decision-making processes, and quite fireground commanders rely on their well developed sense of intuition (Gasaway, 2007). The amount of randomness required to make a decision will depend on the experience and intuition of the commander, and this has been referred to as thin fade by Gladwell (2005) which means making very quick decisions with small amounts of info, or the concept of thinking without thinking, or the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behaviour establish on very narrow slices of experience.Gladwell contends that thin-slicing merchant ship have its drug abuses or bay window be a mistake. If one takes a small amount of selective information to generalise or make decisions in whole then decisions may be made that genuinely are incorrect.However, some quantifys a small amount of relevant information is all that is required to make decisions and act. Gladwell hints that ultimately we should only rely on thin-slicing when our intuition has been honed by experience and training as unfeignedly successful decision making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking. Clearly, the ability to thin slice derives from experience of the situation or similar environment, where the commander has successfully or unsuccessfully dealt with an incident and can anticipate the next problem that may arise, which links to recognition primed decision making (RPD). The question of whether thin slicing has its place in the SCG environment is debatable, as RPD is not normally associated with Gold level decision making, for strategic commanders may need to be discouraged from making decisions based on intuition, if a more analytical approach is more appropriate (Fredholm 1997, cited HMG 2008).Flin and Arbuthnot (2002, p. 214) considered the fields of aviation, military and the police, and suggested that Incident Commanders (IC) may adopt one of four decision strategies, depending on their assessment of the available eon and level of riskRecognition primed (intuition, gut feel) (If X then Y- little conscious effort need to retrieve Y)Procedures (written or memorised) (If X then Y conscious search)Analytical comparison of the different courses of action available (If X, which Y?)Creative (designing a novel course of action) (If X, have no Y, design new Y).The decision strategies are based on increasing levels of mental concentration, not tho to retrieve information from the memory stores (long term memory), but to consciously operate on or think round the information retrieved (working memory) (Flin and Arbuthnot, 2002).Most of the st udies involving NDM have related to decision making in dynamic environments where there is little age for the luxury of creative or analytical problem solving (HMG 2008). So how are prior operational and tactical experiences of a Gold Commander utilised, when faced with never before experienced occurrences such as the Buncefield Fire, the largest fire in Europe since 1945 which relied on creativity rather than prior experience to resolve successfully? (Wilsher, 2006)If decision making is dependent on the experiences of the decision maker, it must also rely on the ability of the Gold Commander to be self reflective. If an individual is unable to effectively reflect and learn from their experiences, they will be unable to apply the learning to future events. Considering Kolbs experiential learning cycle (as shown in ascertain 1), it could be that they have twenty years experience, or one years experience, twenty times. So time alone is not a pre-cursor to being an effective Gold Com mander, its what has been learnt from the experiences during that time.Figure 1 Kolbs Learning roulette wheel (University of Leeds 2010)LeadershipOne of the key responsibilities of the Gold Commander is to work with partner agencies (ICS, 2008 p24). This will require a positive working relationship both before an incident occurs, as true interoperability is built on mutual understanding, familiarity and trust (ACPO, 2009). According to Goleman (2002 51-52) relationship management relies on the most visible tools of leadership including persuasion, troth management and collaboration. More recently, this was confirmed by Bradberry and Greaves (2005), and of course collaboration, and to a lesser extent persuasion, are components of leadership which will often be tested in the Integrated Emergency Management (IEM) environment. lots research has been conducted to quantify the desirable attributes required for effective leadership (Kets de Vries 1993 Higgs 2002, Parry and Meindl 2002). Although there are some(prenominal) different types of leaders, people will often prefer to work with a leader who has outstanding loco skills. Evidence increasingly shows that the higher one goes in an boldness, the more important EI can be (Kemper, 1999, p. 16). The Gold Commander should have developed self awareness, as the leadership of an organisation or team, can lure the work environment and affect everything from morale, to effective death penalty.The selection and development of leaders is amongst the oldest of personnel functions (Fiedler 2001), but untold of early leadership selection was conducted by birthright (Northouse 2007). Throughout the past century considerable research has been conducted into leadership which can largely be placed into three primary categories leadership traits, leadership behaviours and the situational context of leadership (Sashkin and Sashkin 2003).Northouse (2007) states that Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a roughhewn goal (Northouse. 