Fire-Rescue International 2025: Chief Brycen Garrison will present “Strategic Leadership and Visionary Planning” and “Strategic Leadership — How to Create an Amazing Culture” on Wednesday, Aug. 13, and Thursday, Aug. 14, respectively, at FRI 2025 in Orlando, Florida. Learn more about the show and register to attend.
Every firefighter and leader in the fire service is driven by a deep passion for the job — a calling to serve. This passion is the fuel that energizes us through long shifts, intense training and life-threatening emergencies. But as essential as passion is, effective leadership requires balancing that zeal with measurable impact and strategic investment. In other words, it’s not enough to be passionate; we must ensure our passion leads to positive outcomes and the wise use of resources.
Passion without direction can become a wildfire — energetic but unfocused. A true leader channels personal and team passion toward the department’s mission. This means setting clear goals for community safety and internal growth, then harnessing everyone’s enthusiasm to achieve those goals. We continually ask: Are our efforts making a tangible difference? Passion makes us run into the fire, but impact is measured by lives saved, incidents reduced and a stronger community. Leaders balance daily excitement with long-term vision, ensuring every training, outreach or response moves the needle forward in service quality.
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Equally important is investment, not just in terms of budget or equipment but also investing time and resources in our people and our processes. A fire chief must be both a guardian of the budget and a mentor to the organization. For example, channeling passion into investing in training programs yields prepared firefighters who perform safely and effectively. Allocating funds to modernize equipment or facilities shows that we value our team’s safety and our community’s well-being. Every investment decision, from purchasing new gear to spending an extra hour coaching a rookie, should align with our passion for excellence and produce meaningful impact.
Striking this balance is a daily exercise. One might feel compelled to say “yes” to every new idea fueled by enthusiasm — a new specialized unit, another community event, an extra rescue tool — because our appetite to do more is strong. But unbridled expansion can strain personnel and budgets. Thus, we weigh passion against impact:
- Which initiatives will yield the greatest benefit for those we serve?
- Where should we invest our limited time and money for the maximum improvement in safety and service?
By filtering our ideas through the lens of impact and sustainability, we ensure our fire service remains both passionate and prudent.
Bottom line: Balancing passion, impact and investment is about intentional leadership. It’s encouraging fiery dedication in our crews while keeping one foot on the ground to guide that fire in productive ways. It’s about loving the job immensely but loving the outcome for our community even more. When we get this balance right, our passion becomes more than emotion — it becomes a force for measurable good backed by smart investments in our people and our mission. But leadership doesn’t stop there. The next challenge is managing the fire service’s inherent appetite for more — and ensuring that hunger is focused, healthy and sustainable.
The appetite for more
One hallmark of great firefighters and leaders is their appetite for more — more knowledge, more challenges, more ways to serve. After we achieve one goal, we immediately begin looking to the next hill to climb. This hunger is healthy; it keeps our organization from growing complacent and drives continuous improvement. However, like any appetite, it needs to be managed and nourished properly.
In the fire service, having an appetite for more means never being fully satisfied with the status quo. We ask questions like, “What’s next for our department?” or “How can we improve our response times, training or community outreach?” This mindset has led us to implement innovative training programs and pursue advanced certifications. It’s what pushes a firefighter to enroll in that next course or a captain to try a novel approach to crew development. Curiosity and ambition feed progress, ensuring that both individuals and the organization keep growing. I’ve always encouraged my team to embrace that restless drive to improve, because today’s “good” can always become tomorrow’s “better.”
However, an unchecked appetite can lead to burnout or mission-drift. Leaders must temper the desire for more with reflection. We need to celebrate how far we’ve come, even as we reach for the next rung. For instance, if a department continuously adds new programs or protocols without assessing effectiveness, the result can be overextension. “More” is only beneficial when it aligns with our core mission and values. We are now at a point where we can pause our team after a major project, whether it’s implementing new equipment or completing a strategic planning initiative, and debrief thoroughly. We digest the lessons learned before taking another bite. This reflection ensures that our hunger for improvement builds on success rather than simply piling on new initiatives indiscriminately.
