In December of 2024, I was in another state teaching incident command, rapid decision making, and haz mat response tactics to a large group of firefighters and environmental health workers. Within the class there were four captains from three different fire departments.
During one of my conversations with a captain from a large, regional department, I asked if he was interested in becoming a battalion chief. Without hesitation he said, “Not in this department!” Two years ago, I asked another captain from the same department the same question and he said, “No way! I don’t want anything to do with it!”
Neither of the captains know each other and two years had passed since I spoke to the first captain in December 2022, but both were emphatic that they did not want to promote. In December 2022 and again in December 2024, I asked, “What prevents you from pursuing a promotion to battalion chief?”
Both captains listed three reasons for not desiring a promotion and it revolves around issues they see with current battalion chiefs in their organization:
- Battalion chiefs who fail to listen to subordinates.
- Battalion chiefs who take an authoritarian approach to leadership using open or veiled threats against subordinates.
- Battalion chiefs who are technically and tactically incompetent.
Certainly, this is the perspective of two different captains, but both are from the same department, they don’t know each other, and both listed the same issues two years apart from each other.
However, I have also heard similar comments from captains working in other agencies. This begs the question, what is the underlying issue or issues that prevent fire officers from wanting to promote to the battalion chief level?
Over the next five weeks, I will dig deeper into this topic. Part 2 will look at the underlying questions behind the problem, Parts 3-5 will tackle the top three complaints listed above, and Part 6 addresses how to overcome the issue.
