Tactics, command, leadership

five firefighters, to suddenly take on a position as commander of
five units, each of five firefighters. The perspective is very diffe-
rent, tasks are allocated in a different way, the time scale is exten-
ded and the information flow is different.
With an expansion of operations, through, for example, an
increase in geographical area or complexity in some other way,
there is a big risk of people landing in situations or being forced to
handle situations with a degree of resolution they are not trained
for. For the individual, the development of the command system
should go more or less unnoticed and only be felt as an improve-
ment in the command work at the incident site.
The role is, naturally, associated in different ways with an
individual and the personality of the individual dictates how
a particular role is applied by them in the actual situation. If
corresponding roles are allocated to two people, each will app-
ly their role in their own way, which can lead to the results
being very different. Roles are also affected by the situation. An
individual’s understanding of how well they will be able to handle
a particular role in a situation can vary considerably, which is an-
other good reason for applying role logic. A person must have a
realistic perception of his or her ability to cope with a situation and
feel secure in his or her role in a particular situation.
People try also to take on roles that suit them, which means
that if one attempts to allocate a person an unsuitable role, the
person will adapt it to suit their own ways. This can quickly have
a detrimental effect on the whole organisation, as some areas of
responsibility or authority will not be accounted for.
Since work at an incident site is for the firefighter an every-
day situation, the demands and expectations placed on a per-
son and their respective roles should be as similar as possible
with regard to the work at an incident site and work when
there is no actual response operation underway. A role that
a person is appointed does not perhaps fall in line with the
general consensus, conscious or unconscious, of how the group
would allocate roles, for example, with more or less explicit group
norms. This can create shortcomings in the role logic and demon-
strates how important it is to combine command and leadership.