Everyone wants to lead. No one wants to follow.
In today’s fire service, you can’t toss a Halligan without hitting a self-declared “emerging leader.” We’ve got leadership academies, challenge coins, challenge coins for leadership academies, hashtags, keynotes, and every podcast from here to the dayroom urging the same thing: Lead, lead, lead. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: We’re overfeeding the leadership machine and starving the very foundation it stands on — followership. And maybe, just maybe, the issue isn’t that we have a leadership crisis. Maybe it’s that we have a followership vacuum.
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What is followership?
Let’s clear something up: Followership doesn’t mean being a robot. It doesn’t mean blind obedience or waiting around for orders like a firehouse dalmatian either. Followership is a discipline. It’s about showing up sharp. It’s about trusting your officer and, even deeper, it’s being someone your officer can trust. It’s initiative without ego. It’s having your crewmember’s back even when the coffee is cold. It’s the firefighter who doesn’t need a chore list to know what needs doing. It’s the one who grabs the irons without being asked, wipes down the rig before you even notice the grime or double-checks your SCBA without making a show of it. As laid out in “The followership formula,” a good follower is proactive, accountable and dependable. They bring ideas, not excuses. They execute without drama. They’re the firefighter who hears “grab the irons” and is already on the stoop before the second syllable lands. And guess what? That’s the kind of firefighter who becomes a great leader later — if and when they want to.
Neglecting the value of followership
We glorify leadership in conference halls and across social media platforms, with buzzwords and book deals fanning the momentum. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to be known as a “transformational” leader with an “adaptive mindset”? Sounds good, right? But somewhere along the way, we started handing out leadership rhetoric like candy and treating followership like the broken recliner in the corner. No one wants to sit there. We tell every recruit, “Someday you’ll be in charge.” But we rarely stop to ask, “Have you learned how to follow yet?” We equate followership with passivity, like it’s just a stepping stone to the real stuff. We feed the dessert before the meal. That’s the problem. We’ve become so focused on growing future chiefs that we’re not growing fully developed firefighters first. A good follower doesn’t just make the job easier. They make the entire crew stronger. They carry the load without constant supervision. They plug gaps in the game plan without waiting for permission. They have enough self-awareness to know that leadership isn’t always about taking the wheel. It’s also about knowing when to ride shotgun and navigate a time or two.
We preach leadership but don’t teach followership
Walk into any recruit academy and you’ll hear a lot about leadership. You’ll see quotes from Lincoln, fireground flowcharts and department org charts with the names of the chiefs circled. You’ll hear talk about “command presence” before someone even learns the department’s radio guidelines. And sure, it’s important to inspire vision early. But here’s a radical idea: What if the first few years of the job were about becoming a phenomenal follower? Not a follower as in a “yes man.” A follower as in:
- The firefighter who sees something before it’s said.
- The one who trains like they’re going on shift at 5 p.m. on a Friday in July.
- The one who builds trust one call, one meal, one mop bucket at a time.
We stress leadership as the goal, but we leave followership up to chance. That’s like building a ladder with no rungs in the middle. No wonder some folks skip steps or, worse, fall off completely. There’s no shortage of leadership books on the firehouse table. But when was the last time someone shared a lesson on being a good subordinate? We talk about chain of command, but we don’t emphasize what it means to actually support that chain even when you disagree, even when no one is watching.
Develop followership first
The best leaders I’ve ever worked with weren’t forged in a seminar; they were forged in the backseat. They were firefighters who watched, listened, asked questions, screwed up, owned it and then came back stronger. They didn’t try to leapfrog over the grind. They leaned into it. The bright sparks made them stronger. If we want strong leaders tomorrow, we need to build rock-solid followers today. That starts in rookie school and extends through every early assignment, probationary year and station rotation. We should be coaching our new firefighters not just in skill proficiency, but in how to follow with integrity, initiative and humility. Here’s what good followership could look like in the first five years:
- Respect without sucking up.
- Feedback without defensiveness.
- Loyalty to the mission, not an extra vote in the popularity contest.
- The ability to take a tough critique without collapsing into ego dust.
When you build that kind of follower, leadership becomes a natural progression and hopefully not a forced promotion. And if someone chooses to stay a lifelong follower? Good. Every crew needs a few who are so reliable, so steady, so bought-in that you’d take them into any fire, anytime, no questions asked. However, it sometimes feels like they are becoming an endangered species — so rare that when you encounter one, you become speechless.
Great followers build winning teams
You want to know what makes a high-performing department? It’s not the charismatic officer with the big ideas. It’s the firefighter who cleans tools without being asked. It’s the one who mentors without being assigned. It’s the one who doesn’t care who gets credit as long as the crew gets better. It’s disciplined, relentless, humble followership. That’s the glue. Or better yet, the cement. Good followers create psychological safety. They elevate everyone around them. They set the cultural tone without putting their name on it. And they stick around not because they need validation, but because they believe in the work. We’ve all seen what happens when followership breaks down: passive-aggressive behavior, with back-channel complaining, quiet quitting and trust erosion. Then we wonder why new officers struggle to lead. “Wait, are you saying you can’t lead what doesn’t want to be led?” you might ask.
Yes, I am — and it sucks. Start by building the kind of followers who make their leaders better. You’ll get strong crews. You’ll get real leadership. And you’ll get a department that doesn’t fall apart the moment someone puts on a white shirt.
Final thoughts
When the smoke banks low, the radio’s cutting out, and your crew is halfway through a search in a building built before the internet was a thing, nobody’s asking who went to the latest leadership seminar. They’re asking, “Can I count on the person beside me?” That answer doesn’t come from charisma. It doesn’t come from a slogan on your locker or a quote on your screensaver. It comes from consistency. Leadership may get the glory, but followership keeps the line charged. If we’re serious about building resilient, high-performing, low-ego teams, then I argue that it starts at the bottom. Teach your people how to follow, not just who to report to. Praise humility. Reward reliability. Celebrate the followers who grind in the background and never ask for a spotlight. Because at the end of the day, they’re the ones who make this job work — and they’ve been doing it quietly for years.
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