EMS provider and Connecticut state EMS director Ray Barishansky gave tips, tricks, ideas, and lessons learned from a long career as a volunteer and paid EMS provider, public health department official, and state EMS director to leaders and aspiring leaders at the Wisconsin EMS Association Working Together conference in Milwaukee, Wisc.
Overview
EMS agencies have a tendency to either promote based on longevity in the organization or willingness to lead. Since neither method is correlated with ability nor capacity to lead Barishansky gave attendees lessons he has learned throughout his EMS career to aid in their development as leaders.
Most memorable quote
“Inevitably the person that wants to lead has ego, but not experience.”
Takeaways: leadership in EMS organizations
- Organizational culture is how things get done. It is the beliefs, values, and symbols that define a company.
- Managers recognize challenge as an opportunity for change.
- Jim Page described four pillars of leadership; honesty, competency, consistency, and vision.
- Encourage personnel to over communicate. Then the manager gets to decide if the topic was something they needed to know or not know.
- Effective communication requires trust, maturity, perspective, and ability to escalate and de-escalate.
- Follow the 24-hour rule for email. Don’t type angry.
- We all make mistakes. Own up to those mistakes and move on.
Growth as a leader is a process that requires self-reflection, feedback, and analysis of what’s working and what is not working. Barishansky’s leadership pearls and sharing is part of his continual growth as an EMS leader and perhaps encouragement to aspiring and new EMS leaders to continue their own growth as leaders.
