My Board

The problem:  under performer.
When I was a first line supervisor at another department the job performance of a 3rd year firefighter was brought into question.  His performance was described as slow and unenergetic.  He required to be told when, where and how to preform day to day tasks.  Now his fire and EMS skills were on par with his peers and as a person he was a good guy.  The Chiefs were considering terminating his employment but first wanted to give him a chance to improve.  At the time I was not his supervisor, so I volunteered to take him as my firefighter.  I called him in to my office and had a very frank discussion on how the Chiefs felt and what could happen if things didn’t change.  At the end of our meeting he told me he had no idea that he was doing anything wrong, or was in need of any improvement.  He was honest in his regret and wanted to work towards positive change. 
The solution: 
He and I worked on forming a 90 day improvement plan.  He was given small goals each shift to meet and larger goals to meet by the end of each 30 days.   Before the end of the 90 days he had made great improvements and was taken off the plan early. 

What I learned:
While I was working with him it became very clear that no one had ever informed him of the department’s expectations.  He came to work and took calls, and that was it.  He felt if something needed done, someone would tell him.  He wasn’t undermanaged, he was over managed.  He had his hand held and was never encouraged to take the initiative.

I really like how you described this person as over managed in the past by having his hand held and not being taught how to take initiative. This is something that is so common in the fire service. I've seen it a number of times where new people (and sometimes not so new) firefighters seem lazy when in fact they're just scared they're going to make a mistake. Don't get me wrong, I've seen lazy and it does exist, but I believe it's rare. It seem counter-intuitive to me that someone would go through 240hrs of FF training, 2 years of EMT/Paramedic school, fill out a 30 page applications packet, do a psychological test, 2 polygraphs, background, physical, etc., to walk into the fire department and say "I'm going to be the worst FF/PM you've ever seen. I'm just gonna sit around on my ass and do nothing".

With this in mind, it's a big challenge as a supervisor to know exactly how much "attention" to pay your subordinates. It really does come down to knowing your people and treating them accordingly. Over the past few years I've seen a number of people come out of their shells and perform to a higher standard because they are being mentored similar to what you did in your example. Additionally, this concept is what the entire professional development program is about.

I used to follow the Golden Rule (treat people like you want to be treated) when dealing with people. However, I've found that the Platinum Rule (treat people how they want to be treated) works better. The example I would use is, there are three shift captains that I supervise. While they do the same job, they are 3 very different people and I treat all three of them differently. Now, all three are held to the same high standard of expectation to do their job well, but I understand they may take different paths to get to that destination. An example is, I may assign certain projects to one over the other based on individual strengths.