Resilience Development in Action

E.225 Inside the Firehouse: Burnout, Betrayal, and Building Real Leadership

• Steve Bisson, Renae Mansfield • Season 12 • Episode 225

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Burnout doesn’t just come from the calls—it grows in the silence after, inside a culture that either catches you or drops you. We sit down with Renae, a former firefighter-paramedic who now coaches first responders on burnout recovery and nervous system regulation, to unpack how leadership betrayal, union politics, and the loss of seasoned mentors quietly shape morale, retention, and the quality of care on scene.

Renae walks us through two starkly different departments: one with strong traditions, shared meals, and senior firefighters who taught without needing stripes; another that pushed out elders, fast-tracked promotions, and sold “progress” through spoken promises that never made it to paper. The result? Rapid rank with thin experience, confused standards, and burnout that looks like apathy but feels like betrayal. Along the way, we explore why it’s easier to part ways in anger than on good terms, how that psychology plays out in unions and leadership, and what happens when EMS integration shifts priorities without protecting mentorship.

This conversation is practical at its core. We outline how to rebuild a real firehouse: formalize mentorship roles for elders, protect shared rituals that transmit norms, and require written commitments instead of handshakes. We dig into nervous system skills—breathing, grounding, pacing, boundaries—and explain why they only stick inside supportive systems. If you care about first responder wellness, leadership development, and building resilient teams that last, these lessons are for you.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with your crew, and leave a review so more first responders can find it. And make sure to be back for part 2 in the next episode.

You can reach Renae on several platforms to discuss this episode and her program. 

Her website is waywardwellnesscoaching.org 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/waywardwellnesscoaching/ 

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/people/Wayward-Wellness-Coaching/61566792351111/  

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wayward_wellness_coaching/

And if you’re struggling right now, reach out for professional support—and remember, 988 is available for crisis help in the U.S. and Canada.

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Resilience Development and Action, where strength means strategy and courage to help you move forward. Each week, your host, Steve Basel, a therapist with over two decades of experience in the first responder community, brings you powerful conversations about resilience, growth, and healing through trauma and grief. Through authentic interviews, expert discussions, and real-world experiences, we dive deep into the heart of human resilience. We explore crucial topics like trauma recovery, grief processing, stress management, and emotional well-being. This is Resilience Development in Action with Steve Bisson.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, you've heard me talk about this before. Get free.ai. Great for your note-taking, good for your transcript, good for your goals, good for everything that you do on a HIPAA-compliant nature. And if you use code Steve50 at checkout, you will get$50 off your first month. And also if you get a whole year, you will also get 10% off the whole year. But getfree.ai has freed me to do more things with my life, including work on other passions. So get free to do your notes, get freed from doing your goals. Getfree.ai with code Steve50 to get$50 off your first month. Well, hi everyone, and welcome to episode 225. If you haven't listened to episode 224 yet, it was Jonathan Kemp. We talked about great stuff, especially with first responders, coaching, uh, and I hope you go listen to that. But with episode 225, I have someone that I've known for a while, uh, Renee Mansfield. She's sitting right next to me. This is our first time in the studio, so if I look nervous, I am. And I'm gonna stop looking at the camera because that makes it even more weird because I want to look at my guests. So, Renee, welcome to Resilience Development in Action.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Hello.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, it's good to have you here and be my first guest in this environment. Uh, we're both a little fish out of water here, uh, but I really appreciate you coming on. I know we we had a little bit of trouble getting recorded at the beginning of uh August, I want to say.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, yeah. I'm actually glad that it got canceled because this is really as much as it's kind of weird being on the cameras, it is kind of nice being the first one. It's nice.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I'm happy that you're the first one because I've known you for a while. I think the work you do is exceptional. The stuff that you're gonna be doing, and you know, right before the pre-interview, so to speak, we were talking about stuff that we might want to do together uh because you didn't know a little bit about my shit. So uh, but anyway, uh I know you, but I think that you know the audience of resilience development in action want to know who you are. So how about you say a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So I am um so weird, I don't know to look at the cameras. I'm gonna look at you.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I defaulted, I'm looking at you.

