Whether youre a new officer or in need of a mentor, From Buddy to Boss: Effective Fire Service Leadership, is a must-have management book youll turn to over and over again. Fire service veteran Chase Sargent has taken his popular course and written a no-holds barred leadership book for the fire service in a conversational and easy-to-read style. He tells you how to accept and survive politics, deal with the fringe employees, and keep your cool -- tricks of the trade that usually takes years to acquire. In this book youll learn: ***Your credibility is a valuable currency that takes time to build up. What you do, not what you say, is the ultimate test of your credibility, reinforcing your expectations*** ***That leadership requires individuals and organizations to create an environment where people and their ideas can thrive*** ***How to use stories to impress upon our new members the necessity of doing certain things*** ***That the quickest ways to lose trust are to inconsistently apply and enforce rules and to allow your personal feelings to dictate what you will and wont enforce*** ***Why leading by example and from the front, doing not saying, is critical to you success*** Reading From Buddy to Boss is like turning to a trusted friend for wisdom and advice you can count on to improve your job performance. Use this book to master your leadership as well as your management skills and successfully make the transition to boss.

Professional development and leadership with you in mind A good friend once said about Chase Sargent that he’s “a very intelligent man, but he sure does tick people off sometimes.” Sargent doesn’t disagree. He may have made some people mad, but he wishes he had done it more often to get this point across: “Leadership—in all aspects of life—is sorely lacking.” The second edition of From Buddy to Boss: Effective Fire Service Leadership reinforces the fact that the fire service is screaming for leaders as men and women discover that leadership is important to their existence and success. Being a firefighter can be tiring and frustrating, but it can be rewarding. It’s not only about the job, “but also about raising kids, managing your life, and trying to be a good person, attached to God, country, family, and friends,” says the author. Many leaders today are surrounded by external politics, hidden agendas, fiscal constraints, and manipulative people. Consider these factors when navigating your career. Sargent knows from decades of experience that simply reaching the top of the organizational ladder does not make you a good leader. Before he went into teaching this subject, “It became apparent very quickly that the leadership and human resources training being provided was as scarce as water in a desert and that the fire service was thirsty.” This new second edition includes must-read topics on leadership lessons from the War in Iraq, knowing death in the fire service, and providing leadership in large-scale disasters. This book will change your life.

Strategies for managing the real Generation Y A new generation of workers is forcing employers to rethink the workplace. Generation Y, or Millennials, bring new ideas, innovation, and energy as they enter the workforce AND their expectations and demands are unique. In Gen Y Now, top team leadership gurus Buddy Hobart and Herb Sendek explore all the myths about this up and coming generation and show you how Millennials can be your most creative, motivated, and loyal employees. This book goes from demographic research to concrete practice, explaining that Generation Y is more than we've been led to believe. They value authenticity, flexibility, and recognition. Using the strategies in Gen Y Now, you can hire and retain these demanding workers, and the payoffs could be huge. Keep up with current trends and technologies to move your organization into the future Attract the best young talent in preparation for the mass retirement of Baby Boomers and Gen X Understand how demographic trends impact the way your intergenerational teams think Inspire motivation in Millennial employees, reducing dissatisfaction and turnover costs There are 80 million Millennials, and they are transforming the modern workforce. Your organization stands to gain from Gen Y employee engagement—if you know how to achieve it. Gen Y Now contains the leadership strategies you need to manage and motivate the Millennial generation.

A condensed edition of Baking with the Cake Boss.

In this heartfelt memoir, master baker and star of the #1 hit TLC show, Buddy Valastro tells his inspiring story—and recounts his family’s warm memories from a lifetime of living, loving, and cake making. Television viewers have fallen in love with Buddy Valastro, master cake maker, and his funny and fiery family, proprietors of Carlo’s Bakery in Hoboken, New Jersey, on the smash hit TLC series Cake Boss. Now, to coincide with Carlo’s 100th anniversary, cake designer extraordinaire Buddy Valastro brings together his passion for baking and his high-energy family stories in the pages of this charming, heartwarming book—complete with 25 recipes and tips that will make every reader the “cake boss” of their own kitchen. Buddy’s beautifully designed cakes are the stuff of legend—and so is the remarkable story of his father, a beloved pillar of the community and himself a talented baker who set the stage for his family’s rise to the pinnacle of their industry. Cake Boss recounts the story of Buddy’s life and of his family’s bakeshop, originally established in 1910 and now a Hoboken, New Jersey, landmark and culinary tourist destination. Here also are twenty-five recipes for Carlo’s Bakery’s most sought-after pastries, pies, cupcakes, and cakes, an irresistible combination of time-tested old-world recipes and modern creations, all founded on a rock-solid “old-school” baking foundation and classic techniques. This is the incredible true story of how Carlo’s Bakery came to be, how one hard-working family realized their patriarch’s dream of making their beloved bake shop a household name. The special bond and loving dynamic of the Valastro clan make this an uncommonly touching and truly inspiring memoir.

