The Flipside of Leadership: 5 Simple Steps to Good Followership

Welcome back to The Flipside of the Firehouse. This is where we talk about the things that don't always make it into reports, policies, or training manuals. The real conversations, the tension, the leadership moments that happen in the bay and around the kitchen table. The things that actually shape a crew, for better or worse.

While we spend a lot of time in this profession talking about leadership. We talk about chiefs and captains, accountability and culture, mission statements and communication. We talk about what good leaders should do and what bad leaders should stop doing.

What we do not talk about nearly enough is followership and that is a problem, because every good leader you have ever worked for was once a good follower. In truth, all of us still are. The rookie follows the senior firefighter. The firefighter follows the company officer. The company officer follows the chief. Even the chief answers to somebody.

The best firehouses are not built because one great leader walks in and saves the day. They are built because there are people at every level who understand how to follow well, how to learn, how to contribute, and eventually how to grow into leadership themselves.

Unfortunately, followership has become a bit of a lost art.

Part of that is because we are trying to bridge larger generational gaps than ever before. In one station, you may have someone who remembers paper maps and pay phones, someone who came up with email and flip phones, and someone who has never known a world without smartphones, social media, and instant access to information.

Technology has made us faster and smarter in many ways. We can learn almost anything with a quick search. We can watch a training video in the recliner, look up a policy on our phone, or get an answer in 10 seconds. But there is a downside to that, too.

We live in a world where our attention is constantly being pulled in ten different directions. Social media gives us a dopamine rush every few seconds. We are rewarded for quick answers, quick opinions, and quick reactions. We are losing patience with the slower things that actually build people: listening, learning, repetition, humility, and trust.

I have heard this frustration from business owners, chiefs, company officers, and senior firefighters. I heard it recently from a manager talking about a new employee, who finally threw his hands in the air and said, “Can’t they just Google that shi*t?”

Maybe they can. But Google cannot teach followership.

Google cannot teach someone how to take corrections without getting defensive. It cannot teach a new firefighter how to carry themselves in the bay, how to ask for help, how to support the crew, or how to understand that just because you have information does not mean you have experience.

Good followership is still learned the old-fashioned way. It is learned around the kitchen table, in the back seat of the rig, on the training ground, and in those little moments where somebody more experienced pulls you aside and says, “Here’s how we do this, and here’s why it matters.”

Over the years, I have found that there are five simple stages to followership. They work for the new firefighter, the senior firefighter, the company officer, and, honestly, even the chief.

• Show up.
• Step up.
• Lead up.
• Know up.
• Lighten up.

They are simple, but they are not easy.

Show Up

Everything starts here.

Before I need you to save a life, run a fire attack, mentor the rookie, or make a difficult decision, I need you to show up.

That means being there physically, mentally, and professionally.

Show up on time. Show up squared away. Have your gear ready. Have the right attitude. Be where you are supposed to be, when you are supposed to be there, and do the job you were hired to do to the best of your ability.

For many people, this sounds too simple to matter. But if you have been around long enough, you know that the people who struggle later usually struggle here first. They are late. They are distracted. They are checked out. They think they are above the little things.

The fire service has always been built on the basics. The small things matter because the small things become the big things. A firefighter who cannot consistently show up prepared for training is probably not going to magically become dependable at three in the morning on a working fire.

Showing up also means asking questions.

Early and often.

I do not need a new firefighter to come in and try to impress everybody. I do not need heroics. I do not need somebody trying to prove they are the smartest person in the room or stack themselves above their peer group.

What I need is somebody who is curious, humble, asks questions, and is willing to learn.

One of the best young medics I ever worked with used to say, “I don’t know yet, but I’ll find out.” There is a lot of wisdom in that. They were not pretending to know everything, but they were not waiting to be spoon-fed either. They were taking ownership of their own growth.

The officer has a role in this, too. If you want people to ask questions, you have to make it safe to ask them. Too many firehouses still have a culture where the new person gets mocked, shut down, or told, “You should already know that.” Then we wonder why they stop asking and why they never seem to grow.