SPEAKER_01:

Um yeah, so I am a former firefighter paramedic that has turned to a burnout recovery and um nervous system regulation coach. And so now I develop programs for police and fire departments to help wellness and leadership-driven kind of retention strategies. And um then I also do one-on-one coaching with individuals, first responders, and high performers to help with their burnout recovery and also teaching them how to regulate their nervous system as well. And then on the side, I also perform and do music um with a band. Well, call it a band, but my boyfriend and I. Um we do musician stuff as well as a side hustle. So it's a little bit of me in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, you know, I I I knew all that stuff, and uh, if you weren't gonna mention the band, I certainly was. Yeah. Um and I know you have a lot of experience as a firefighter, and you know, part of resilience development in action is definitely talking about first responders in particular. But you know, you're like, oh, gee Willeker, Steve, I want to be on your podcast. What made you decide to come on to the podcast?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, really, I know that we've had a lot of these conversations about changing the culture of first responder, um, you know, police, fire, EMS, and all of that nature. Uh, but I really wanted to come on the podcast because I do listen to all the different people that you've spoken to, and um, I wanted to kind of I want to talk a little bit about my program and how it kind of pertains to that, and um just have a great conversation with you about how you know really resilience with the first responder culture in the world, and um yeah, just kind of talk about really how important it is to address the nature of our job in really between, I guess bridging the gap between the toxicity of leadership and burnout, because a lot of the times we address burnout in the first responder culture as trauma, and while that does play a role in it with the calls, it's not necessarily, I know we've talked about this, it's not necessarily the you know, the the peak of it, right? And um leadership betrayal, department betrayal, it kind of serves a higher purpose, and at least for me, that was my biggest um driving force when it came to leaving the fire department and my own burnout and uh experience. And so I guess that's what had led me to not only leave the fire department, but to kind of come back, which I never expected, and develop this program to help change the culture from the inside out. And um so I guess it's kind of what I wanted to talk about and address is that it's more than just the trauma of the calls. Uh, it's also the way that the leadership plays a role as well.

SPEAKER_02:

I I agree with you. I think that we've had these conversations privately many, many times. People who've listened to my podcast know I'm done with this whole it's trauma, it's trauma, it's trauma. Okay, I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but it certainly exists. And I think that that's part of our private conversations is that, you know, sometimes it's how you're treated by administration, sometimes it's about how you're treated by your colleagues. And again, sorry if I'm too controversial, but being a woman in this in the service sometimes, and this is not a criticism of anyone you've ever worked with, but sometimes being a woman in this field doubles down on how difficult it can be for a woman versus a man. So I think that there's so many things we can go down like different roads here. But I guess that for me, the leadership stuff really stands out because that's definitely what we want to talk about. One of my favorite sayings is from my uh friend Jay Ball, who says you don't need stripes to be a leader. But unfortunately, the leaders make the hard decisions and not necessarily caring about what they originally signed up for when they were firefighters, which was, you know, respect people, be and I don't know all, and again, I pretend I'm a therapist, I don't pretend I know what your models and all that stuff is. But I wonder if you want to talk a little bit about, you know, how the culture was where you're at, particularly with you know your colleagues and everything else that goes with that.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. I think that I have a couple of different experiences too, because I was at two different departments, two vastly different departments, too, I would say, at that. And um, then also adding in the EMS aspect with that too. So, in total, I was in the fire EMS world in about a decade. With that said, I saw a department that was larger, and um, you know, I wasn't the only female. In fact, that department was one of the first departments that did have uh one of the first females back in the day, and uh they were a driving force in that, and I never had a bad experience with as being a female, um, but that was a totally different experience when it came to the union versus the chief. So that had a totally different feel when it came to that. Um, it was almost like the pissing match. And um sometimes I look back and I I do I say I regret leaving, but some I don't at the same time because it did lead me to the path that I am in now. Um but at the same time it felt more like a firehouse in the way that it was run, right? That first department I was in. And um, the main reason that I did leave was um just it was starting to get the same thing, politics over people. Uh and it was really just like it became a pissing match between the union and the chief and the town administrator. So at that point there was a weak chief, so it was just really it was the union against the town administrator in this leckman. So I was one of the first last ones that was hired, so I would have been one of the first ones to go had something ever changed. So I kind of was putting feelers out there to change and laterally transfer. And um, just to give you a feel of how the politics over people was going on, um, the chief wouldn't sign off for me to laterally transfer. So I actually, when I did end up deciding to transfer in the rose-colored glasses that I had for the department I ended up transferring to, that we can obviously get into, um that chief didn't sign for me to transfer. So therefore, I actually had to completely start over with the other department. So I had to do the PAT completely over, I had to do the psychology test all over, I had to do everything from scratch, even though I had like six years under my belt. And um it I was I had the other chief not um completely allowed me to do like a full step ladder of where I was, I could have started completely as like a rookie. Um, so it could have completely screwed me up. So um it's interesting how it all happened, but um so yeah, again, the chief that I transferred to, that's how it started, right? So he made it sound like this grandioso thing, I'm doing this favor for you. And that's I was like, oh, this is great. With that said, transferring into a department where I was the first and only female. And um, my captain, I specifically remember that was from the old department, said, if there's ever anyone that's gonna be transferring over into a department that's the first and only female, um, you are gonna be a great example of that. And I felt like that was like, oh well, thank you for that. Because I felt like I was one of the guys, you know, like I was at the point, I was like making the guys blush, you know, like I was definitely crude, you know, like I had no shame, you know. Like I was definitely fit right in when it came to the jokes, and um it it didn't seem any different. But it's interesting because when I left or as I was leaving, um the dynamics changed, you know, because I was still doing half and half. I was finishing out my few 24s that I had at that last department, and then I was still doing the transfers over into like the four weeks of training into the new department, and um the guys from the old department started treating me so weird, and it really wasn't until I started I met this um woman not too long ago. She's was uh she's a retired um Coast Guard, and now she does uh she's a therapist, and she's kind of doing similar things that I'm kind of doing. But um she said something about how uh it's easier for people to leave like angry than it is to leave on good terms for some reason, like the psychology of it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And uh I guess you would be the expert in that.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm the expert of nothing, but okay.

