Imagine entering a stairwell on the ground floor of a building. Your goal is the roof. You know that to reach it will take time, effort and discipline, but the warmth of the sun waiting at the top makes the climb worth it. Your journey to the roof isn’t easy, but you keep moving forward. Just before the final floors, you hit a roadblock. No matter how hard that you try, you can’t go around it, and your climb is over, just shy of feeling the sun on your face. You put in the work and prepared yourself for the roof, but you never will see it. You really don’t want to go back down, and you can’t go up. Your only real choice is to exit on the floor that you’re on and look for another building and another stairwell to climb.

In the private sector, this phenomenon is known as the gray ceiling. Essentially, the gray ceiling describes baby boomers and older Generation X members who refuse to leave the workforce. In fact, today, the labor force participation rate for workers age 55 and older is significantly greater than it was in the early 1990s.

Fire service bottleneck

Firefighters can spend one, two or three decades accumulating training and certifications to reach the top only to find that their career is halted by limited movement at the highest positions. Ultimately, the fire service model is designed to bottleneck at the highest rank. There is only one fire chief, and the other chief officer positions are limited. Only a small number of firefighters can reach the top.

This becomes an issue, because many middle managers in the fire service are limited to their current role and must leave their home department to pursue upward mobility elsewhere. The exodus of middle managers from the fire service can become a problem, because it creates a leadership vacuum and results in the promotion of young, inexperienced officers. Departments lose institutional knowledge and experience in which the department invested thousands of dollars.

Why senior members stay

The private sector has seen that millennials are likely to pursue multiple careers over their lifetime. Several factors contribute to this trend in the fire service.

We have seen an increase in the number of Deferred Retirement Option Plans (DROP) in firefighter pension systems. This provision allows members to essentially retire but continue to work for their department. The pension check is deposited into an account that’s managed by the pension system instead of directly to the retiree. The DROP account then becomes a savings plan for the firefighter. DROPs have a forced separation of employment date that usually ranges from 3–7 years, although some plans can last as long as 10 years.

Many people might remember the Great Recession of 2007–2009. A large portion of people took significant losses to their retirement accounts and still might be recovering.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a sharp rise in inflation, which might make many firefighters who are nearing retirement wary of living on a limited income amid economic uncertainty.

All this said, many firefighters simply want to continue to work in a job that they love, and many others just aren’t ready to retire. I often compare firefighters to professional wrestlers: It’s difficult to let go of the lifestyle and to move on from a career that very well might define them.

Regardless of the reasons, many senior-level managers in the fire service have continued to serve; it is their right to do so, and they should not be demonized immediately for choosing to do so.

Effect on middle managers

When upward momentum slows, middle managers can become complacent and/or unhappy. It’s easy to feel unwanted and unneeded when promotions stop. It’s important that efforts are made to keep them engaged in the fire service. The goal should be for the administration to recognize that such employees might be stalled in their career growth and to ensure that they feel valued and needed. These conversations are normal parts of succession planning.

Managing the gray ceiling

There are ways to manage the gray ceiling. First is succession planning.

In his applied research project, “Succession Planning,” for his National Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer Program work, Reginald Anderson cited from “A Few Simple Steps Make for a Successful Succession” (R. Coleman) that succession planning is essentially fire chiefs working closely with their staff, so future leaders can continue to guide an organization in the same established direction. Succession planning gives incoming officers control of the wheel, so to speak, so they know the expectations. It gives employees clear direction for the next part of their career. However, at some point, many will complete all of the steps that are required and will be ready and prepared to replace their supervisor only to hit the gray ceiling. This is when it’s important to continue to find new ways to challenge these employees. Allowing them to see behind the curtain and to take a major role in the planning and budgeting processes is a big step toward helping them to feel like a major part of the team, and it gives them meaningful influence.

When leaders leave

Sometimes, when officers are primed and ready to be a chief but the opportunity doesn’t present itself at their department, it’s OK to support them in their decision to leave. Yes, it’s a difficult pill to swallow when dedicated, educated and motivated employees say that they’re going to leave. It can feel like a slap in the face, and it’s OK to feel that way at first, to feel slightly betrayed. Knowing that you spent time and money training and developing people, only to have them leave, can be devastating. The key is realizing that they aren’t leaving out of spite. They’re leaving out of need. You should feel proud. They’re going to another department and bringing the values that you taught. They will take some of your culture with them. You can take pride in the fact that you helped to make those employees a fantastic fire chief, even if it wasn’t in your department.

I think about it like head coaches and assistant coaches. Assistant coaches who work under a great head coach and leave their program to become head coach at another program add to the legacy of the original coach. That’s referred to as the coaching tree. Leadership legacies aren’t built within a single department. Sometimes, they spread through the leaders who you helped to develop.

Practical steps for departments

Many of these solutions take time to develop. However, there are steps that departments can take right now to keep middle managers engaged.

• Create project leadership opportunities. Use experienced officers to lead department initiatives, such as training development and community risk reduction programs.
• Expand mentor roles. Use middle managers as bridges between senior leadership and the next generation.
• Encourage professional development beyond rank. Education, teaching and other external leadership roles allow middle managers to continue to grow when promotions slow to a halt.

Embrace the inevitable

The gray ceiling isn’t going away anytime soon. Your job is to prepare the next generation of leaders, even if the roof that they eventually stand on isn’t in your building.