Ask any seasoned fire officer what it takes to lead and you likely will hear some version of the same answer: You must be strong, and you must know your craft, project confidence and be willing to make difficult calls under pressure. That answer isn’t wrong, but it’s incomplete.

Recent doctoral research into leadership in masculinity contest cultures (i.e., organizations in which toughness, dominance and self-reliance are the dominant norms) reveals that the most effective leaders in the fire service operate across a dynamic range of leadership approaches. That range, which I call the leadership continuum, stretches from agentic leadership at one end to communal leadership at the other. Understanding where you sit on that continuum—and when to move—might be the most important leadership skill that you develop.

Defining the continuum

Agentic leadership is the model that most fire service personnel know best. It’s assertive, decisive, task-focused and hierarchical. When the tones drop, agentic leadership takes command. It assigns roles, sets objectives and drives toward resolution. In a burning building, this isn’t only appropriate; it’s essential.

Communal leadership looks different. It’s relational, collaborative, and oriented toward the growth and well-being of the people who are in the system. It listens before it directs. It builds trust through vulnerability and presence rather than authority and rank. It’s person-centered rather than task-focused.

For decades, fire service culture has treated these two modes as opposites—and has rewarded only one of them. The implicit message that’s passed down through generations of firehouse culture has been that good leaders command; everything else is soft.

A career battalion chief who participated in the doctoral research noted, “There’s a time and place for an autocratic stance, and then there’s the relational approach. Having the ability to choose when it’s the right time to deploy one or the other or a blend of both is really the best approach.”

The battalion chief’s remark captures the central finding precisely. Agentic and communal leadership aren’t opposites. They’re complementary abilities. The question isn’t which one to choose, but when and how to deploy each.

What the research found

The doctoral research study used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach; in other words, it was designed to understand lived experience from the inside out. Nineteen participants (fire officers and law enforcement leaders) were asked to describe their experience exercising and witnessing communal leadership in the rough-and-tumble environment of their organizational culture.

What emerged was consistent across ranks, departments and decades of experience: The leaders who had the most significant effect on the people and systems that were in their care weren’t simply the most competent tacticians. They were the ones who combined operational excellence with genuine relational investment in the people who they served.

Another study participant noted, “Being able to have authentic conversations in the firehouse makes me feel like I am truly effecting change, and it’s not just change on the fireground. It is so much deeper than that. It touches firefighters’ quality of life at home, at work, their family dynamics. It’s more than just applying water.”

This pattern appeared repeatedly. Participants described leaders who set high standards and enforced accountability while simultaneously creating psychological safety (i.e., the sense that it was acceptable to raise concerns, admit mistakes or ask for help). Far from undermining authority, this combination of strength and care appeared to enhance it.

Cost of staying on one end

When leaders anchor permanently to the agentic end of the continuum, the costs are real and well documented. Cultures of silence develop. Personnel don’t disclose physical, mental or operational struggles, because vulnerability is perceived as weakness. Errors that should surface for learning get buried. Talented people burn out, disengage or leave.

The study participants understood this from direct experience. One seasoned fire officer described a culture in which questions of any kind were unwelcome: “I saw heavy-handed, browbeating. ‘I can’t believe that you don’t understand how to do that’ kind of leadership. That’s where I came from. I grew up in a firehouse where I knew they had my back, but there wasn’t a lot of open conversation, particularly about hard things.”

Permanent residence on the communal end carries its own costs. An organization that lacks clear standards, decisive leadership and operational accountability isn’t a safe or effective one. Fire scenes aren’t town hall meetings or therapy sessions. When conditions deteriorate, someone must take charge.

The study participants understood this instinctively. They didn’t describe the ideal leader as either a relentless driver or a gentle counselor. They described someone who is wise enough to know which was called for.

One fire chief participant recalled a conversation that he had with a senior member who he recently was promoted over: “I sat him down and said, ‘Hey, look, I don’t want this to be awkward. What I really want if I could wave a magic wand is to learn from you and grow with you and glean whatever wisdom, advice and experience that you have. But if we’re on the fireground, this is like the military: What I say goes. I’m going to make the decisions, and you must follow them.”

Four pillars in practice

The findings from this study center around four leadership qualities—strong, wise, courageous and helpful—that together define what it looks like to operate effectively across the full continuum.

Strong means being capable, competent and reliable under pressure. It is the nonnegotiable baseline in emergency services and the quality that’s most familiar to fire service culture. It also means having the fearlessness to be appropriately vulnerable, authentic and emotionally aware.

Wise means understanding context: reading the room, the situation and the individual well enough to calibrate a response. Wisdom is what keeps strength from becoming brute force and care from becoming unrestricted permissiveness.

Courageous, in this framework, isn’t limited to physical bravery. It includes the guts to have difficult conversations, to acknowledge mistakes, and most importantly, to show genuine concern for another person without worrying about how it looks.

Helpful is the quality that’s most undervalued in traditional fire service leadership culture. It isn’t weakness. It’s a deliberate investment in another person’s growth, ability and well-being. Leaders who are genuinely helpful create the conditions in which people become more able, more committed and more willing to bring their best selves to the work.

Moving on the continuum

One of the most practical implications of this study is the idea of intentional movement: the ability to consciously shift one’s leadership posture based on what the situation and the person in front of you require. This isn’t wishy-washy or indecisive; it’s adaptive and effective.

An incident commander who directs operations at a working structure fire should be fully agentic: clear, direct and decisive. That same chief, when sitting with a firefighter who’s overwhelmed after a tragic call, should be fully present, emotionally available and invested in the member’s needs. The chief who stays in command mode in that second moment doesn’t demonstrate strength, wisdom, courage or helpfulness. That person demonstrates a failure of leadership and falls short of the moment.

The people who participated in this study consistently said that the leaders who shaped them most were the ones who knew how to make the shift. They described it not as a personality change but as a form of professional mastery. The same way that an experienced firefighter reads fire behavior, the best leaders read people, teams and organizations and then deploy themselves accordingly.

Why this matters now

The fire service is navigating a period of significant cultural pressure. Suicide rates among firefighters exceed line-of-duty deaths. Behavioral health challenges remain chronically under addressed. Recruitment and retention difficulties are straining departments. Generational shifts are bringing personnel into the firehouse who have different expectations about what leadership should look and feel like.

None of these challenges are solved by abandoning the agentic strengths that define excellent emergency response. That said, none of them can be addressed while staying anchored exclusively to those strengths.

The leadership continuum isn’t a retreat from the values of the fire service; it’s an expansion of them. It’s the recognition that the same values that demand that we run toward danger also can demand that we turn toward our people with the same fearlessness. That isn’t softness. That’s what the research—and the leaders who shaped it—calls leadership.