SPEAKER_01:

And I was like, that is so interesting because when I left the dynamics did leave or did change. So it was like they became so aggressive and angry when I was leaving, and it was so strange.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I could I could tell you a little bit about the psychology, and I want to get back to a few things you said, because there's one thing that you mentioned that was really sounded like we need to dig a little more. But um, the reason why people want to be in adversarial ways when you cut out is that that gives you a reason to. And when you leave it in an amicable way, but you may never talk to them again, which happens more often than we we want to believe, we tend to omit that information. We only remember, well, you know what, Renee was kind of a bitch or whatever, because that's easier for me to justify that you're gone than it is for me to say, you know how sweet she was or how great she was or she made me blush or whatever. That's difficult to say, well, I don't have any contact with her anymore. So that's the psychology behind that. And the lateral transfers, male or female, that happens all the time, from what my guys and my gals tell me. And it's just weird to me because even when I complete therapy with some of my clients, some of my clients look for a fight in the last session. I'm like, why are we fighting? Why do we have to fight? We can leave in good terms. There's nothing wrong with that. Right. Um, and it's changed over time after we've had conversations. But one of the things we talked about is a real firehouse, which, you know, is something that I hear a lot and I know what that means. But I think that I would love to hear your perspective on that and what that means because I think that there's um I I always say to different people who ask me about the greatest, who's the good chief? Who's a good leader? I said, people who remember where it was to be boots on the ground. Those are guys. Koch Guard, you talked about your your colleague there. Um boots on the ground is so important, remembering where you've been, you know. And I think that that to me is always a good sign of leadership. But you're talking about a good firehouse. Is that part of what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, because I would say when I see it felt more like a real firehouse, I so something that I kind of backtracking a little bit. I've had these conversations a little bit, and then I kind of had noticed it. Someone else has mentioned it. I've gotten a little bit more into LinkedIn a little bit, and I feel like I've had some really great conversations in that. And I feel like people also share a little bit. I know my ADDHD is going a little bit. I'm coming full circle, I promise. That's okay. We'll come back to the firehouse. It's okay. No, it's coming back around. But someone also shared something. It makes me not feel as crazy when I feel like I say that when EMS came into the fire station, I feel like it's when maybe the firehouse started to crumble a little bit. Okay. Um, I feel like it's a couple of reasons, mostly because it has to be a little bit more profit-driven. Um obviously EMS has to make money somehow because it has to bank its funds back as it spends a lot more money. Um at the same time, bringing it full circle. So feeling like more of a firehouse, I feel like I'm alluding to the fact that it had more mentorship, right? More leadership. While it had its problems, obviously, um, with its leadership and some toxic, ego-driven mentality. Um, I look back and there was a lot of senior guys. And when you're talking about the badge and the ranks, I feel like you don't need a badge or a rank, obviously, to be a leader. There was a lot of senior guys that I remember that took me under my under their wing, right? I can think of like when on that department, you get my I got put on the ladder truck. So I was the third guy in the ladder truck when I wasn't on the ambulance. And um the ladder guy that was always the ladder driver, um, I just specifically remembered there's so many times. So one of the things in that department is that you for the first year you weren't really supposed to be upstairs unless um there was a reason, right? Um mostly because you just had so much to learn. You're the first year, you know, like you should be downstairs if you're not on a call, going through all the trucks. You know, you have so much to be going through. And you shouldn't be upstairs watching TV if you're on if you're not on calls. Um you should want to learn more if you are, you know, not running calls or doing reports. Um, you know, you're just a proby. And so um, yeah, I just specifically remember he would come down, and there was one day where I was down on the apparatus bay, and he's like, Hey, do you want to go through the ladder truck? And I was like, absolutely. So he just started pulling things off the ladder. You know, he didn't have a badge. He didn't even, I don't even he to even to this day, he doesn't have like a badge or a rank, you know. And he like, I just specifically remember him going around the truck and always doing that with me. And uh it's something I took with me throughout the rest of my career, even on the ladder truck in the next department. So um he was the senior guy to me. You know, there was a few senior guys, and I just remember that that's what makes a really great department is leadership and mentorship, and I think that that's what a lot of departments have lost. And so when I went to the other department, um, we were a very young department, and I was sold this progressive idea, which what I meant by those rose-colored glasses, it sounded great, right? And I was a fairly into my paramedic career at that point. Um, so I was like, this is awesome. I want to be a progressive paramedic, and I want to be a progressive firefighter as well. Right. But um at the same time, I loved the idea of progressive EMS, and um, it seemed like that's what was going to be happening. And um, it seemed like that's what was gonna be happening in general, progressive mentalities, and uh it was soul as the idea, but not knowing that this particular chief was gonna be driving out the older generation, knowing now because they knew him, and I don't think he liked that, you know. So I liked having the older generation because I think they have a lot of value, they have a lot of wisdom. And when they started becoming, you know, upset and disgruntled, he didn't like that they were around and they could retire, you know, so they either had to shit or get off the pot, you know, fall in line with him or retire early.

