Chief learning officers are familiar with this reality: Billions of dollars are spent annually training people on technical skills, yet our performance still lags. As a scholar practitioner, my doctoral research focused on the lived experiences of firefighters, and I argue that it offers a transcendent warning: If you teach people to “do” but not to “think,” you set them — and your organization — up for failure.
There is no other profession analogous to the American fire service. My insight from 25 years of experience as a firefighter has helped me understand that the fire service trains its members to be technically proficient “doers” who are collectively not taught to think. We lack the leadership skills, emotional intelligence and creativity necessary for decentralized fire companies to collaborate effectively at contemporary emergencies.
We are surely not alone. Across industries, from healthcare to tech, the same problem echoes: Organizations reactively provide or outright neglect leadership and human performance training. Waiting until people are in a new role to provide organizational support is not helpful. This reactivity is commonplace in the American fire service, where cultural normalcy is often driven by seniority that adversely impacts education and learning opportunities for junior members.
Perhaps more persuasive than just my experience, my recent doctoral research points to a potentially urgent truth relevant to you: If we want high-performing teams, we must redesign professional development around leadership, interpersonal skills and continuous learning — not just technical certifications that check boxes, but an understanding of the self and, thus, other human beings.
What my research suggests
Interviews with company officers and fire chiefs revealed several themes:
- Self-taught leaders outperform their peers: Those who are curious and pursue learning on their own feel more confident and lead more effectively. Respondents’ data pointed out that relying on personal initiative is an organizational failure, not a strategy.
- Knowledge transfer is broken: Promotions often happen regardless of whether the organization ensures leadership lessons and operational wisdom have been absorbed. Even when knowledge transfer does take place, it can be highly variable, and departments with no formal way of educating future leaders lose institutional knowledge. Culture suffers as a result, and safety risks for all stakeholders increase.
- Interpersonal skills make the difference: Officers call out the need for more training in motivation, empathy, vulnerability and trust-building — the “soft” skills that drive hard results. Overcoming one’s personal biases can enhance organizational culture, leaving members focused on mission accomplishment.
- Autonomy and initiative are misunderstood concepts: Members of any public or private organization who need to ask for permission before taking action, and who fear making mistakes, are never enabled to grow and perform on their own and therefore don’t reach their full potential.
Most alarmingly, the research showed that decades of neglect have made leadership development an afterthought in many fire departments. Promotions reward technical mastery of test-taking shortcuts, not leadership capability or one’s psychophysiological response to operational stress. While silos of excellence may arise via some outliers, organizational culture and performance erode under this model.
Sound familiar?
What this means for CLOs across industries
The fire service is a high-stakes microcosm of what happens in every organization. Of course technical skills matter, but misunderstanding the organization’s mission and vision is an oversight leaving too many dots unconnected. In the real-world complexity of emergencies, where rapid change, friction and uncertainty impact teams — leadership and human performance skills matter more than ever. Organizations investing solely in “doing” skills may find themselves tactically proficient but poor at strategy comprehension.
For CLOs, the lesson is simple but urgent: Leadership development must begin early, scale widely, and tie directly to promotional and advancement frameworks.
Four actionable moves every CLO should make now
1. Embed leadership education from day one.
Leadership isn’t just for managers. Firefighters showed that when front-line professionals build leadership muscles early, they perform better when promoted.
Action: Design entry-level training that weaves leadership skills — decision-making under stress, emotional intelligence and communication — alongside technical certifications. Ensure leadership development is a continuous journey, not a finish line.
2. Formalize knowledge transfer.
Without structured knowledge-sharing, critical insights evaporate when employees retire or promote. Camden, N.J., firefighters reported huge variation in how — or if — important lessons got passed down, and how they varied throughout the organization’s ecological system.
Action: Build mentorship programs, embrace structured after-action reviews and facilitate peer-learning networks. Treat knowledge transfer as a core competency, not a nice-to-have. Once a culture of learning is adopted and succession planning is more proactive, look out.
3. Make continuing education mandatory.
In medicine, law and engineering, ongoing education is table stakes. Yet too often, other fields let leadership and skills training lapse after initial onboarding.
Action: Require annual leadership and human skills training, with clear links to promotion eligibility and performance reviews. Leaders at every position should “level up” regularly.
4. Prioritize human performance under stress.
Emergencies — whether in firefighting or business — expose true leadership. Training people to lead when optimal performance is critical is non-negotiable.
Action: Incorporate navigating uncertainty and decision-making under stress into your leadership curricula. Use simulations, scenario planning and real-world case studies, not just PowerPoint decks.
The big shift: From blue collar to gray collar learning
My research advocates for a “blue collar to gray collar” shift by implementing more education and learning development opportunities — moving firefighters from purely technically proficient providers to a blend of tactically proficient, yet situationally aware, future leaders. CLOs should consider adopting this mindset because, in an age where every worker needs to be both a doer and a thinker, learning strategies must evolve past a director/provider paradigm.
Organizations prioritizing certificates over culture need to pivot. Leadership development isn’t “extra,” it is the moral and ethical foundation of operational excellence, employee engagement and organizational survival.
Final thought
The American fire service is learning that tactical skills alone do not build resilient teams or serve communities. Chief learning officers who understand this lesson have an opportunity to help their organizations learn faster.
Invest in leadership early — develop a more humanized narrative via mandatory continuous education while simultaneously providing technical skills. In short: Train (educate) for the fires you can’t yet see — a form of organizational fire prevention, if you will. Your organization’s future leaders — and its future success — depend on it.
This column is part of a monthly “Evidence Matters” series, developed by the USC Rossier School of Education in partnership with Chief Learning Officer, to help bridge the gap between research and practice.