One practical way to manage appetite is to set incremental goals that lead toward a big vision. Rather than trying to overhaul everything at once, which sometimes must be done, we tackle one improvement at a time. For example, we might focus this quarter on improving apparatus maintenance routines. Next quarter, our target could shift to enhancing inter-agency communication. Each achievement builds the appetite for the next, creating a steady diet of progress. This approach keeps the team motivated — they see frequent wins, without overwhelming them by attempting to “eat the elephant” in one sitting.
Additionally, leaders must feed member appetite with opportunities and support. If you have eager firefighters who want to contribute more, find constructive outlets for them. Assign them research projects on new technology or involve them in community risk reduction events. In my experience, firefighters who are given room to explore their ideas and passions tend to thrive and often bring back valuable insights to the department. This creates a culture where the appetite for more isn’t just an individual trait but a shared value in the organization.
Growing up together: The call for organizational maturity
As a fire department evolves, there comes a point when both its people and its processes must “grow up together.” This is the call for organizational maturity — a stage beyond foundational development, where we solidify our identity, refine our operations and cement our values in everything we do. It’s a natural progression — just as a probie firefighter matures into a seasoned veteran over years, a young organization must also transition into a more structured, resilient entity.
Growing up together means that everyone in the organization participates in its maturation. When I reflect on the Brighton Fire Rescue District’s journey, I see how shared experiences — tough calls, budget challenges, new station openings, personnel changes — have helped form our collective character. Each challenge required us to develop new procedures or improve old ones. For example, rapid population growth in our district forced us to formalize our strategic planning and adopt more sophisticated incident command systems. Those changes weren’t always easy, but going through the growing pains together made us stronger and more unified. We learned to lean on each other, all of us understanding that maturity is a team effort.
Organizational maturity shows in how we handle adversity and change. An immature department might resist new protocols or be rattled by a single bad incident or public criticism. A mature department, by contrast, has established trusted systems, communication channels, and a culture of continuous improvement that allows it to navigate storms with stability. For instance, early in my career, a communications breakdown at a multi-agency incident taught us the hard way that our interoperability plans were lacking. As we grew, we instituted regular joint drills and clearer operational guidelines, hallmarks of a maturing organization that proactively addresses weaknesses. Now, when big challenges hit, we respond with much more cohesion and confidence. We have playbooks and contingency plans, but more importantly, we have a mature mindset: Stay calm, work the problem, take care of our people, and learn from the experience.
A key aspect of growing up as an organization is defining our values and “the way we do business,” then living that consistently. In a department’s infancy, you’re often writing SOPs from scratch and experimenting with different approaches. As we matured, we identified what worked best and embraced it as standard. For example, we clarified our promotional processes to be merit-based and transparent, moving away from any ad-hoc practices. We developed mentorship programs for new officers, so the leadership philosophy would be passed down and not reinvented with each promotion. These steps might sound procedural, but they greatly enhance fairness, trust and professionalism — signs of an organization coming of age.
Crucially, organizational maturity doesn’t mean becoming rigid or complacent. Just as a wise adult remains capable of learning, a mature fire department stays adaptable and humble. We acknowledge that we don’t have all the answers and remain open to innovation. However, maturity does bring a certain steadiness — the highs and lows even out, and core principles guide decision-making rather than impulse or tradition alone. For Brighton Fire, our guiding principle is that “we exist to positively impact those we serve.” At every maturity level, that stayed constant, but as we grew, we found ever more effective and organized ways to fulfill that mission.
Ultimately, growing up together means our firefighters, officers and civilian staff evolve in step with the organization’s needs. We invest in professional development, expecting a higher degree of expertise and leadership from each other as time goes on. We also celebrate the history and journey we’ve shared. That perspective instills pride and a sense of responsibility: Those who came before laid the groundwork, and it’s on us to continue maturing for those who will follow. Our community, too, can see the difference in how we present ourselves, how we engage with them, and the level of service we deliver. It’s the natural, admirable progression of a department that has truly “grown up” in sync, with everyone contributing to an organization that is visionary, stable and service-oriented.
