Coaching alongside command: what firefighters who coach told us

This is the first of a new series looking at coaching and its benefits in fire and rescue services.

Fire and rescue services rely on hierarchy. At an emergency incident, there needs to be clarity about who is in charge, decisions need to be made quickly and instructions need to be followed. Alongside this, coaching is increasingly being used to develop and support people. My recent research looked at firefighters who had undertaken formal coach training while continuing in their operational roles.

These firefighters had not moved into separate coaching jobs, they remained firefighters, with their existing rank, relationships and responsibilities, while also coaching colleagues. I wanted to understand what it was actually like to do both.

The research found that participants were able to move between coaching and their operational role. The situation mattered: at an incident, a more direct approach may be essential. Away from the incident ground, there can be more opportunity to listen, ask questions and give someone time to work through an issue rather than immediately providing the answer.

One of the most interesting findings was that the impact of coach training went beyond the coaching sessions themselves. Participants described changes in the way they listened and communicated in everyday working life. They talked about becoming more reflective, asking more questions and being less likely to immediately offer a solution. In other words, they were taking their coaching skills back into their normal roles.

Silence was one example. One participant talked about learning not to fill every silence in a conversation and finding that, when given time, people would often say more. Others described listening differently and giving people more opportunity to find their own answers.

The research also found benefits for the coaches themselves. Coaching was not simply something they were doing for somebody else. Participants talked about becoming more self-aware and thinking more about their own behaviour and the way they communicated.

There were challenges too, particularly around the word peer. A peer coach may be a colleague, but that does not mean rank and workplace relationships disappear. Participants raised questions about coaching across ranks. Would a senior colleague feel comfortable being coached by somebody junior to them? How easy is it to challenge upwards in an organisation where rank matters?

Trust and confidentiality were also important. A coaching conversation may create a different relationship for an hour, but afterwards both people return to the same workplace. The coach is still a colleague, manager or someone the person may work alongside in the future.

This dual role was one of the most interesting parts of the research. The participants were trained coaches, but they were also firefighters. They needed to work with both roles rather than keeping them completely separate.

The findings suggest that they were able to do this, although there were some tensions. They also made me question whether peer coaching is always the right term. Being colleagues does not necessarily mean being equals within an organisation.

The study was small, so there is more to understand. It would be useful to look further at coaching across rank, how people feel about being coached by colleagues and whether the changes coaches notice in themselves are also noticed by the people they work with. There is also an opportunity to think about coaching beyond formal one-to-one sessions.

Each month, I will feature a coaching question that you can use for a team discussion, a conversation with a colleague or simply for your own reflection.

Some will be practical and others may go a little deeper. They will explore things that are very familiar in fire and rescue services, such as:

• Uncertainty – How do I respond when I don’t know what is going to happen?
• Responsibility – What am I taking responsibility for, and what am I leaving to others?
• Identity – How much of who I am at work is connected to my role or rank?
• Choice – Where do I have more choice than I sometimes recognise?
• Confidence – What happens when I don’t feel like the expert in the room?
• Change and loss – What is difficult about leaving behind the way we have always done things?
• Meaning – What makes the job worthwhile, particularly during difficult periods?
• Courage – What makes it easier or harder to speak up?

These questions have an existential element, but they are also about everyday working life. Firefighters work with uncertainty, risk and responsibility. They experience change, progression and changes in role. They work in close teams where belonging matters, within an organisation where rank has an important purpose.

The research gives an interesting picture of coaching in this environment. It sits alongside command and hierarchy, while also giving people a different way to listen, communicate and reflect.

Next month, I’ll start with uncertainty: how do we respond when we don’t know what is going to happen? In the meantime look at my work here: The Work Coaches.

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