When we think of what the fire officer’s role in an organization, we usually think of their duties in leading subordinate personnel at incident scenes. Fire officer development is integral to creating the leaders of tomorrow’s fire service. However, a large part of the officer’s time has to be spent managing personnel resources and programs. These responsibilities are often required away from the incident scene while back at the fire station. Fire officers are those fire department employees with formal authority placing them in positions of responsibility supervising the activities of subordinate firefighters. Fire officers generally have passed a formal assessment process to validate ability to supervise a department. According to Baldridge, an organization’s success depends increasingly on the knowledge, skills, creativity, and motivation of its employees and therefore the organization must share its knowledge so its employees can better serve the customers and contribute to achieving their strategic objective. A fire officer cannot know what is going on if he lives in his office. This principle means that he/she never ask others to do something that he/she wouldn’t do. It means they should roll up their sleeves and they become the example of professionalism in their department. When something needs to get done-be the example and get it done. A fire officer’s path to success is directly connected to he/she commitment to growth. Today’s fire service requires officers that are not afraid to continue to learn about the profession. If fire officer thinks he/she can learn what he/she need to know by performing one drill every two weeks, the officer is sadly mistaken.