Full-Contact Leadership is written for men and women who hold leadership positions or aspire to leadership roles in the fire service. There are many leadership positions in the fire service, but not all of them are held by leaders. Leadership has very little to do with the color of your helmet, the bling on your collar, the stripes on your sleeve, the title on your door, the order of march, or the crease in your pants. Full-contact leadership is a commitment to drawing out the very best within others and allowing the very best in others to be expressed as excellence. Full-contact leadership is a career-long, ever-challenging, never-ending, self-initiated, self-sustained personal research, development, and improvement program. Full-contact leadership is never about you; it’s always about them. In Full-Contact Leadership, Chiefs Flood and Avillo examine what makes a leader and, more importantly, what makes a leader effective in today’s fire service. This text discusses the various types of leaders, how they communicate, discipline, delegate, motivate, and set expectations for the people they lead. Flood and Avillo also take a hard look at what hinders or blocks effective leadership and what steps to take to foster and instill leadership in your department.

You never dreamed being the boss would be so hard. You're caught in a web of conflicting expectations from subordinates, your supervisor, peers, and customers. You're not alone. As Linda Hill and Kent Lineback reveal in Being the Boss, becoming an effective manager is a painful, difficult journey. It's trial and error, endless effort, and slowly acquired personal insight. Many managers never complete the journey. At best, they just learn to get by. At worst, they become terrible bosses. This new book explains how to avoid that fate, by mastering three imperatives: · Manage yourself: Learn that management isn't about getting things done yourself. It's about accomplishing things through others. · Manage a network: Understand how power and influence work in your organization and build a network of mutually beneficial relationships to navigate your company's complex political environment. · Manage a team: Forge a high-performing "we" out of all the "I"s who report to you. Packed with compelling stories and practical guidance, Being the Boss is an indispensable guide for not only first-time managers but all managers seeking to master the most daunting challenges of leadership.

Bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Do you have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to evaluate behavior, performance, and readiness? Read Mastering the Fire Service Assessment Center to identify what you need to learn and understand how to learn it. There is no way you can read and reflect on the wisdom in these pages and not become a better person and a better firefighter. Why Read This Book? The American fire service is facing a new normal fueled by mass exodus, influx of new generations of firefighters, a lack of hands-on leadership training, sweeping changes in mission, decimated budgets, and the genetics of task-oriented, reactive forefathers. The greatest and perhaps only area that we can affect directly is hands-on, inspiring, realistic, and useful training for our aspiring and incumbent leaders. This book will help you regardless of the fire officer rank you seek. It will help you know where you need to improve, how to develop a specific personal plan to become an excellent officer, and how to do well with whatever assessment center exercises throw at you. NEW MATERIAL in this second edition: --Enjoy reading “Wisdom from the Masters” from 18 fire service luminaries. They provide invaluable insights and challenges you will face as you prepare to promote, whether for the first time as a company officer or up the chain as a chief officer. --Learn lessons from thousands of students from the past 12 years whose feedback will benefit you in this second edition. --Benefit from the many new elements in this book, including relevant articles, additional exercises, and content regarding the dimensions of leadership, management, and emergency operations. The complexities of being a fire officer in the 21st century require an undercurrent of humility while continually pursuing mastery of leading in the modern fire service. Learn how to lead the modern-day firefighter in a modern world, with modern technology, modern fire behavior, and modern sociopolitical and economic challenges. Many firefighters ask themselves if they really want to do this job, but nothing is as professionally rewarding and challenging as leading others in battle to save lives! “This book will give you the greatest probability of success in your assessment center process.” —Bobby Halton, editor-in-chief, Fire Engineering magazine

Practical advice for making the shift to your first leadership position The number of people who will become first-time supervisors will likely grow in the next 10 years, as Baby Boomers retire. Perhaps the most challenging leadership experience anyone will face isn't one at the top, but their first promotion to leadership. They must deal with the change and uncertainty that comes with a new job, requiring new skills, and they've been promoted from peer to leader. While the book addresses the needs of any manager, supervisor, or leader, it pulls from the best leadership and management thinking, and puts the focus on the difficulties that new leaders experience. Includes practical information for new managers who must supervise friends and former peers Authors are expert consultants who work with leaders at all levels Shows how to adopt the mindset of a leader, including: communicating change, giving feedback, coaching employees, leading productive teams, and achieving goals This much-needed book can help new leaders get beyond the stress and fear to focus on becoming the most effective leader they can be-starting right now.

Already a leader in New York's underground world of homeless children, Buddy Clark takes on the responsibility of protecting the overweight, emotionally disturbed friend with whom he has been playing hooky from eighth grade all semester.