The first stage of followership is not flashy. It is simply showing up consistently enough that people begin to trust you.

Step Up

If you keep showing up, eventually your moment is going to come.

At some point, there is going to be a time when someone looks at you and says, “You’ve got this.”

That is when I need you to step up.

The truth is that stepping up does not always happen in some huge, dramatic moment. Sometimes it is a structure fire or a difficult medical call. Sometimes it is much smaller. Maybe the officer is tied up, and somebody needs to take care of the nighttime meal. Maybe the station is a mess, and nobody else is moving. Maybe a probie is struggling, and you are the one who decides to help.

The range of step-up moments goes from small and ordinary to life-and-death serious. What matters is that when your moment comes, you do not shrink from it.

Most of these moments are what I call “figure it out” moments. There is not always going to be somebody standing beside you giving you step-by-step instructions. Sometimes you'll need to rely on what you have been taught, trust your training, and move forward.

That is why we train so much in this profession. We train because when pressure rises, we do not rise to the occasion. We fall back on our training. (Actually, I'd argue we do both!)

The people who step up successfully are not usually the most naturally talented. They are the ones who have paid attention, practiced the basics, and built enough confidence to trust themselves.

This is also where leaders have to be careful.

If we tell people to step up, we have to be willing to let them make mistakes. If we trust them enough to give them responsibility, then we need to trust them enough to occasionally stumble, learn, and get better.

Many organizations say they want initiative, but when someone tries something and it isn't perfect, they're criticized. That teaches people not to think. It teaches them to wait. It teaches them that the safest thing to do is nothing.

That is not what we want in the firehouse.

We want firefighters who are willing to act, think, and own the outcome.

Lead Up

Once someone has shown up and stepped up enough times, they eventually earn something more.

Now I want them to lead up.

Leading up is one of the most overlooked skills in the fire service. Too many people think that if you are not the boss, your job is to keep your head down and do what you are told.

That is not followership. That is compliance.

Good followers help the people above them lead better.

They bring solutions instead of just complaints. They notice problems early. They give honest feedback. They support the mission and the people around them.

Maybe it is the firefighter who notices the rookie is struggling and quietly spends extra time helping them after dinner.

Maybe it is the engineer who comes to the captain and says, “I think there is a better way to organize the truck checks.”

Maybe it is the lieutenant who respectfully tells the chief, “Sir, here is what the crews are really worried about.”

Leading up takes courage because it means speaking honestly without being disrespectful. It means caring enough to contribute instead of sitting in the bay after the meeting, complaining to everybody except the person who can actually fix the problem.

Colin Powell talked about this in his leadership rules. He believed that good leadership depends on giving the right people the right lesson at the right time. In other words, not everybody needs the same thing. Some people need correction. Some need confidence. Some need more responsibility. Some need more guidance.

That only happens when people are willing to communicate up and down the chain.

Powell also famously said, “The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.”

That cuts both ways.

If you are the leader, create an environment where your people feel safe bringing you ideas, concerns, and problems.

If you are a follower, have the courage to bring them.

The right way to lead up is not to complain in the kitchen after everybody has gone home. The right way is to walk into the office and say, “Cap, I think we have a problem. Here is what I am seeing, and here are a couple of ideas that might help.”

That is followership turning into leadership.

Know Up

The next stage is Know Up.

Know Up means understanding the bigger picture.

Too often, we only see the world from our own seat. The rookie sees one side of the problem. The officer sees another. The chief sees something completely different.

Everybody is looking at the same issue, but from different angles.

• The firefighter may be frustrated because staffing feels short and the station feels overwhelmed.
• The company officer may be trying to balance training, coverage, sick calls, and fairness across the shift.
• The chief may be dealing with budget cuts, city politics, lawsuits, and community pressure.

None of those perspectives is wrong. They are just different.

Good followers learn to know up. They try to understand what the people above them are carrying. They understand the mission, the pressures, and the reasons behind decisions.

