I have spent plenty of time talking — and writing — about what directors and managers owe their people in 911 centers across the country.

Fact: They owe their people no less than their absolute best, every minute of every day.

But let’s flip that script for a moment.

Let’s talk about what the rest of us owe them.

It’s easy, almost too easy, to slip into the mindset that the dispatch floor and management are opposing forces, locked in some eternal struggle where every policy change is a personal attack, and every staffing decision is an act of war.

Trust me. I get it.

I’ve been on both sides of that invisible battle line. And I can tell you, with absolute certainty, that your boss — whether a director, manager, or supervisor — is not the enemy.

Now, before I go too far, let me be clear: There are terrible leaders out there. The ones who see employees as numbers on a staffing report instead of human beings. The ones who treat morale like a buzzword rather than the oxygen that keeps a center from suffocating. The directors who enforce policies like a warden but disappear when their people need real support. The managers who care more about response times on a spreadsheet than the dispatcher who just broke down in the breakroom.

But those outliers are just that — exceptions. And while they may grab the most attention, they don’t define 911 leadership any more than a corrupt cop represents all of law enforcement or a dispatcher caught napping on shift defines all of the profession.

Most leaders aren’t power-hungry micromanagers, just like most dispatchers aren’t tuning out critical radio traffic to scroll their phones. The worst examples make the loudest noise, but they don’t tell the real story of the people who show up every day, fighting to keep their centers and their teams afloat.

Most directors and managers? They care.

Deeply.

About their people, their center, and this industry.

Is it cathartic to grumble about leadership? Of course!

There’s a reason venting about management is a time-honored dispatcher tradition, right up there with living off cold coffee and learning to eat a six-course meal in 90 seconds. It’s the verbal stress ball we all squeeze when schedules change last minute, when policies feel like they were written by someone who’s never worked a console, or when yet another mandatory meeting could’ve been an email.

But most leaders will take that criticism in stride. They understand that just as dispatchers rarely get thanked for doing their job well, leadership doesn’t come with a lot of back slaps either.

Being a leader in 911 is like being an air traffic controller for a room full of chaos pilots — except the planes are on fire, the control tower is understaffed, and three different people are arguing over whether landing gear is really necessary. It demands precision, patience, and a borderline delusional level of optimism, because no matter how well you plan, the wheels will come off at some point.

People love to say that leadership is about guiding, inspiring, and setting the tone.

All true.

But it often feels more like herding highly caffeinated cats through a field of laser pointers.

During my nearly 30 years in the industry, 12 of them spent in leadership, I learned several unshakable truths. These stood out:

• The weight of responsibility never really lightens; you just get stronger at carrying it.
• The hardest part of leadership isn’t making decisions — it’s knowing that every choice you make impacts the people counting on you.
• No matter how much experience you have, there will always be moments when you wonder if you’re doing enough for your team — and that fear is exactly what keeps you striving to be the leader they deserve.

The thanklessness of leadership isn’t just about the workload — it’s about the emotional toll that comes from the never-ending drive to be everything your people need and desperately fearing that you will disappoint them.

It’s about the expectation that you will be endlessly available, eternally patient, and impervious to stress. That you will be the calm in the storm, even as the storm sends you passive-aggressive emails in all caps. That you will have all the answers or at least be skilled enough to fake it until you do.

But 911 leaders keep showing up in all the ways that matter:

• They fight for better schedules, knowing someone will still be unhappy.
• They rewrite policies for the tenth time, trying to make them fair.
• They sit in budget meetings, pushing for raises and new equipment, while often being told to “do more with less.”
• They catch mistakes before they become catastrophes, shield their team from political nonsense, and take the heat when things go sideways — often without anyone even realizing it.
• They celebrate their people, advocate for them, and lose sleep over them.

Most of it goes unseen, unthanked, but they do it anyway. Because great leaders will do anything humanly possible to make life better for their people. It is the light which guides their every action.

Leadership in 911 is a wild, relentless, exhausting ride. It is hard. It is often thankless. And yet, the ones who care, the ones who give every ounce of themselves, wouldn’t trade it for anything.

So maybe, just maybe, we owe them something in return.

Not blind praise.

Not pretending every decision they make is perfect.

But a little grace when they’re juggling more than we realize.

A little patience when the answers aren’t easy.

And maybe, most of all, the recognition that while they can’t fix everything, they are in the trenches with us — fighting battles we never see, carrying weight we never feel, and giving everything they have to be the leaders we need.

 

Kris Inman is the Director of Program Development for The Healthy Dispatcher. A 30-year veteran of 9-1-1, Kris retired in July 2023 as Director of Springfield Greene County 9-1-1 in Springfield, MO. An awarded speaker and instructor, Kris has delivered standout educational sessions, keynotes, motivational talks and yoga instruction to dispatchers across the country. He is also a long-time college adjunct instructor, teaching courses in communication and public safety leadership. Kris holds a Master of Arts in Communication and a Bachelor of Science in Electronic Media from Missouri State University. He is also a registered yoga instructor.