Fire Service Culture: Improving Leadership, Retention & Performance

The Fire Service Needs a Culture Redesign — And It Starts with Our People

*By Andrew Holter, PhD, SHRM-SCP*

There’s no question about it: the fire service is changing. We’re responding to more calls than ever, while struggling with fewer people who want or are able to stick around.

Departments are doing everything they can to recruit, yet recruitment isn’t our biggest threat. Retention is.

I’ve spent most of my adult life in this profession as a firefighter, a paramedic, a chief officer, and now as an organizational psychologist helping departments strengthen their culture. And here’s what I’ve seen:

We’ve upgraded everything except the systems that support the people doing the work.

The Problems We Don’t Want to Talk About

When morale dips, when performance slips, when preventable injuries occur — it’s rarely because someone didn’t want to do the right thing.

It’s usually something deeper:

* People don’t have clear role expectations.

* Ownership gets lost in command structures.

* Accountability isn’t consistent or well-understood.

* Relationships suffer under constant stress.

Those four issues show up in station behavior, in how we communicate (or don’t), and in whether people feel connected to the mission.

And if we don’t address them, we continue to see:

🚫 Burnout

🚫 Turnover

🚫 Recruitment struggles

🚫 Distrust in leadership

🚫 Safety risks

The reality is: culture drives performance. Not the other way around.

## What the Science Says (And Why It Matters)

One of the biggest surprises when I first entered IO psychology was learning how predictable workplace problems are, including in fire and EMS.

Decades of research show that when firefighters have:

✅ Clear expectations

✅ Opportunities for ownership

✅ Fair accountability

✅ Strong relationships across ranks

…teams perform better, morale improves, and preventable injuries go down.

We don’t need a thousand new initiatives.

We need better alignment around what matters most.

My ROAR Framework

Through years of consulting and leadership experience in the fire service, I developed a straightforward framework that gets real traction:

ROAR = Role Clarity. Ownership. Accountability. Relationships.

These four elements are the foundation of a healthy culture and a high-performing organization. When even one is shaky, the whole system feels it.

Here’s a quick snapshot:

Role Clarity

Confidence, readiness, communication

Ownership

Engagement, pride, initiative

Accountability

Fairness, consistency, standards

Relationships

Trust, teamwork, psychological safety

The best part: improving even one of these can create forward momentum.

Progress Over Perfection

You don’t have to overhaul your entire department tomorrow. You just have to start with honest questions:

* Do our people know what success looks like?

* Do they feel they matter here?

* Are we building trust or eroding it?

* Are our internal systems helping them thrive?

If the answers make you uncomfortable, that’s progress. It means you’re paying attention.

Let’s Build a Fire Service That People Want to Stay In

We can honor tradition and redesign the systems that support our firefighters’ well-being and performance. The two are not in conflict, they depend on each other.

If your organization is ready to break from the “this is how we’ve always done it” mindset, I’d love to help.

👉 Let’s talk about improving culture, leadership, performance, and retention, grounded in science and informed by lived experience.

📧 [andrewmholter@gmail.com]

(mailto:andrewmholter@gmail.com)

Let’s build departments where people feel proud, supported, and excited to serve, not just today, but for the long run.