From the Officer’s Desk: Managerial Leadership, Part 1

We often hear the terms manager and leader used interchangeably. In reality they represent two different but related concepts. Management primarily deals with processes, whereas leadership is all about people. Management is a science, while leadership is an art. The goal for any newly promoted individual should be to become an effective practitioner of both.

Before an officer can become a successful managerial leader, however, he or she must first understand the separate roles of each. This two-part series will look at these roles.

Understanding the Managerial Role

As a new EMS officer, you will be managing processes, systems, and people. You will need to have effective communication skills and ensure your team members are willing to work with you to accomplish certain tasks. These processes and systems must be monitored to ensure progress toward the intended outcome. Yet you must recognize that these processes and systems are always supported by people.

There are processes for almost every assignment required of an EMS officer that serve as the essential steps toward completion. As the EMS officer, it is your responsibility to ensure that every process adds value to the assignment and overall organization and that all members within an organization work together to achieve the organization’s goals and priorities.

EMS officers’ tasks include development of SOPs, general orders, bulletins, memos, and other directives. It can be quite challenging for employees, however, if information coming from the leadership team is not clear, not released in a timely manner, or does not reach all employees. Failure to clarify the desired processes and system will lead to an unproductive work environment and employee frustration, ultimately affecting service delivery.

Creating Budgets

As an EMS officer, you will likely be assigned to oversee a budget. You must continuously assess how your budget is being managed. When budgeted items are purchased, you’ll monitor the budget and determine whether adjustments are needed based on costs. Monitoring the budget must be ongoing, not just during a workshop or at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Recurring snapshots of the organization’s budget will help the EMS officer determine whether financial management objectives are being met. It is important to become familiar with terms such as operational budget, capital budget, zero-based budget, baseline budget, balance sheet, income statement, forecasting, and balance transfers. The budget process can be extremely frustrating for any EMS officer who doesn’t set financial management objectives prior to the budget process and routinely take the time to assess their section’s budget.

Creating Medical Protocols

As an EMS officer you may be among those responsible for determining the department’s medical protocols. To do so effectively, you will need to be familiar with the processes of working with other agencies that will be impacted by any protocol changes—for example, hospital emergency departments and other first-responding agencies. Collaboration with these stakeholders will ensure providers are clear about expectations, ultimately improving EMS service delivery. As an EMS officer you will need to take the lead and set the tone for collaboration and inclusiveness among stakeholders.

Creating a Quality Management System

Quality management is a necessary part of doing business. A quality management system is the means by which you (and perhaps a team) review core processes to ensure the services delivered are meeting or exceeding benchmarks set by the organization.

For example, you might assign a group to review how well the department’s EMTs and paramedics are delivering patient care. Whether this is through direct observation or by reviewing patient care reports, a process must be in place to address variations from expectations. Consider establishing a system that encompasses not only a quality assurance process for medical care but also a quality control and quality improvement component, to complete a total quality management system.

Creating Performance Improvement Measures

As an EMS officer, you may be required to establish performance metrics and set benchmarks for EMS providers. Analysis of these results will allow you to see how well your division is delivering quality service and where it needs improvement. It makes no sense to implement a new system if you have no baseline performance measure of the current system. Reviewing performance metrics and determining whether your division is meeting benchmarks will provide essential information for making decisions.

Purchasing Equipment

As an EMS officer you will almost certainly have the responsibility of purchasing equipment. You will therefore need to become familiar with your organization’s purchasing process. You may be asked to obtain quotes from vendors, complete requisition forms, and perhaps forfeit the purchase of a budgeted item and request the transfer of dollars to a new priority. If no budgeted dollars are available, applying for grants or entering partnerships with other EMS agencies to offset some expenses may be an option. Don’t hesitate to seek advice from others who have done it.

Creating an Incident Action Plan

You may be required to create or implement an IAP. These could be for longstanding operations, special events, or even the organization’s internal day-to-day operations but must be completed in accordance with department policy. Gather a variety of information to ensure the plan is timely, addresses the issues of an event, and includes the strategic plan to be used in managing it.

People

In addition to the above, as an officer you’ll manage those team members who are directly involved with day-to-day operational and administrative duties. This may include deciding which team member is best suited for a specific project, answering a team member’s question about a specific task, determining whether a team member’s performance adds value to the organization, and so on. When managing the team, the EMS officer is ensuring the assignments and core mission of the EMS division are being accomplished.

These are just a few examples of the managerial tasks new EMS officers will face. Accomplishing specific tasks such as these requires a firm understanding of both management and leadership and a recognition of how they fit within your new role as an officer. The EMS officer must be knowledgeable in the processes and systems assigned to him or her and ensure that they are adding value to the organization. In Part 2 of this series we’ll discuss leadership.

Orlando J. Dominguez, Jr., MBA, RPM, is assistant chief of EMS for Brevard County Fire Rescue in Rockledge, Fla. He has more than 30 years of EMS experience and has served as a firefighter-paramedic, flight paramedic, field training officer, EMS educator, and division chief. He has authored two books, including EMS Supervisor: Principles and Practice, and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Green Belt. Follow him at @ems_officer.