Who's going to replace you someday? That's a question many fire chiefs are asking themselves these days. It has even been given somewhat of an official title. One hears a lot about succession planning, but what is it, exactly?

Are you really responsible for ensuring that somebody comes along after you to pick up where you left off? It's a very serious question because, for the most part, you aren't the one who gets to pick your successor. Somebody else does that, usually the head of the agency for which you work. Shouldn't that person worry about succession planning?

This topic came up in a statewide roundtable of fire chiefs recently, wrapped in a series of other concerns. For example, there seems to be a decline in the number of people who actually want the top job these days. The idea of succession planning is paralleled by the phenomenon of fewer and fewer people wanting to take that final step to be the successor. Or is that part of the mystique of leadership development in the fire service?

Following this roundtable, I had the opportunity to visit numerous fire departments in the same general area over an extended weekend. I got into some rather interesting sidebar discussions with fire chiefs who weren't the least bit worried about their succession planning. They were more concerned with their personal survival. More than one fire chief admitted to me that it was kind of hard to get excited about his successor when he was actually more worried about how he was going to get things done.

This creates the proverbial horns of a dilemma. Of course, history doesn't seem to bear out the belief that people are unwilling to take that top job. Has a fire department ever gone chief-less for more than a year? Sooner or later, someone steps up to the plate and takes the oath of office for almost every fire chief job that has ever been open. Granted, sometimes really good people get that job, and other times those who take the top job are doing it for inappropriate reasons. Nonetheless, succession occurs whether we plan for it or not.

Therefore, this column is for those of you at that second or third level of your organization contemplating the possibility that you may someday want to be a fire chief. You are the future. Everyone who has ever sat in the fire chief's chair had a period of time to ramp up to that position, and everyone who has ever left a fire chief's chair has an opinion about what was done by those who came after.

I believe that most fire chiefs are concerned about succession planning because they want to ensure their legacy. If you work long and hard to make your fire department into what you wanted it to be, you certainly don't want to turn it over to someone who's going to turn it into something else. But that's exactly what will happen anyway. We don't plan for our succession so much as hope our successor goes along with the way things have always been. You assistant chiefs and battalion chiefs, division chiefs and deputy chiefs will replace somebody someday. Are you going to be homegrown, or are you going to become a hybrid?

My definitions of homegrown and hybrid are pretty simple. In many firefighting agencies, the individual who emerges as the top candidate for the fire chief's position has either grown up within that organization or arrived from outside. Both of these are plans for succession. While your fire chief may hope that you or someone like you gets the job, there are no guarantees. To the contrary, succession planning is much more dependent on the candidate's level of acceptance by the authority having jurisdiction than many of us would like to believe.

To make sense out of this, we need to consider the “one-push rule” and “deep selection.” The one-push rule is practiced by those who are currently in a position of authority. Simply stated, an individual picks a candidate in the organization that he thinks has a lot of potential. That authority figure then gives her selected candidate an opportunity to prove himself by giving him a “push.” The one-push rule is not the same as favoritism. Favoritism is when the hand-picked person is treated gently to avoid having a difficult time. In contrast, the one-push rule takes someone with potential in an attempt to see if he's capable of living up to the authority figure's expectation. If your chief has given you the one push, the rest is up to you. If she has to continue to push you, then you probably aren't the person for the job anyway

The second rule of deep selection means looking much further down into the organization than the next level. It's not uncommon for some of the best candidates to reside outside of an organization's upper band. This assertion may run afoul of a lot of number-two people's opinion of themselves, but it's true. Cream might rise to the top, but unless it's skimmed off, from time to time it curdles. The number-two person may not be the best person to replace the number one. And the fact that a person has the potential to take the top job doesn't mean he'll be ready for the job when the opportunity arises.

What about you? In the back of your mind are you seriously considering preparing to be a fire chief? If you've experienced the one-push rule in action or if your department recognizes the phenomenon of deep selection, then it's up to you to decide what's next. That's right! Motivation is internal. In spite of the fact that many fire chiefs would like to hand-pick their replacement, the replacements must pick themselves first.

Succession planning depends on a motivated talent pool. Hopefully that includes you. The following are ground rules for preparing yourself for upward mobility. If you're a chief reading this column, you might want to give it to someone you think is capable of understanding the one-push rule and may be in a position of deep selection. If you have the potential to be the chief, you might want to post it inside your wall locker as a reminder of what it takes to truly get ready.

1. Don't worry about the destination, focus on the journey. You're not going to be the one who decides whether you will be a fire chief. Someone else is going to look at you and determine if you have what it takes. Therefore, you need to focus internally on what skills and qualities you have and can contribute rather than worry about whether you've politically positioned yourself for the job.

2. It's not up to the department to prepare you, it's up to you to prepare yourself. You can't wait around for someone to tell you to take a class, read a book or obtain an experience. You need to ask yourself what you need to do to become a more viable candidate. This would include some of the following.

