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First In, Last Out: Leadership Lessons from the New York Fire Department
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Sales rank 62,086
Customers rating (based on 14 reviews)
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What does it take to lead people into a burning building? How do the leaders of the New York City Fire Department develop so much loyalty, trust, and grace under pressure that their subordinates will risk their very lives for them? As a high-ranking officer of the FDNY, John Salka is an expert at both practicing and teaching high-stakes leadership. In First In, Last Out, he explains the department’s unique strategies and how they can be adopted by leaders in any field—as he has taught them to organizations around the country. In a tough-talking, no-nonsense style, Salka uses real-world stories to convey leadership imperatives such as: • first in, last out—your people need to see you taking the biggest risk, as the first one to enter the danger zone and the last to leave • manage change—the fire you fought yesterday is not the one you’ll be fighting tomorrow • communicate aggressively—a working radio is worth more than 20,000 gallons of water • create an execution culture—focus your people on the flames, not the smoke • commit to reality—never allow the way you would like things to be to color how things are • develop your people—let them feel a little heat today or they’ll get burned tomorrow Illustrated by harrowing real-life situations, the principles in First In, Last Out will help managers become more confident, coherent, and commanding.
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| Publisher | Portfolio Hardcover | | Release date | 03/2004 | | Availability | | | Edition | Hardcover |
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Five Alarms for this outstanding book!!
This is an outstanding read. I will not look at a fire engine, firefighter or the FDNY in the same light after reading this book.
Change's your life
Always managing and being a firefighter in parallel never truly made me a better person. Now after having read Salka's book and truly understood my management style and applying Salka's hints, I feel I am truly a good manager. My staff has noticed the change as has my senior managers. I have passed the book along and regularly mentor my newer managers with this book. Do not pass this book up!
Practical Advice for Front Line Managers
Salka's advice is modeled on the leadership lessons of the New York City Fire Department. He takes many of the basic principles of effective leadership that are used to define the officers of FDNY and applies it to real life situations that can be used at any level of leadership by comparing these situations to those faced by the firefighters and their daily battles.
This book's real strength comes from Salka's approach: he writes to the front line supervisor/manager, the folks who are often on the first tier of management. While many books, as good as they are, assume that the reader is in a position to affect policy and choose their entire team, "First In" speaks to managers whose responsibility is the daily performance of the staff.
In addtion to great advice that can be put to practical use by leaders at any level, Salka regails the reader with colorful stories of the men and women of the FDNY. Overall, a great read.
Excellent for all professions
As an officer in a volunteer fire department and having a real world management job, I was able to use everything this book gave me. At first, I did buy the book to be a better fire department officer but I found myself using many of the principles in everyday business life. This book is one of the easiest educational reads I've ever experienced. Hope everyone else enjoys it as much as I did.
Highly Recommended!
The New York Fire Department (FDNY) seemed a company of heroes in the months after September 11, 2001. Later, when investigations revealed the enormity of the blunders and the degree to which petty political infighting had literally doomed firefighters to death, the FDNY lost a bit of its luster. But FDNY traditionally has a core of strong leaders, and John Salka is one of them. In this book, he shares his leadership philosophy. It's no slur to observe that this is a leadership book for firehouse buffs who are as interested in firefighter yarns as in leadership. The leadership principles outlined here are sound but not new; what is fresh is that the author illustrates those principles with fire fighting stories, clearly far more interesting than war stories from accounting - even if a bit remote from most people's everyday business reality. After all, few business people risk their lives in their daily work, and probably no business has the esprit de corps of a firehouse. We recommend this book to business people across the professions. The ride inside the fire truck will keep you engrossed in its solid leadership lessons.
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