By Dean Guccione - March 18, 2019 

As I moved up the ladder within the Beverly Hills Fire Department, one of the leadership principles that I employed, almost on a daily basis, was the principle of empowerment.

As a company officer, and as a chief officer, I quickly learned that the more we empower those we lead, the better the results will be and the more buy-in we’ll have from the line personnel. And that, plain and simple, builds trust between the line and management.

The fire service is made up of immensely talented people. One of the key strengths firefighters possess is the ability to figure things out and the ability to solve complex problems.

You give a firefighter a problem or assignment or task, and let them have free rein to figure it out and solve, you’ll see results that you only could have imagined.

This takes critical thought and analysis of the information presented, whether whole or incomplete, and then making a series of decisions that will affect...