Is a paradigm shift needed in the leadership of field teams involved in wilderness search and rescue operations?

In an article entitled "Who's Boss," published in Issue No. 1 of Park Ranger—the magazine for SAR, Mountain Rescue, Cave Rescue, Heli-Ops, and Wildland Firefighting operators—editor Lee Lang makes the case for a leadership paradigm shift for wilderness search and rescue field teams. Here's Lee...

The change I am referring to involves leadership of field teams during SAR operations. All too often leadership is determined or assigned to the individual with the greatest technical skills.

The operational Standards I have been involved in reviewing are just one example of this tendency. The Standards define 3 operational levels and as the level increases so does the leadership and technical skills required for that position. At the end you have a SAR level 1 with basic skills, a SAR level 2 with mid-level skills who oversees SAR level 1s and then a SAR level 3 with enhanced technical skills and who oversees SAR level 1s and 2s.

Adapted from Issue No. 1 of Park Ranger—the magazine for SAR, Mountain Rescue, Cave Rescue, Heli-Ops, and Wildland Firefighting operators. Copyright © 2013. Published by TR Media Ltd in the United Kingdom. All Rights Reserved. Excerpted with expressed written permission. Subscribe today at www.RangerMagazine.com.

I have been working on Standards for Wilderness Search and Rescue a lot lately and believe a paradigm shift in the wilderness SAR community needs to take place. The shift I envision will hurt many egos but will enhance safety and team leadership in the wilderness SAR community as a whole and enhance the professionalism of the field.

This sort of paradigm leads to conflicted leadership. To appreciate what I am talking about, let’s examine the fire service, where hundreds of in-the-line-of-duty deaths over a century have lead to a true culture of leadership development and safety awareness. The key element that the fire service maintains in its chain of command and through its leadership positions is Situational Awareness.

One of the best (or most simple) definitions I have found is in a United States Coast Guard training manual:.

Situational Awareness is the ability to identify, process, and comprehend the critical elements of information about what is happening to the team with regards to the mission. More simply, it’s knowing what is going on around you.

While working as a firefighter in Orange County, California, I truly learned to appreciate my Captain’s role on scene. However, that appreciation came over time. As a “newbie” I first looked at the Captain as being too “selfimportant” to get his hands dirty. He always stood back and directed from afar. It was only many years after I left the department did I appreciate his role – the resources were always there when I needed them, that he was maintaining the “big picture” view while I was deep in the minutia of the call at hand. Essentially, he always had my back when I did not (and I was not even aware that I did not have my back).

Back to Wilderness SAR – all too commonly, the most skilled individual is assigned as the field team leader, but he or she commonly has the most technical skills. Essentially, how can this person be the team leader and say literally lead the team up a WI2 ice couloir. The moment he or she starts leading the WI2 section they are no longer maintaining Situational Awareness, at best it is severely degraded and putting the entire team at risk.

Another example, how often on your team is the highest medical person also assigned the field team leadership role? How can this person care for the patient and effectively serve as team leader? I honestly do not believe you can be “the patient advocate” and team leader at the same time because those hats are mutually exclusive. How often on your team or on missions does this occur?

Like I first stated, it is time for a true paradigm shift. I suspect many will have their egos hurt when an incident commander assigns a “less experienced” person as the team leader. I am sorry – but my job is not to make those people feel good… rather it is to enhance Wilderness SAR overall.

How can we start making this paradigm shift? We can start by incorporating the following concepts and ideas into our training:

• Truly understand and practice the concepts of Situational Awareness 
• Understand that “more skills” does not equate to leadership.
• Break leadership into a separate training tract for members
• Add leadership challenges into training scenarios
• Train leaders that practice good leadership practices
• Seek expert advice/input
• Admit mistakes
• Appropriately recognizes other’s efforts/skills
• Are accountable and appropriately hold others to account
• Asks questions
• Are respected and have good command presence
• Are decisive
• AND maintain Situational Awareness

I challenge each of you - look at your organization. You may be one of the lucky ones where these ideas are already engrained and incorporated into your organization. For the rest of us, we can work to bring these concepts to our organizations. If you are one of the “high skilled” people that are commonly placed in field team leadership roles – suggest that someone else be placed in that position. Look at how your organization develops leaders… can you help to create leadership specific training.