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First In, Last Out: Leadership Lessons from the New York Fire Department | 
 enlarge | Authors: John Salka, Barret Neville
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $17.82
You Save: $7.13 (29%)
New (5) from $17.82
Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 425983
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.9
ASIN: B000BPG2H4
Publication Date: February 29, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
After twenty five years in the most dangerous of all occupations, John Salka, Battalion Chief of The New York City Fire Department, offers tough and tender lessons in leadership. Salka masterfully leverages examples from fire fighting--"where lack of leadership can kill people"--to create values for leaders in every organization. He alternates vivid summaries of historic and terrifying fires (the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory, the 1993 World Trade Center explosion and ground zero) with metaphors from the firehouse to describe three commitments for decisive leadership. "Follow the smoke," is an imperative to uncover reality in yourself, your organization and your industry. Next, Salka counsels, "know their names before you send them into the flames," and encourages leaders to identify the contributions of each employee. The maxim, "Find your top whip" conveys ideas for developing future leaders and making a job into a classroom. Other standout chapters focus on the nuances of building trust, clear decision-making and execution and tools for aligning individual and organization goals. Those expecting a macho approach to high-stakes leadership will be pleasantly surprised. Salka embraces intuition as "your subconscious trying to offer up a life time of experiences" and he explains how "managing emotional triggers" are ways of gaining competitive advantage. Salka's inspiring and passionate vision of leadership is a combination of reality testing, self-knowledge, and a shared mission when the heat is on. --Barbara Mackoff
Product Description
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 departments unique strategies and how they can be adopted by leaders in any fieldas 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 outyour people need to see you taking the biggest risk, as the first one to enter the danger zone and the last to leave
manage changethe fire you fought yesterday is not the one youll be fighting tomorrow
communicate aggressivelya working radio is worth more than 20,000 gallons of water
create an execution culturefocus your people on the flames, not the smoke
commit to realitynever allow the way you would like things to be to color how things are
develop your peoplelet them feel a little heat today or theyll 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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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
Five Alarms for this outstanding book!! April 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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 November 28, 2005
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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 June 2, 2005
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
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 December 22, 2004
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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! August 30, 2004
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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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