Praxis: Lessons from Fire Chiefs and Soldiers

Praxis: Lessons from Fire Chiefs and Soldiers

Playing with Fire, Part 5

In this Organizational Change series, we’ve explored how sparks of urgency can ignite action, how warmth sustains momentum, and how tools make change practical. But there’s still one element left to complete the picture: Practice.

Even the best tools are useless if people don’t know how to use them. And even the best environments won’t stop panic if people have never practiced how to respond under pressure.

Leadership isn’t only about inspiring or equipping, it’s also about preparing people. On this point, fire chiefs and soldiers have much to teach.

Fire Chiefs: Preventing and Preparing Before the Flames

Fire chiefs don’t measure success by how many fires they’ve put out. Their effectiveness is seen in how many fires never start. They focus on prevention: building codes, safety inspections, sprinkler systems, that lower the odds of disaster.

They also minimize the extent of the damage through fire drills, “stop, drop, and roll” lessons for children, and clear evacuation plans.

The lesson for leaders? Don’t wait for change to feel like a crisis before preparing your team. Build structures that make adaptation routine. Teach simple responses—naming emotions, pausing before reacting, asking “What can we learn from this?”—so people have something to reach for when the pressure builds.

Great fire chiefs reduce the number of fires. Great leaders reduce the number of crises by preventing panic and training steady responses.

Combat Resilience: Lessons from the U.S. Army

The U.S. Army faced a problem: how do you keep soldiers steady under extreme stress? Their answer was Master Resilience Training (MRT), a program developed with psychologists from the University of Pennsylvania.

MRT teaches five key skills:

1. Self-awareness — noticing thoughts, emotions, and triggers.

2. Self-regulation — staying composed under pressure.

3. Optimism — maintaining confidence without blind hope.

4. Mental agility — reframing challenges, finding new angles.

5. Connection — drawing strength from trust and relationships.

The brilliance of MRT lies in practice. You don’t wait for battle to learn resilience. Soldiers rehearse it daily: pausing, reframing setbacks, leaning on each other, so when stressors come, calm becomes muscle memory.

Resilience is a skill to be trained and modeled every day. Nudge people just beyond their comfort zone, normalize mistakes, and demonstrate calm. Over time, teams learn a steadiness that holds under disruption.

What Leaders Can Borrow

Leaders may not face literal fires or battles, but organizational change brings its own kind of heat. The best don’t just react to it, they prepare for it.

Practical ways to borrow from fire chiefs and soldiers:

• Preventive systems. Build policies, habits, and workflows that reduce chaos before it starts.

• Simple drills. Like fire safety, teach and practice small responses that keep people steady under pressure.

• Resilience training. Encourage optimism, reframing, and self-regulation as daily habits.

• Shared strength. Build trust and connection so people know they won’t face disruption alone.

Leaders can’t stop every fire or battle, but by preparing people in advance, they give teams the strength to face disruption together and come out stronger.

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