2007 3). Flin et al (2008 129) suggest that leadership relates to the personal qualities, behaviours, styles and strategies adopted by the team leader. They win suggest that leaders come in various forms, with some being task specialists, and others good with people. Trait theories of leadership were popular during the early to mid 1900s, and worked on the assumption that huge leaders are born great (Sashkin and Sashkin 2003) and that by defining the necessary traits of effective leaders the secrets of leadership could be unlocked (Densten 2003). If leadership was a result of definable traits then it would be reasonable to expect that a defined list of those traits would have been found after over 100 years of research. This has not been found.The main criticisms of the trait theories are that they locomote to take account of the situational and contextual aspects of leadership, and many of the definitions of various t raits are highly subjective (Northouse 2007).The debate continues as to whether an individual must possess a definite set of characteristics in order to be a leader in any given situation. Some authors have suggested that the traits necessary for battlefield leadership would be effective in a school environment, dismissing the impact of the situation (Sadler 1997). Research indicates that there are varying opinions on the level of requirement of these very different qualities. Annotating these qualities into a list form results in a comprehensive summation but does the Gold Commander have to possess all, or just some of them? Conversely, if the list is not exhaustive and it is possible that someone might have other leadership qualities. How does that equate?Emotional IntelligenceCommanding an emergency clearly requires effective leadership, and by its very nature a dynamic incident will sometimes require an autocratic style, but is this always necessary? Is it the case that in the Gold environment, the application of softer skills is more advantageous, with Emotional Intelligence (EI) becoming a more important component?EI was first mentioned in an un publish thesis in 1986, and was the subject of a US article published in 1990, where it is described as the ability to monitor ones own and others feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide ones thinking and actions (Mayer and Salovey, 1990). Since that time there has been a vast amount of research and published information on the subject of EI, evidenced when the author searched for books titled Emotional Intelligence on the website of an online bookseller, reversive a total of 9507 results (Amazon UK November 2010). Golemans original work is open to some debate as he seems to infringe his theory by suggesting that emotion is a biological reaction on the one hand, whereas EI can be learnt and developed. Whatever the case, it is clearly more art than science, as th e interpretation of EI is subjective.It would appear that the wide interest in the subject is due to the emerging recognition of the power of EI, both in terms of personal development, with the suggested fortune to transform an individuals life experience, health and happiness, and for transforming the effectiveness of work organisations. The developing argument is that levels of emotional knowledge are inextricably linked to levels of performance, particularly in senior positions within an organisation, a viewpoint which is often repeated (Sparrow and Knight 2006).Some organisations have embraced the principles of EI, including the Royal Air Force, which in 2002 completed a comprehensive review of leadership development, leading to the establishment of the RAF Leadership Centre. The centres website informs that the RAF seeks a particular contribution from its leaders and lists nine attributes required for effective leadership.The second attribute listed, is concerned with the pos session of EI, described thusEmotionally Intelligent Self-awareness is one of the key foundations of effective leadership. Leaders who know themselves will be able to develop self-control and later on understand the needs of others. This will enable them to manage relationships at all levels better and remain hush up under pressure. Thus individuals will be able to function as part of a wider team, constantly multidisciplinary, increasingly joint and often multinational, in the delivery of military capability http//www.raf.mod.uk/pmdair/rafcms/mediafiles/1E8488F4_5056_A318_A8AB0AC2CFC4589A.doc. (accessed 29/11/10).In 2006 the Centre for Leadership was established at the Fire Service College. The strategy for the development of tomorrows FRS leaders is enshrined within the leadership good example Aspire (HMG 2008) which has been developed in response to the identification of the importance of purity in leadership. The model is underpinned by the FRS core values, linking transfor mational models of leadership, and guiding behaviours to influence leadership actions and results.The Aspire model contains some elements which can be linked to EI, includingOpenness to ChangeSituational AwarenessConfidence Resilience potent CommunicationThe author finds it somewhat surprising that, whilst it is obvious that the RAF has recognised the connection between emotional intelligence and effective leadership, there is no direct mention of EI within the Aspire Leadership Model and example for the FRS. This is somewhat disappointingNotwithstanding the above, the FRS has recognised the value of people management competences, in appendage to task competencies, and that both competency sets need to be included in assessing, training and evaluating effective incident commanders. The non-technical skills of an organisations emergency response personnel are as important as their technical expertise and knowledge and application of emergency operating procedures (Crichton and Fli n, 2001).CompetenceA dictionary definition (www.dictionary.reference.com) of competence isthe quality of being competent adequacy possession of required skill, knowledge, qualification or capacity.Whereas Harvey (2004) describes it as the acquisition of knowledge, skills and abilities at a level of expertise sufficient to be able to perform in an appropriate work break awayHowever acquiring skills are only part of the equation, for it is necessary to effectively perform a