The word accountability has become part of the daily language of leadership doctrine, especially at the chief officer level. Communication is also a central factor in leadership conversations. In practice, the two are inseparable. We can talk about accountability in the firehouse all day long, but if we avoid communicating, such as having difficult conversations or avoiding opportunities to address bad behavior, our people learn that accountability is optional.
Similarly, we can say we value candor, but if we punish those who deliver bad news, people learn to keep problems to themselves. We can promote teamwork, but if members’ personal ambition always steals the spotlight, we shouldn’t be surprised when collaboration disappears.
Firefighters are remarkably good at discovering a department’s real rules. They watch who gets promoted, whose behavior is ignored, what receives attention and what chiefs allow to slide. Because they are human, they adjust accordingly.
| READ MORE: The accountability gap: What we tolerate becomes our culture
The power of openness
In a two-phase study involving 3,149 employees and 223 managers, managerial openness was more consistently associated with employees speaking up with ideas for improvement than transformational leadership. Psychological safety — an employee’s perception that it was safe to speak — helped explain this link. The effect was strongest among the best-performing employees, the very people leaders can least afford to silence.
This is why, when chiefs become frustrated with their department’s culture or performance, the first place we should look is in the mirror. An incoming or newly promoted chief may not have created every inherited problem, but they are expected to address them.
Here’s a shocker, though: Chiefs aren’t superhuman. They can’t control every political, financial or social force affecting the organization. But when the same problems persist under their leadership, they must ask what they’re doing — or failing to do — to fix the situation.
The environment has radically changed
The fire service operates in a complex environment. Community expectations continue to grow while resources remain limited or are actively reduced. Recruitment and retention are difficult, particularly for paramedics in most areas. Behavioral health concerns among members are more visible, and the need for prevention and meaningful intervention continues to grow. Technology is changing how we communicate, train, respond and make decisions every day.
Our members also carry society’s pressures with them into the station. Extreme political division, declining trust in government, algorithm-driven misinformation, financial stress and changing workplace expectations don’t stop at the apparatus bay doors. Yet, the public expects us to remain capable and professional whenever they call.
We can’t rely on our traditions to prepare us for this new environment, nor can we rely on the standard, top-down organization that relies solely on positional authority.
We need high-performance teams that can think, adapt, move and communicate under pressure. We need people who understand the mission, trust one another, and have the courage to speak when something does not look right. We need officers who can make decisions without waiting for a chief to tell them what to do, within a clear framework that keeps everyone on the same page, whether in the field or the firehouse. We also need firefighters who are confident enough to ask questions without becoming cynical or disrespectful.
A study of 574 U.S. wildland firefighters found that open communication across the chain of command and respectful interaction helped crews work through hierarchy and build the shared awareness that high-reliability organizations depend on. Research on top emergency management teams in Australia and New Zealand reached the same conclusion: An incident-management system was necessary but insufficient on its own. Teams shared information better and reported fewer work problems when formal practices were combined with flexibility and shared sensemaking (Owen & Dwyer, 2009).
Those kinds of teams don’t suddenly appear because we frame the right words and hang them on a wall. They’re built through consistent leadership behavior and the systems that support them.
Culture is found in what we tolerate
Most organizations have a list of stated values that adorn a wall somewhere in headquarters. The more meaningful list, however, is the behaviors we reward, tolerate, ignore and correct. If a high performer mistreats others and we overlook it because that person produces results, we have made our standard clear. If an officer avoids responsibility and is protected because of a personal relationship, the organization notices. If someone raises a legitimate concern and gets labeled negative or disloyal, others learn to stay quiet out of fear.
Silence can look like agreement, but it’s often self-protection. People stop pointing out concerns when they believe the leader has already decided, does not want to hear the truth or will punish the messenger. The chief may believe the organization supports the direction when employees have simply concluded that speaking isn’t worth the risk.
That is dangerous in any workplace, but it’s unacceptable in the fire service. A firefighter who is afraid to speak honestly in the station will hesitate on the fireground. An officer who has learned to conceal uncertainty may pretend to have all the answers while conditions deteriorate around them on a fire scene.
No study can prove that silence in a particular firehouse will cause a specific fireground failure, but many studies demonstrate the organizational mechanism involved. For example, in a field study of 51 work teams, psychological safety was associated with learning behavior, which helped explain differences in team performance. Leader coaching, candid communication and organizational support also played a part in developing trust and a high-performing system.
Candor is an operational capability
Kim Scott’s concept of radical candor is sometimes misunderstood as permission to speak harshly. That is not what it means. Scott’s framework pairs personal care with an eagerness to challenge; both are necessary. Candor requires us to care enough about people to tell them the truth, as well as the humility to hear the truth when it’s directed at us.