• Accept job responsibilities that are at least one rank above your current position.
• Take every opportunity you can to learn how to put your thoughts into writing.
• Improve your mathematical and reasoning skills every chance you get.
• Never underestimate learning by doing. Seek out experiences rather than have them happen to you.
• Engage in every public-speaking opportunity you can. Learn how to prepare speeches as well as how to speak in an improvised situation. Never be caught unprepared with respect to representing what you know about the fire service.
• Get connected in the community. Learn why the chamber of commerce and other organizations exist. Find out what it's like to volunteer your time and energy for something other than your own self-improvement.
• Get outside of your own organization. Learn as much as you possibly can about the people at city hall. Learn about governmental functions other than the fire department. Avoid being myopic.
• Study the behaviors of people whom you respect. Prepare a means of acquiring them as mentors. Don't wait for them to find you; ask them for help. Enlist multiple mentors. There's no rule that you have to be guided by one person. A football team has one head coach, but there are also the specialists who can help.
• Develop a perspective on what you want to see happen in your lifetime. I am talking about developing a point of view, not just an attitude. I'm not talking about becoming rigidly blocked on a set of preconceived notions, but rather developing a set of principles on which you can base your life.

This list is relatively short, but it's very broad in its intent. You may not actually want to do all of these tasks, but if you chose to do none of them, don't expect five gold bugles.

While I empathize with fire chiefs who are concerned with succession planning in their organization, I am more concerned with ensuring that their efforts aren't blunted by a talent pool out there that's apathetic, indifferent and under-stimulated. Imagine what would happen in an organizational setting if both the fire chief and the talent pool realized that sooner or later one generation is going to be replaced by another, creating the opportunity to build a better profession.

Many fire chiefs have told me that they believe the next generation of fire officers has become self-centered and disinterested in the developmental process. Some have gone so far as to suggest that there's a self-limiting factor on many individuals who regard the fire service as “just a job,” providing time, attention and energy directly proportionate to the number of shifts worked in a month. This concern goes so far as to state that the next generation may not even deserve to have the opportunity to take over the top job.

After spending 44 years in this business I have had the opportunity to see several fire service generations go through the process of introduction, adaptation, maturation and retirement. Quite a lot of people won't believe this, but I can honestly say that the fire officers of today are every bit as competent, capable and compassionate as the ones were when I first entered the fire service in 1960. There have always been people who didn't deserve to move up. There have always been people who have really wanted the top job. There will always be candidates for the fire chief's job, but they may be less visible in an increasingly broad-based profession that has had to expand to meet the needs of our communities.

I don't have the numbers to support this argument, but I suspect if you went back to 1960 and measured the number of full-time firefighters in the United States and then leaped forward to 2005, that number could be anywhere from six to 10 times greater. There were people who entered the fire service in 1960 who were just looking for a job. There were people who entered it in the 1970s who were just looking for a job. You may be working with someone who was hired last week who was just looking for a job.

Eagles aren't like pigeons or sparrows. You don't find them in flocks. The individual who self-selects to become upwardly mobile in the fire service isn't necessarily like everyone else. Moreover, you may not be able to determine someone's potential of rising within the fire service just because you're a member yourself.

All this talk of potential goes back to the issue of homegrowns and hybrids. Hybrids already know what I'm talking about. They're the men and women working for another organization — maybe a neighboring department or clear across the country — who could be selected head up your organization. They are the transplants. They are the best of the breed. When a hybrid takes over a department there's sometimes joy in the firehouse, sometimes depression. But whose fault is it that a hybrid replaced a homegrown?

You could blame it on the chief, but whenever you point that finger, remember that four other fingers almost always point back to you. Those departments that provide opportunities for potential fire chiefs to self-select, to acquire knowledge and experience, and to form principles that help them move up the ladder will produce homegrown fire chiefs. The opposite is true for those organizations that retard the development of their people or have ranks filled with individuals who choose not to select themselves for experiences. Those departments will eventually relinquish their leadership roles to a hybrid — someone from the outside who has learned lessons in another area before being transplanted into the organization.

Which of these two scenarios is the most desirable for your fire department? They both are. In those organizations that breed individuals capable of migrating up the ladder of success, there's increased competitiveness for the top job. But need I remind you that only one person at a time can sit in the fire chief's chair? Hybrid or homegrown? Time will tell.

I hope that you fire chiefs reading this column are looking back on your careers and down into your organization to determine whether you're creating a cultural environment in which individuals will self-select. If you're a young officer who's looking up and counting the days until you will have a chance to compete for the top job, then I would hope that you are availing yourself of some of some of those experiences we mentioned earlier in this column.

In the case of the former, don't forget the one-push rule. In the case of the latter, don't forget that deep selection begins with you.

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With more than 40 years in the fire service, Ronny J. Coleman has served as fire chief in Fullerton and San Clemente, Calif., and was the fire marshal of the State of California from 1992 to 1999. He is a certified fire chief and a master instructor in the California Fire Service Training and Education System. A Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers, he has an associate's degree in fire science, a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in vocational education.