In the 1960s, there was a popular anti-war song that posed the question, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" It sang of young boys growing into men, going to war and coming back to graves in a cemetery, and it appealed to those who felt making peace was more important than making war in Vietnam.

That war is long over, and most of its participants have mellowed with age. But if we in the fire service were to sing that song today, we might add verses about boys and girls becoming firefighters, rising to the rank of battalion chief and stopping right there. Our firefighters don't hope to blossom into fire chiefs anymore, which leads me to ask, "Where are all our flowers going?"

Have you ever wondered why it's getting harder to motivate more people to try for the chief's slot? By the way, I'm not saying that there are no good people aspiring to become chiefs. It's the reduction in numbers that I'm talking about. At one time, most rookie firefighters hoped to become the chief. It was the top job, something to be proud of. It's hard to find anyone with that perspective today.

How do I know that? Well, I've heard it from retired fire chiefs, from battalion chiefs who wouldn't take the job and from firefighters who aren't the least bit bashful expressing doubts about becoming a chief of department. In the last 30 years, the job has evolved to a point where it's not as enjoyable as it once was, mainly because it has become a focal point for conflict.

That's the bad news, but worse news is yet to come. Because the job no longer seems desirable, fewer and fewer fire officers are stepping forward to be tested and assessed for the chief's position. Lately, I've seen numerous fire departments go wanting for months due to a lack of qualified chief candidates.

Now, this may not seem like a problem on the surface, because someone is always selected eventually to fill the position. But if you look a little bit closer, there may be a good reason for concern for our profession. In the last five years, I've seen many fire departments placed under the jurisdiction of police chiefs or the public safety administration. I've even seen departments consolidate to reduce the number of department chiefs needed to serve an area.

These scenarios begin to shape the question, "Why is the fire chief becoming an endangered species?" Almost 15 years ago, I wrote a column about that very topic. The sad truth is that conditions have worsened since, leading me to wonder where that places us today.

In my opinion, there are several reasons for this dearth of chief candidates. Among the leading disincentive to become chief is the constant presence of conflict. When this is considered alongside the average chief's salary, one reason for not trying for the job becomes crystal clear. When battalion chiefs are allowed to stay in the overtime pool, it's easy to understand why even our best and brightest choose to stay on shift work. They then have 220 days to earn overtime, enjoy a specific lifestyle or avocation, or work at a parallel profession.

In fact, the real smart ones come up the hierarchy fairly quickly and then use the fire service as a leveraged opportunity to do other things with their lives. They may deny this, but there's ample evidence to demonstrate that some of our most highly skilled and talented personnel do not consider the fire service to be their primary profession.

Among the other disincentives is the adversarial relationship between labor and management. Interestingly, almost all fire chiefs started off as labor members, and many have gone on to serve as labor leaders.

But once they become chiefs themselves, they find themselves targets for the new generation of labor leaders. As such, the chief is often held responsible for failing to achieve a specific improvement in the department, despite trying his or her best before being overruled by city managers or elected officials. It's a vicious cycle that's creating a descending spiral of motivation for future leaders.

Again, I refer to a previous column that outlined a common scenario: The selection process seems to want Superman for the job, but once hired he's not allowed to fly. When the people hiring a fire chief set unrealistic selection criteria and outline goals that they fail to support after hiring, then they are downright malevolent. It creates another cycle of counterproductive activity.

So you ask, "What should be done about all this?" My response won't please too many people, but I believe it to be true: There's nothing that can be done about it. We just need to find stronger candidates to carry out the task, and we need to be prepared for the consequences of failing to find them.

Pretty scary, right? I once got into a debate with a sheriff, who told me that he believed the fire service made a mistake when we stopped electing fire chiefs. Sheriffs, who are elected, are powerful politicians in their own right. This one told me that he didn't think many fire chiefs had the courage to put their administration up for public scrutiny every four years.

I think he has a point, but I also think he's missing the point. The fire service has worked for almost 20 years to establish the credentials and qualifications for a top-level fire official. We have raised the bar higher and higher with each generation. To reverse our course right now would be very difficult.

Nonetheless, we should recognize some truths that emerge from the increasing unwillingness of many fire officers to become fire chiefs.

* After good people refuse a bad job, bad people seldom do a good job.

* Weaker leaders often result in weakened organizations, which create a weakened profession.

* Attacking our own leadership, especially for argument's sake, is reducing our ability to evolve and adapt.

With these on the table, our best strategy is two-fold:

1) Make it even harder to be chief, and

2) Reward those who make it much better than we do today.

To achieve the first goal, we need to eliminate "tests" for fire chiefs and create selection processes that are similar to those used in hiring athletic coaches or top-level executives. Go for headhunting, not test scores. Stop the mindless "You have to have grown up here to become chief" syndrome and open up the field.

This syndrome does more damage than you might think. I learned of one department that had only one applicant for chief. The city didn't even try to obtain a validation of the person against a panel of his peers. Two years later he was on his way out, and again there was only one candidate for his seat. How can anyone believe that the citizens were getting their money's worth from an agency that had so little regard for the chief's leadership role?

Whenever a species becomes endangered, one survival technique is to evolve. Perhaps it's time to start thinking of fire chiefs as executives who must be the best for the job, rather than as people who are just standing in line until seniority gives them a chance.

The second goal addresses the problem of compensation. In many of today's departments, there are shift personnel who have a higher take-home pay than their chiefs. They're receiving that pay through overtime mandated by the federal government and through policies that have all but eliminated relief crews.

Unfortunately, the only thing to say about this situation is, "Get over it. It's a reality." However, there are non-monetary rewards that can be given to the person who takes on the toughest job of being totally responsible. If city officials really want top-level fire executives, then they should consider compensation as it's applied in the private sector. I'm talking about perks, and I would suggest three.

Every fire chief should be granted, at a minimum of two weeks per year, paid attendance at a career development event. No questions asked. I'm biased, so I hope that one week would be at Fire-Rescue International, the annual ichiefs conference. The second could be at a state or regional conference, whichever had the best agenda. The purpose of this is to ensure the chief has access to a network that's current, contemporary and adaptive.

Give the chief a health club membership to ensure that while the mind is recuperating, the body remains strong. I believe that health is an overriding necessity in dealing with high-performance jobs, so don't be surprised if I return to this topic in the months to come.

Provide the chief with a membership in a management book club to guarantee a constant stream of new ideas. Our bookshelves should grow monthly by a book or tape series on the skills and abilities needed to perform as a top-level executive.

None of these three suggestions are thought of as traditional compensation, but they should be. They reward the chief for commitment to the job by providing for the mind and body to perform it. People who accept leadership roles don't always measure their success in terms of dollars and cents. They focus on what they plan to accomplish and are gratified by knowing they're doing the right things for the right reason.

If we apply these suggestions to our profession, there might be fewer flowers in the garden, but the blossoms would be just as bright.