Grace, gratitude and the heart of servant leadership
At the heart of effective fire service leadership lies a spirit of servant leadership — putting others before self, leading with humility, and serving with compassion. In my journey, I’ve learned that two qualities fuel this style of leadership: grace and gratitude. As we conclude this discussion on passion, growth and maturity, it’s fitting to focus on the personal virtues that bind it all together. A leader can be passionate, ambitious and seasoned, but without grace and gratitude, they will not truly connect with or inspire those they lead.
Grace in leadership is about showing understanding and kindness, even under pressure. In a profession as intense as ours, people will make mistakes — a firefighter might err on a call or a new policy rollout might falter. Leading with grace means we correct and guide without humiliating; we maintain professionalism without losing empathy.
I recall an incident early in my chief tenure where a crew’s decision at a fire scene didn’t align with our standard tactics. Instead of a public reprimand, we held a private after-action review. It was approached with grace: What led you to that decision? Here’s what we can learn. The result was improved training and a crew that felt supported rather than shamed. Grace turns mistakes into teachable moments and conflict into growth opportunities. It requires self-control — the ability to temper one’s frustration or ego — in service of a positive outcome. A leader armed with grace fosters loyalty and a culture where people strive to improve, rather than hide errors, because they know their leaders seek to understand before judging.
Hand-in-hand with grace is gratitude. Being a grateful leader means constantly appreciating the team and resources we have and expressing that appreciation. I make it
a point to thank our firefighters and staff frequently, not just in formal ceremonies or award banquets but also in day-to-day interactions. A simple “thank you for your hard work today” after a tough call or a note to the training division acknowledging their months of effort preparing a new academy class, goes a long way. This isn’t just about politeness; it’s strategic for morale. When people feel valued, they invest even more of their heart into the mission.
Gratitude also keeps leaders grounded. It reminds us that any success is a team success, built on countless contributions. I am profoundly grateful to have served alongside brave men and women who often do the extraordinary on ordinary days. Keeping that at the forefront prevents the “commanding leader” mentality and nurtures the “servant leader” mindset.
Servant leadership manifests in several ways in our fire service — mentoring others, listening actively and empowering our members. A servant leader doesn’t seek to be the hero of every story; they seek to make everyone a hero in their own role. For example, when new ideas emerge from the ranks, a servant leader eagerly gives credit and lets those originators take the lead in implementation. I’ve seen firefighters conceive a new team, community risk reduction program, and others, and, given trust and ownership, turn them into a hugely successful initiative. The leader’s role was simply to remove obstacles and cheer them on. This approach shows grace (trusting others with responsibility) and gratitude (acknowledging their talent and initiative). It also ties back to our theme of investment — we invest authority and trust in our people and reap the rewards of innovation and engagement.
Moreover, servant leadership extends grace to the community we serve. We treat the public with patience and empathy, recognizing that every 911 call is someone’s worst day. Whether it’s a false alarm or a massive structure fire, the compassion and respect we show to citizens leave a lasting impact. We lead our teams to be ambassadors of goodwill. I often express gratitude to our community, through open houses, social media or one-on-one conversations, for their support and trust. This two-way street of gratitude strengthens the bond between the fire department and the public. It reminds the community that behind our badges and helmets are neighbors who deeply care about them.
Final thoughts
Grace, gratitude and servant leadership encompass the leadership legacy we should all strive to leave. As fire service leaders, when we lead with grace, we cultivate an environment of respect and continuous learning. When we lead with gratitude, we build a culture of positivity and mutual appreciation. These qualities elevate our passion into purpose, our appetite for improvement into achievable progress, and our organizational maturity into genuine excellence. Servant leadership is ultimately about heart — the heart to serve others first, to lift them up, and to guide with wisdom and compassion rather than authority alone. My sincere hope is that every chapter of our journey — every firehouse meal, every training drill, every emergency response — is imbued with these values. They are the steady flames that light our way, ensuring that as we serve, we also inspire, and as we lead, we also love the people and community we are privileged to serve.
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