By Curvin Wolfgang
Over more than 30 years in the fire service, I’ve had the privilege of working for and alongside some phenomenal leaders who showed me the ropes and set the standard for how to act on a scene, at the station and with the public, consistently leading by example with integrity and a strong moral compass. Of course, I’ve also worked with a few whose leadership styles demonstrated what not to do.
Those examples — good and bad — shaped my understanding of leadership. But the lesson I return to most often, especially when talking with members who are struggling to find direction, comes from Col. John Boyd.
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Introducing John Boyd
Boyd was a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot and military strategist from Pennsylvania whose decision-making model — the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) — became a highly influential approach to decision-making in rapidly changing environments. His ideas have influenced the military, business and even public safety. But it’s not the OODA Loop that I want to focus on here.
Boyd was highly accomplished, but he wasn’t always well-liked. He was blunt, outspoken and not afraid to challenge people or ideas he believed were wrong. Those traits often put him at odds with the Air Force hierarchy. His work on energy-maneuverability theory, developed with mathematician Thomas Christie beginning in the 1960s, significantly influenced how fighter aircraft performance and air combat were evaluated.
But challenging the system rarely makes you the most popular person in the room.
Boyd reportedly once offered a particularly colorful, maybe even abrasive, critique of an Air Force swing-wing fighter design. He reportedly suggested the only way to fix the aircraft was to remove the wings, install bench seats, paint it yellow and turn it into a bus. His superiors were less than thrilled.
The fork in the road
Boyd could be abrasive, but behind that personality was a powerful philosophy that he shared with the officers he mentored. It became known as his “To Be or To Do” speech, sometimes described as “The Fork in the Road.”
His message was pretty simple: At some point in your career, you will come to a fork in the road. You can choose the path of being somebody by chasing promotions, titles, good assignments and acceptance by the “right” people. Sometimes that path requires compromise, staying quiet or simply going along with the system.
Or you can choose to do something.
You can focus on making a difference for your community, your organization, your crews and the profession. That path may not always make you popular. It may mean challenging the status quo or speaking up when it would be easier to stay quiet. It might even mean giving up an opportunity along the way.
Boyd framed the choice simply: Be somebody or do something.
That lesson has always stuck with me. It challenges us to think about why we make the decisions we make, especially in a profession like ours, where reputation, rank, relationships and tradition can influence our actions.
The choices begin early
At first glance, “to be” and “to do” might not seem mutually exclusive. They’re not, and in a perfect world, they never would be. But leadership sometimes forces us to choose between what is best for ourselves and what is best for our community, our crews or our organization. And that struggle doesn’t start when you get promoted. It starts the first day you walk into a firehouse.
As a new firefighter, you want to fit in. You laugh at jokes you don’t find funny, stay quiet when someone crosses a line or accept “the way we do things here” even when something doesn’t feel right. Slowly, you start choosing to belong rather than standing up for what you know is right.
That’s how culture stagnates, groupthink grows, innovation dies, psychological safety fades and future leaders stop speaking up.
The cost of challenging the system
As an officer, the choices get tougher. You’ve probably been asked in a promotional interview, “Have you ever had to enforce a policy you disagreed with?” or “Have you ever disagreed with a superior, and how did you handle it?” For most of us who have been doing this long enough, the answer is yes, many times.
How you handle those moments says a lot about the leader you are.
Boyd’s disagreements were legendary. He challenged established thinking because he believed there was a better way. His biggest battles were often not about whether his ideas or data were right, but about overcoming institutional resistance to ideas that challenged the way things had always been done.
Sound familiar?
Boyd’s ideas surrounding decision-making and energy maneuverability eventually became immensely influential. While he often encountered resistance within his own service, his ideas found a particularly receptive audience in the U.S. Marine Corps and helped influence modern warfare thinking. That influence can still be seen in Marine Corps concepts surrounding tempo, initiative, adaptability and decision-making. His OODA Loop concept is utilized worldwide, well beyond the military use he envisioned, including in the fire service.
Accounts of Boyd’s funeral in 1997 describe a notable presence of Marines and very few airmen, a fitting reflection of the impact his ideas had on a service other than his own.
The fire service presents the same fundamental choice Boyd described. Every day, we face moments when we must decide whether to speak up, go along, protect our standing or push for something better. Most aren’t dramatic, and nobody is standing there keeping score. They happen around the kitchen table, in meetings, during difficult conversations and in the decisions we make when no one is watching.
- Do I speak up or stay quiet?
- Do I challenge something because I believe we can do better, or do I accept that this is simply how we’ve always done it, or this is just the way it is?
- Do I make the decision that is best for the community, the crews and the organization, or the one that is best for my career?
There will be times when speaking up costs you popularity. There may be times when standing firm makes people uncomfortable. And there will certainly be times when doing the right thing means challenging tradition or culture and questioning the way we have always done things.
Those are the moments that define us as leaders.
What remains after rank
Eventually, the titles go away. Someone else will sit in your office, ride in your seat and take your place on the organizational chart. What remains is the impact you had on the people around you and whether you left the organization a little better than you found it.
So the next time you find yourself at that fork in the road, when you’re tempted to stay silent, go along or simply fit in, remember Boyd’s question. Because the fire service doesn’t need more people trying to be somebody. It needs more leaders determined to do something. Be the one who does.
REFERENCES:
- Coram, Robert. Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2002.
- Hammond, Grant T. The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001.
- Osinga, Frans P. B. Science, Strategy and War: The Strategic Theory of John Boyd. New York: Routledge, 2007.
- Richards, Chet. Certain to Win: The Strategy of John Boyd, Applied to Business. Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2004.
- United States Marine Corps. FMFM 1: Warfighting. Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1989.
- United States Marine Corps. MCDP 1: Warfighting. Washington, DC: Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1997.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Curvin L. Wolfgang Jr., MA, CFO, EFO, serves as assistant fire chief for the Sarasota (Florida) Fire Department as well as vice chair for the EFO section of the International Association of Fire Chiefs. Wolfgang also serves as an instructional facilitator and instructor for the National Fire Academy.