We should be able to challenge a decision without attacking the person who made it, correct poor performance without humiliating the employee, and admit mistakes without surrendering credibility. We should welcome professional disagreement before a decision is made, then stand together as an organization once it is.
One problem with our quasi-military structure is that rank can produce compliance, but it cannot build trust. The higher we rise, the more carefully people manage what they tell us. Chiefs must deliberately create conditions in which information can travel upward, especially when that information is inconvenient.
This does not mean every complaint is valid or each determination is negotiable. Psychological safety doesn’t mean freedom from standards, consequences or accountability. It means people can raise a concern, acknowledge an error or question an assumption without fearing personal retaliation. A healthy organization can hold people accountable and still treat them with dignity.
Strong teams are built behind the scenes
Sustainable performance is built behind the scenes. What the public sees during a difficult incident is the product of habits, relationships and disciplines developed long before the tones drop. We celebrate the visible moment — the rescue, the decisive command or the crew that performed exceptionally under pressure. Yet those moments are rarely accidental. They result from training, clear expectations, honest feedback and thousands of ordinary decisions made when no one was watching.
A chief can’t neglect relationships, tolerate inconsistency and avoid hard conversations for months, then expect the organization to become cohesive during a crisis. We cannot lead through exhaustion, anxiety and constant reaction, then wonder why our teams behave the same way.
Before blaming an employee for missing an expectation, leaders should ask whether the expectation was clear, whether the person was prepared and whether the system supported the desired behavior. Accountability without clarity feels arbitrary, and accountability without development becomes punishment.
A study of 170 employee-supervisor pairs found that employees who perceived a supportive feedback environment reportedly sought more feedback, had greater role clarity and received higher performance ratings. Another study of 110 teams found that autonomy improved performance when paired with strong feedback and clarity about organizational goals.
Regardless of the industry, a leader’s responsibility is not to remove every difficulty. It’s to build people and systems equipped to meet obstacles and hardship without coming apart.
Leadership is stewardship
As fire chiefs, we are temporary stewards of organizations that existed before us and should remain strong after we leave. Every promotion is an investment in future culture. Every behavior we excuse becomes more difficult for the next leader to correct. Every time we choose convenience over a necessary conversation, we transfer the cost of that avoidance to someone else.
However, stewardship requires more than a one-time culture initiative, class or new program. Reviews of psychological safety research found that isolated educational interventions produced mixed results and were unlikely to change deeply ingrained speaking-up behaviors on their own. Sustainable improvement requires work at the organizational, team and individual levels, supported by visible and consistent leadership. The first step isn’t the most difficult. The hardest part is sustaining the effort and strengthening the culture at every opportunity.
That work begins with an honest look at what our people are experiencing under our leadership. If trust is low, we must examine our communication and consistency. If candor disappears, we should consider how we respond to disagreement. If accountability gets selective, we should review what we’ve tolerated and restate our norms. If our people seem uncertain, we should ask whether we have provided clarity and direction as the leader. Looking in the mirror like this isn’t weakness or self-blame. It may be hard, but it’s where real leadership accountability begins.
Our people are always watching the behaviors we model. They learn from what we reward and adjust to what we permit. Eventually, those lessons become the team standing beside us when conditions are at their worst. We owe it to them, and to the next chief, to make sure it’s the team we intended to build.
References
- Detert, J. R., & Burris, E. R. (2007). Leadership behavior and employee voice: Is the door really open? Academy of Management Journal, 50(4), 869–884.
- Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.
- Gonzalez-Mulé, E., Courtright, S. H., DeGeest, D., Seong, J.-Y., & Hong, D.-S. (2016). Channeled autonomy: The joint effects of autonomy and feedback on team performance through organizational goal clarity. Journal of Management, 42(7), 2018–2033.
- Jahn, J. L. S., & Black, A. E. (2017). A model of communicative and hierarchical foundations of high reliability organizing in wildland firefighting teams. Management Communication Quarterly, 31(3), 356–379.
- O’Donovan, R., & McAuliffe, E. (2020a). A systematic review exploring the content and outcomes of interventions to improve psychological safety, speaking up and voice behaviour. BMC Health Services Research, 20, Article 101.
- O’Donovan, R., & McAuliffe, E. (2020b). A systematic review of factors that enable psychological safety in healthcare teams. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 32(4), 240–250.
- Owen, C., & Dwyer, I. (2009). Organising for high reliability in emergency management: An empirical link (Fire Note No. 45). Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre.
- Scott, K. (2019). Radical candor: Be a kick-ass boss without losing your humanity. (St. Martin’s Press.
- Whitaker, B. G., Dahling, J. J., & Levy, P. E. (2007). The development of a feedback environment and role clarity model of job performance. Journal of Management, 33(4), 570–591.
