This blog is based on a conversation I had with a fire department company officer in late 2025 when he shared with me that one of his younger firefighters asked, “Why do I have to clean the toilets?” His response was, “Because I’m the lieutenant and I told you to.”
If you read the January 5th blog, you may recall that I referred to Tim Elmore’s book, A New Kind of Diversity, (no it is not DEI) where he describes Gen Z: individuals born between 2001 and 2015 who may possess elastic ethics and are not sure they need authority.
As a member of the John Maxwell Certified Leadership Team, I had the opportunity to share this lieutenant’s experience with Dr. Elmore during a weekly team mentorship call and asked if he had any tips on how to manage this young firefighter’s response. Dr. Elmore shared an acronym that he created called ALEG: Asking, Listening, Empathizing, and Guiding.
In the January 5th blog post, we discussed the ‘A’ for asking, and today, we’ll focus on ‘L’ for listening: an essential step that lets people feel truly heard. This requires genuine, active listening and not simply hearing “blah, blah, blah” from the other person.
Organizations are famous for saying “Our people are our greatest asset.” Is that true, or are they simply a badge number or a name on the duty roster? There are far too many fire department officers that approach leadership from a transactional standpoint and fail to listen to their people. Asking and listening is not touchy-feely or coddling someone but an opportunity to exercise transformational leadership and engage those teaching moments I referred to in the previous blog.
Please note that ALEG is not a process used while responding to an emergency or operating at the scene.
Next week we will look at the ‘E’ in the acronym: empathizing.
