MTAS Fire Management Consultant Donald Pannell is a member of the current IPS Leadership Academy class.
 

Good leadership is often associated with successfully navigating the course through change. And successfully navigating change is often directly related to problem solving in an organization. While the paths to leading change and problem solving often cross, their starting point is generally the same. The first step is always to identify the change needed and clearly define the problem.

As I was growing in my leadership role as a chief officer for a municipal fire department, I had the honor of enrolling in the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program, which is the premier professional development program for fire service leaders in the United States. When I attended, it was a four-year program that blended on-campus courses with asynchronous learning and required four applied research projects that addressed current fire service issues. Leadership on the Line by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky was assigned as pre-course reading and referred to throughout the program—and for good reason, as it specifically addressed leading change and the importance of identifying the type of challenge or problem being faced.

Change can disrupt comfort zones, unsettle loyalties and challenge long-held assumptions. Even when necessary, it can provoke resistance and criticism. To lead effectively, leaders must learn how to stay “in the heat” of change without getting consumed by it. Heifetz and Linsky talk about two critical practices for navigating change: holding steady and staying alive. Effective leaders hold steady by keeping pressure at a level that pushes people to grow, but not so high that they become overwhelmed. Leaders also stay alive by protecting their own energy and perspective by building allies, pacing themselves and remembering why the work matters in the first place.

The book also emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between technical problems (solved by expertise and routine procedures) and adaptive challenges (which require new learning, shifts in values and collaboration). In practice, responding to adaptive challenges means rethinking roles, retraining personnel and sometimes letting go of the way we’ve always done it. Too often, leaders try to apply technical fixes to adaptive problems, only to discover the issue persists. Recognizing the difference is the key for leading real transformation.

For those of us leading, regardless of our organizational title or position, the message is clear: leadership is not about being the hero with all the answers. It is about guiding people through uncertainty, weathering resistance and creating space for transformational growth.

As you step into your own leadership challenges this month, ask yourself:

• Am I addressing adaptive challenges, or just applying technical fixes?
• How am I “holding steady” in the face of resistance?
• What practices am I using to “stay alive” so I can continue leading tomorrow?

By weaving in the principles of this required reading, the Executive Fire Officer Program taught me that leadership is a long game. It inspired me to consider not whether I can start change, but whether I can sustain it, without losing myself along the way.