A tenet of guerrilla warfare states that it's virtually impossible to protect yourself from a rear attack if your enemy has access, which makes it all the more interesting that the German army decided to fight World War II on two fronts. It's difficult enough to pick a fight with an industrialized nation like the United States, but the German hierarchy also chose to take on Russia, which was supposed to be an ally.

If you're wondering how Germany's military strategy relates to your job as a chief fire officer, you may be surprised to learn that I've been hearing more and more that chiefs are concerned about being stabbed in the back by the very people from whom they should be receiving support.

And just who might those people be? City managers, elected officials and other department heads — the very people we should be able to rely on to help us shape our organizations into models of strength and integrity. At the same time, these individuals can be extremely dangerous if they choose to work against you.

Philosophically, we should expect our superior officers to support of us, assuming that everyone involved has a common set of expectations. However, that's not always the case. It has been my experience that when a city manager selects a fire chief, he tends to choose someone who can help him survive in his job as a city manager. But if someone else comes to sit in that seat while you're chief, you may no longer enjoy the respect you had in the past.

Therein lies a potential land mine. Appointed and elected officials may not always share our agenda as fire professionals, because they're interested in their own survival first.

Now I'm not saying that solidarity doesn't exist, as I've had outstanding support from many public officials during my career. In fact, there have been several times when individuals put their political careers on the line with my career over specific issues. With that in mind, if you're facing complicated problems in the community, then you need to do everything possible to ensure that the people above you support you.

Actively seeking support and explaining your actions can help your boss to stand by you when others complain about your ruffling their feathers. It's interesting to me that people will go around us to our bosses in an attempt to pressure us to change our behavior. Of course, that has probably gone on since the day we created mass subordinate relations and developed more than two tiers in the rank structure.

When you come right down to it, being back-doored shouldn't surprise anybody. Our system of communications and democracy almost encourages people who are unsatisfied with the performance of their immediate superior to seek a remedy by going to their boss. In fact, I once read a popular self-help book called Pulling Your Own Strings by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, who suggests that if you aren't happy with someone to take your problems to the person above him.

Any time someone goes around you to seek a remedy from a superior, you have a two-front war. There are some potential remedies to this that I would like to discuss in sequence, because I think that is how they should work in the real world.

1. Do everything you possibly can to keep your problems your own. In essence, what I'm referring to here is the simple concept of keeping engaged as long as possible to negotiate a solution.

   The minute you let it be known that you're intractable, immovable and entrenched, the dialogue ceases. At that point, the individual with whom you're having the difficulty will back up, make a slight left- or right-hand turn, and go right around you to the person above you.

   If this hasn't happened to you, great. If it has, you need to know what to do if it happens again. I'm not saying that we should automatically roll over and agree with people when they're trying to get us to change.

   Instead, once you know that your position is firmly entrenched, it's time to make sure that your boss knows what you're doing and why you're doing it. Stay engaged until there's no further use to you, and then get reinforcements as quickly as possible.

2. Ensure that your boss has behaviors that make him or her an ally instead of an adversary. You need to know that your superiors in an organizational setting will listen to complaints about you and not agree to a course of action before conferring with you. This isn't necessarily a favor to you — it's a tactic that preserves the integrity and stability of the decision-making process.

   Failure to do this often results in a considerable amount of conflict. Any time a superior accepts input from a lower level in the organization and arbitrarily agrees to do what's proposed, your own authority is successfully removed. You've been stabbed in the back.

   Although I'm proposing these two rules to strengthen your ability to deal with back-stabbing, you're still going to have to protect yourself — you don't want to get stabbed in the front for your troubles. If someone is set on making your life difficult, you may well suffer damage if you're not adequately prepared to cope with the circumstances.

3. Get out of the middle. Finally, in the event that something is brought to you that isn't a matter of principle but rather a matter of special interest, it may be appropriate for you to back away from the battle and let the two individuals who are attacking you attack each other.

Just to go on record, I'm not suggesting that you choose this tactic very often, because it can give the appearance of avoidance or procrastination while depleting your leadership credibility. However, you don't want to find yourself defending a position in which you have no interest in the consequences and there's no real value for you to remain in the middle.

Never forget the famous scene from Shakespeare in which Caesar lies on the ground full of stab wounds, looks up to one of his former friends and says, “Et tu Brute.” If you are going to be stabbed in the back by someone, it should be by neither one of your friends nor one of your professional acquaintances.

Look for the signs and symptoms of people attempting to bypass you in the decision-making process. Once you know what's going on, spend some time heightening the level of communications between you and your superiors. Lay out your principles so they know what behaviors are counter-productive to your ability to do your job.

Finally, let it be known to those who intend to stab you in the back that you may well have to turn around and face them so you can defend yourself.

A 40-year veteran of the fire service, Ronny J. Coleman is the president of the Fire & Emergency Television Network, which features career development and succession planning in its Command Transfer series. He 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.