This time I want to talk to you about Firefighter Managers. This is our term that we often use in trainings. I have encountered many Firefighter Managers in practice, and even today, when I work with companies, this case is quite frequent.
First of all, we must clarify what a Firefighter Manager means and who they are. Their superpower is extinguishing workplace “fires” by any means necessary. That is, when a “fire” breaks out in the work reality, this person, so to speak, “rushes onto the scene” and tries to extinguish the fire by any means.
Naturally, one should extinguish a fire by any means necessary; in real life, during a fire, no one checks whether we are extinguishing the fire correctly or not—the main thing is to put it out. This is an emergency situation where any instrument works. We named this manager a “Firefighter” because they specialize in putting out such fires.
What is a “fire” in non-workplace matters? A fire is a task for which we have insufficient time, resources, and information. Imagine something happened in the market and the client decided to terminate the contract with the company. We don’t know why, we don’t have time to find information, and tomorrow they are already signing an agreement with a competitor. At this point, the Firefighter Manager emerges and resolves the issue by any means.
It seems, at first glance, that we are describing a good scenario. A real firefighter is a good profession and serves a good purpose, so the feeling arises that a Firefighter Manager is also a good manager.
But if we look closely, since a fire is a crisis, a crisis justifies all kinds of ugly managerial practices. During a fire, a manager can keep employees at work late, pay them minimal compensation, do the job poorly, bypass control mechanisms, skip established procedures because “who has time for that during a crisis,” fail to organize documentation, and so on. They make decisions without analysis, do not look deeply at sales dynamics, or fail to thoroughly study the relationship with the client.
It turns out that the Firefighter Manager is not such an ideal manager. They break the rules, and they might even treat employees unfairly.
The main question lies in this: How often does the Firefighter Manager extinguish fires? Do they have a fire every day? Because the Firefighter Manager specializes in fires, they need fires to showcase themselves and succeed.
Firefighters do not like non-urgent, yet high-priority tasks. This is when they should sit down and outline a three-year strategy, plan to increase the sales team’s qualifications—a long-term process. They love urgent tasks, the things that needed to be done yesterday.
It turns out that if a manager constantly prioritizes urgent tasks and if strategic matters are left aside, the fires will not cease in this organization, because preventing future fires is strategic work. It is precisely the proper management of strategic projects that is the prevention of future crises.
Shouldn’t we think about how to prevent clients from unexpectedly terminating contracts? Problems need to be identified, relationships need to be improved, and so on.
The Firefighter Manager does not want to perform strategic work; they do not get an adrenaline rush from it, so they prioritize what is urgent, put out fires, and as a result, they are applauded as a great firefighter.
Is this really what this person is paid their salary for? Were they hired as a firefighter? Does their employment contract state that they should put out fires, or that fires should not break out? The true role of a manager is precisely prevention and system building.
I have worked in an IT company, in HR, in public service, and I have met many Firefighter Managers. Do you know what this manager does between fires? Nothing. They do not do strategic work; moreover, in the absence of a fire, they will even create one artificially. This person needs this atmosphere.
They need to get an adrenaline rush and expect applause after putting out the fire; they want heroic deeds to follow, like how they solved urgent matters. They do not want to play by the rules and do strategic work.
Think about whether you might be a Firefighter Manager, whether you are trying to postpone important strategic tasks until tomorrow and then put out the fire when it erupts.
Irina Mamulaishvili
Aleksandre Jejelava