role as defined by BoyatzisEffective performance of a job is the attainment of specific results(i.e. outcomes) required by the job through specific actions whilemaintaining or being consistent with policies, procedures conditionsof the organisational environment. (Boyatzis, 198212)He further contends that maximum performance occurs when an individuals capability is consistent with the job demands and the organisational environment. (Boyatzis, 20072).Figure 2 Boyatziss model for competencies and effective perfor manceBoyatzis model illustrates how an individuals personal values, knowledge, competencies and abilities contribute to performance in terms of the overlap with the job demands and the organisational environment. In bare(a) terms this means that the bigger the overlap the better the performance.For the purpose of this research paper, Flins (1996) definition will be followed, which is the ability to perform consistently within an occupation to the standards expected in employment.The National Occupational sample for a Fire Gold Commander working at the Strategic Level is EFSM 1 (www.skillsforjustice-ipds.com/nos/en/EFSM1.doc accessed 7/12/12). This standard details the technical skills and understanding which are required at this level. However, there is no mention of non-technical skills, as these are contained within the National Strategic Manager Personal Qualities and Attributes (CLG, 2009).In the emergency services, competency requirements for key decision makers are still ver y much based on rank rather than proven skill or ability though there is a move to change this. In the FRS, there is a shift from rank to role, where there is a role play of competences under the Integrated Personal Development System (IPDS) designed to be relevant to each level in the service. However, as with any cultural shift, it will take some time for this reality to imprecate itself through all ranks within the FRS (Devitt, 2009). The author finds it interesting to note that whilst there is a role map for Brigade Manager, strategic uniformed mangers within the FRS still prefer to title themselves, Chief Fire Officer. Does this perhaps suggest that the senior leadership of the FRS are not culturally jell to embrace modernisation in its truest sense?CultureOrganisational culture is a system of dual-lane values, and beliefs rough what is important, what behaviours are appropriate and about feelings and relationships internally and externally. Values and cultures need to be unique to the organisation, widely shared and reflected in daily practice and relevant to the company purpose and strategy. (CIPD, 2011). In simple terms it can be referred as the way we do things around here.The leader will be affected by the culture in which they operate, and its values, structure, hierarchy and rules will dictate how they are likely to command an incident, and ultimately whether they will be judged to be effective or ineffective (Devitt, 2009 p.37). Devitt refers to the work of Reiner (1991) who studied senior police officers and identify four different types of Chief Constable, the barons, bobbies, bosses and bureaucrats. Reiner contended that their different leadership styles will be reflected in the culture of the organisation which may influence the contain of an SCG, and thus the style and approach with which a strategic multi-agency response is operated. If the Chair of an SCG adopts the style of a boss, who controls mainly through authority not power, don t suffer criticism gladly, and see conjunction policing as idealistic in the face of an overwhelming tide of crime, this will clearly affect the kinetics of the group Devitt (2009).Chan (1996) undertook a study of police culture, and refers to Bourdieus relational theory, which explains cultural practice as the result of fundamental interaction between cultural dispositions (habitus) and structural positions (field), situating culture in the social and political context of police work. Sackmann goes on to describe the essence of culture as the collective construction of social reality. Her cognitive model encompasses all forms of shared organised knowledgethe form of things that people have in their minds their models for perceiving, integrating, and interpreting them the ideas or theories that they use collectively to make sense of their social and physical reality (Sackmann 1991 21).She classifies cultural knowledge within an organisation into four dimensionsdictionary knowledge , which provides definitions and labels of things and events within an organizationdirectory knowledge, which contains descriptions about how things are done generally in the organizationrecipe knowledge, which prescribes what should or should not be done in specific situations andaxiomatic knowledge, which represents the fundamental assumptions about why things are done the way they are in an organisation.Axiomatic knowledge, often held by take place management, constitutes the foundation for the shape and future of the organisation. These may be adjusted or revised from time to time as a result of critical evaluations or growing experience. Sackmann sees cultural cognitions as being held by groups rather than individuals. These cognitions are socially constructed, and may be changed or perpetuated by organisational processes through repeated applications. In time, these cognitions are imbued with emotions and acquire degrees of importance they also become habits of thoughts that translate into habitual actions. With the FRS implementation of the modernisation agenda under the National Framework (although this has recently changed with the election of the coalition government), some senior fire officers are reluctant to readily accept that direct entrants or non-operational staff may be effective at undertaking a Gold Command role, whilst a number of Police Gold Commanders have expressed their opposition to the idea, as evidenced by the authors research..