When I first met Ian*, he described himself as being “basically the fire brigade for my company.”
* Name changed for anonymity but permission given to use this story
It wasn’t a throwaway line. Through our coaching conversations, the firefighting metaphor kept popping up — burning issues, flames to put out, hoses that wouldn’t stretch far enough. If I’d had a pound for every fire reference, I could have bought him his own fire engine.
The thing is, Ian wasn’t wrong. He really was the person everyone called when things went wrong. Of course that made him indispensable, and gave him a sense of satisfaction but it also left him drained. Somewhere along the way, this firefighter lost his spark (pun intended).
Always on Call
Ian ran a department in a financial services firm. His reputation as “the reliable one” meant work gravitated towards him. He did well out of it – promotions followed – but so did pressure and unintended consequences.
He told me early on:
“I used to feel proud of how I stood up for my team. Now I just feel like I’m running around with a leaky hose. No matter how much I do, the flames keep coming back.”
Personally I think that metaphor call-back was a bit weak and it was meant as a joke, but you could hear the exhaustion underneath it.
Ian’s tendency to rescue didn’t come out of nowhere. Like many conscientious leaders, he had some deeply laudable traits: he wanted to please people and he took pride in being the person others could rely on.
In moderation, those qualities made him a supportive, dependable leader but in his organisation, and coupled with a deep need for validation, those qualities were amplified.
The system encouraged his rescuing behaviour — colleagues thanked him for stepping in, managers praised him for “always delivering,” and his reliability became part of his professional identity. Every time he sacrificed his own boundaries, the organisation rewarded him. Every time he picked up the slack, he was validated.
It’s easy to see how this cycle reinforced itself: the more he rescued, the more he was applauded; the more he was applauded, the more he felt he had to keep rescuing. (I know it sounds like I’m writing a management textbook, but honestly it’s just the way Ian described it.)
The tragedy was that, over time, these “heroics” took him further away from his true leadership style. The values that had once grounded him — developing others, strategic thinking, collaboration and autonomy — were gradually pushed aside in service of being the firefighter.
The Hidden Cost of Saying No
Where things got really tough for Ian was the flip side: the times he tried not to rescue.
The first time he deliberately let his team present their own imperfect work, he was told he was “dropping standards.” When he questioned whether a new request was realistic, he was branded “negative.”
So rescuing wasn’t just encouraged — it became compulsory. The moment Ian tried to act differently, he felt punished.
Maybe It’s Just Me
Although I didn’t know him at his best, by the time Ian came to coaching, he was already looking like the system had worn him down.
“What if I’m not cut out for this? What if I’m the problem?”
That question — maybe it’s just me — is one I hear a lot. When every attempt to step back is punished, it’s easy to assume you’re the one at fault. But in Ian’s case (and in most cases), the problem wasn’t him. It was the system rewarding the very behaviours that drained him, and discouraging the ones that aligned with his values.
Creating a Firebreak
We didn’t start with sweeping changes. Ian didn’t need to escape the building; he needed to create some space between himself and the flames. A firebreak. (His metaphor has infected me by now…)
So we focused on small acts of rebellion…
- Naming his non-negotiables. For Ian, that meant no weekend emails and starting to give his team honest feedback again, even if it ruffled feathers. Those were the values he refused to compromise on.
- Marking out pockets of integrity. Instead of trying to extinguish every blaze across the business, he chose one project where he could lead with more autonomy and collaboration. This became his “controlled zone” — a place where the fire couldn’t spread.
- Testing the edges. He experimented with stepping back from certain rescues. When asked by senior leaders to “tidy up” a report his team had produced, Ian resisted the urge to rescue and let it go forward as it was. He got the predictable comment about “dropping standards,” but his team saw that he backed them.
Each of these small actions built Ian’s firebreak wider and stronger. It wasn’t dramatic, but it began to restore the oxygen he’d been missing.
I’m stretching the metaphor now, but you get the point.
Rekindling His Spark
Over time, Ian began to reclaim pieces of himself.
He still cared deeply and he was still reliable but those traits were no longer the whole story. By protecting small spaces where he could lead differently — coaching his team instead of fixing their mistakes, carving out time for strategic thinking — he began to feel more like himself again.
The flames didn’t go away and the system didn’t suddenly change but Ian did. He stopped defining himself only as the firefighter and in that shift, he found his spark returning
Which, I realise, is a cheesy way to finish a story full of fire metaphors… but hey, it fits.
