By Dr. Danny L. McGuire Jr.
At 2:10 a.m., a fire company clears an unsuccessful pediatric resuscitation. The equipment has been cleaned, supplies have been replaced and the report is underway. The officer says little. One firefighter disappears into the bunkroom. Another keeps wiping down equipment that is already clean.
Forty minutes later, the tones drop for an automatic alarm at a senior-living complex. In the cab, communication is short and patience is thin.
The officer dismisses the call before arrival as another false alarm. One member is still mentally standing in the child’s bedroom, while the officer is trying to lead by acting as though nothing happened.
The apparatus was back in service. The company was not.
| READ MORE: What to say to a colleague after a difficult call
This is a composite scenario, but the rhythm is familiar. Fire and EMS crews can move from a fatal crash to a lift assist, from a working fire to a routine medical call or from a difficult family interaction directly into training and station duties, without skipping a beat. The next alarm does not wait for everyone to feel ready.
The danger is not that firefighters are affected by difficult work. That is human. The danger is allowing the effect to remain invisible and unmanaged, especially when the company officer’s own frustration, fatigue, grief or anger begins shaping the crew’s next response.
Restoring the company
The fire service understands physical rehabilitation and equipment readiness. A cylinder has a gauge. A monitor can be tested. A compartment can be inventoried. Human readiness is less visible, but it is no less operational.
The fourth edition of IAFC/NFFF Crew Resource Management manual identifies stress as an operational distractor and includes anxiety, frustration, fear, anger, time pressure and lack of rest among the conditions that can interfere with performance. The important word there is can. Pressure does not automatically make an officer unreliable. The risk begins when the officer acts as though their internal condition has nothing to do with the crew.
Personal leadership is the ability to govern what you bring into the company. It means noticing when your own state is changing your voice, pace, assumptions, patience or willingness to hear crew input. The moment those changes influence other people, personal leadership is no longer merely personal. It has become part of the operating environment.
The officer’s condition becomes a crew condition
A 2024 study of 491 firefighters found that the behavior of leaders and team members ranked among the most important teamwork-related stressors. Checking on one another, knowing the abilities and behavior of team members, and member reliability ranked among the team behaviors that most helped crews cope with pressure and perform well (Heinemann et al., 2024).
In a separate observational study of 14 firefighter crews during 19 actual emergency operations, stronger closed-loop communication, positive emotional interaction and effective adaptation were associated with better team effectiveness (Jouanne et al., 2017).
Neither study proves that one sharp comment will cause an operational failure. But they do support what experienced crews already know: Tone travels, rushed behavior spreads, and incomplete communication creates friction. The company often takes its emotional and operational cue from the person riding in the officer’s seat.
Carryover pressure commonly shows itself in three places:
- The tone changes. Normal humor becomes contempt. Ordinary questions produce irritation. The officer becomes unusually silent, sarcastic or controlling.
- Attention narrows. Members start making assumptions, skip normal cross-checks or evaluate the next dispatch by its reputation instead of the facts being reported.
- The rhythm breaks. Crewmembers separate, communication becomes uncertain and everyone notices the change, but no one names it.
These are cues for leadership attention, not proof that someone is weak, disordered or unable to work.
A 2026 pilot study of 78 firefighters found that stressful operations produced high arousal and often mixed emotions. Participants commonly described reappraisal and acceptance as ways they regulated themselves (Poless et al., 2026).
The goal is not emotional numbness. The goal is to keep a normal human response from quietly taking command of the next mission.
What company officers can do between alarms
A few practical habits can help an officer close the gap between clear and ready without turning a quick return to service into a clinical debrief:
- Check readiness, not just availability. Before returning from a high-impact incident, confirm more than just restocking. Within department policy, assess equipment, personnel and operational attention. A brief statement may be enough: “That was a difficult call. Check yourself, check your partner and tell me if there is anything we need to address before the next run.”
- Name the transition without demanding disclosure. A company officer should acknowledge reality but should not compel anyone to discuss personal reactions in front of the crew. Make room for a private conversation. Watch for performance changes. Follow policy if someone cannot safely continue. A readiness check is operational leadership, not an improvised clinical debriefing.
- Correct safety and delay ego. If equipment or behavior must be corrected before the next response, address the immediate standard in narrow language: “The monitor needs to be reset before we are available. We will review what happened after the report is complete.” Not every mistake needs a public lecture, especially when the officer is still activated by the call.
- Give the next alarm a clean start. Do not carry labels such as “nothing call,” “frequent flyer” or “another false alarm” into the cab. Restate what is actually known, confirm assignments when needed and leave space for a member to clarify or flag something you missed. The next citizen should not receive a reduced version of the company because the previous call was hard.
- Return to the conversation later. A quick operational reset is not the end of the officer’s responsibility. Follow up privately. Use peer support, chaplaincy, an employee assistance program or a culturally competent clinician when appropriate. If you are the officer who needs support or relief, personal leadership requires saying so before your crew has to manage it for you.
Remember, officers should not diagnose, force emotional disclosure or conduct improvised treatment. Their responsibility is to notice meaningful changes, protect operational standards, create permission to speak, follow department policy and connect people with appropriate resources. That boundary keeps a readiness practice from becoming invasive and prevents “we are fine” from becoming the only acceptable answer.
Two questions to ask
Reliability under pressure can be defined as remaining connected to your standards when demands rise (McGuire, 2026). That does not mean returning from every call unchanged. It means recognizing when the work has changed your condition and deliberately returning to what the next mission requires.
After the next difficult call, ask two questions: Is the apparatus ready and is the company ready? Then ask the harder personal leadership question: What am I carrying into the next alarm, and how will my crew experience it?
“Clear” is a dispatch status. “Ready” is a leadership responsibility. If you inspect only the equipment, you have completed only half of the return-to-service process.
References
Heinemann, L., Aust, F., Peifer, C., et al. (2024). Development and validation of a questionnaire, the REST-Q Fire, to identify teamwork-related resources and stressors in firefighting operations. PLOS ONE, 19(5), e0304326.
International Association of Fire Chiefs & National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (2024). Crew resource management: A force multiplier for better critical fire service decision making (4th ed.).
Jouanne, E., Charron, C., Chauvin, C., & Morel, G. (2017). Correlates of team effectiveness: An exploratory study of firefighter’s operations during emergency situations. Applied Ergonomics, 61, 69-77.
McGuire, D. L., Jr. (2026). Hard Reset: Reliability Under Pressure. Crosstown Coaching LLC.
Poless, P. G., Eid, J., Prate, M. V. B., Stenseng, E. M., & Hansen, A. L. (2026). Cognitive appraisal, emotional responses, and emotion regulation in firefighters’ occupational stress — A pilot study. Frontiers in Public Health, 14, 1809101.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Danny L. McGuire, Jr. is a retired Chicago Police sergeant whose 30-year career included Special Operations, HBT (SWAT support), the SWAT Weapons of Mass Destruction Safety and Support Team, Chief Hostage/Crisis Negotiator duties, and long-term undercover narcotics investigations with Cook County/NEMEG. He is the founder of Crosstown and author of “Hard Reset: Reliability Under Pressure.” He serves as Executive Director of the Public Service Institute and Director of First Responder Wellness at Jacquelyn Augustine & Associates, and is an ICF Professional Certified Coach and Illinois licensed professional counselor. His work focuses on human performance, leadership and reliability under pressure across public-safety professions. Learn more at drdanny.com.