That does not mean they always agree.

It means they take the time to understand before they judge.

One of the biggest problems in the firehouse today is that we often assume the people above us are stupid, lazy, out of touch, or do not care. Usually, that is not true. Usually, they are dealing with things we cannot see from where we sit.

The best followers know their own job, but they also know how it fits into the department's larger mission. They understand what matters to the officer, the chief, and the community.

They know up.

And when people know up, something powerful happens. They become more patient. They communicate better. They trust more. They stop acting like they are working against the department and start acting like they are part of building it. True alignment starts to happen. 

That is the whole point.

Lighten up

The last piece of this, and one that does not get talked about enough, is to lighten up.

Hierarchical systems like the military, the fire service, law enforcement, and other high-performance, high-risk professions naturally put leaders on pedestals. Rank matters. Experience matters. Responsibility matters. When things go wrong, those leaders are accountable for the outcome.

I understand why that pedestal exists.

But I learned something years ago that has stuck with me ever since.

In 2015, I was deployed and standing in a Thanksgiving chow line. There was a Navy Admiral on board, and his wife had come out to spend time with the Sailors. A couple of young Sailors were in front of her, and they were a little star-struck. That is normal. Junior folks do not get to see four-star Admirals very often, and when they do, it is usually at a distance, in formation, or during an all-hands call.

They were talking quietly to each other, wondering what the Admiral must be like, all the things he had probably done, the level he had reached.

She leaned in and said something that cut through all of it.

“And he still picks up the dog’s crap in the backyard.”

It was perfect.

In one sentence, she humanized that Admiral. She reminded them, and honestly reminded me too, that no matter what rank someone holds, they are still a person.

They still have a family. They still have problems. They still have stress. They still have expectations on them that do not go away when they put on the uniform.

In many cases, those problems get harder as rank increases.

As a follower, it is easy to look up the chain and expect perfection. It is easy to assume your officer or your chief should have all the answers, make all the right decisions, and never get it wrong.

That is not reality.

They are going to make mistakes. They are going to miss things. They are not always going to explain every decision, and they are not always going to apologize the way you might want them to.

But the good ones will show you who they are over time.

They will be honest. They will be consistent. They will be transparent.

And when they are, you have to let them be human. Lighten up on some of the small stuff.

Not everything is a hill to die on. Not every decision needs to be dissected in the bay after the meeting. Not every frustration needs to turn into a complaint session.

Sometimes, the best thing you can do as a follower is recognize that the person above you is carrying weight you have not had to carry yet.

One day, you might. And when that day comes, you will want the people below you to give you a little bit of that same understanding.

That is the balance. We hold the standard. We expect accountability. But we also remember that we are all human.

So, lighten up.

Sum It Up

At the end of the day, followership is not a weakness. It is not blind obedience, nor is it “stay in your lane” and keep your mouth shut. It is a skill, and more importantly, it is the foundation of everything we say we want in leadership.

When people Show Up, they build trust. When they Step Up, they build confidence. When they Lead Up, they build ownership across the team. When they Know Up, they build understanding of the mission and the bigger picture. And when they finally learn to Lighten Up, they build perspective, remembering that every person in the chain of command is human and carries weight in ways others may not see.

Put all five together, and something powerful starts to happen in a firehouse. The culture shifts. The noise settles down. People stop pointing fingers and start taking responsibility. Leaders feel supported rather than isolated, and followers begin to grow into leaders without even realizing it.

In a profession where everything we do is built on trust, maybe the answer is not more complexity, more policies, or more lectures. Maybe it is getting back to the basics of how we show up for each other every day.

Show up. Step up. Lead up. Know up. Lighten up.

That’s leadership.

As always…
If something in this column makes you pause…
If it creates an “ah-ha” moment…
If it causes you to see something differently…
Or if it’s something you dismiss now but remember later when you need it…
Then it’s doing its job.

That’s why I’m here.
That’s the “flipside”.

Thanks for reading, until next month.