SPEAKER_02:

And so um pretty problematic language when you say fall in line, just for the record. But please go ahead.

SPEAKER_01:

So uh many of them ended up just retiring early. And um, so that was a huge issue because then a lot of them that were, you know, were very young, like I said, anywhere under thirty forty years old. And um, that's problematic when you're in a fire department. You know, you think that you have all of this knowledge, you don't. And like, and then also when I got transferred over, there was guys that had less than experience than I had, and um which is crazy to think about that they were then going to be lieutenants and captains, and I didn't have seniority because I was transferred over, you know, like and not signed off, right? So it was like this is bonkers, and I shouldn't even have seniority, right? You know, so like I I wasn't even saying it because I thought I should have rank, you know. I don't think anyone should have rank at this point. Like, we're all like five years in, you know, five to eight, you know, eights, whatever that you were building up, but at that point some guys had three, and it was just like it was just getting crazy. So when I say that the other department felt like it was more of a firehouse, we sat down for dinners, we had a guy that cooked. Um we just valued things that still valued the firehouse, you know. We still sat around and ate together. Uh the probies still took the trash out. Right. You know, we still um I still had to get afternoon coffees, morning coffees, morning lunches. Like I got stiffed so many times with money because like I would still have to go out, pick up the lunches, you know, like and all that stuff. But it's like it is what it is. You know, I paid my dues.

SPEAKER_02:

I should have bought you a coffee just for that.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I had a system going, man. Like I had I someone, the guy before me, he's like download the dunks app, and we had the dunks right across the street. Like, so like literally we're gonna be.

SPEAKER_02:

Which Firehouse doesn't, by the way.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, exactly. I I swear that they put dunks right next to the police and fire stations. But I downloaded the dunks app and I just raked up points. And so like I I always got free drinks because like I just paid through my dunks app, and then you know it was great.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, that's a good system to have.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02:

Um and you know, Milford has to work on putting a dunks right across from the fire station here. Uh Milford Mass, for those who are listening nationally and internationally. But there's a lot of stuff that you mentioned, and I don't even know where to go because I I think that you you brought up something that comes up constantly in my group is that the experience level. And what I mean by that is, you know, you got someone who's still wet behind the ear, who has an LT or a captain or whatever, and doesn't know because they have education, but there's no one else to replace them, because the old generation's going away. I mean, like in the next five years, most of the quote, older generation, people my age, I'm not a firefighter. I do not pretend I am. But I think that at the end of the day, we're losing a lot of that. And then we have a lot of young people, but not a whole lot in between. And I think that scares a whole lot of departments, particularly firefighters retiring, and even the young guys who come to see me, they're like, we don't have relief. We're we're we're like, we're we're not ready for this. And of course, you're full of piss and vinegar, because hey, who doesn't know everything when uh they're 25 and 30? And then you turn 30 and you go, My God, I knew nothing. And then by the time you're 40, you're like, I really know nothing about life. Um I think that that there's a lot of stuff to be said about that, and having leadership that chooses a younger generation, in my view, like having those BLTs and captains and all that, it's a great way to have more control. But that's my two cents.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

You want it, you seem to be go jump in, I want to hear it.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, no, I just think that it's especially now knowing, just very impressionable, right? Like I saw a strong union against a weak chief, and I saw in the previous department how how much they fought against that chief. And while I know, you know, it did become a pissing match, but still I appreciated the fact that they would fight for us no matter what. It was always the guys, like guys and girls, whatever.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't give a but it but okay, so just for the record, for those of you who don't know, guys also includes the women in departments, and no one's ever offended by that shit. So if you're ever offended by that, write to me, write to Monet. But ultimately, I've never heard any of my female clients go, oh, I'm not one of the guys. They're okay with that statement. Please go ahead. Sorry. That's my little political statement for the day. Have a great day. Anyway, keep on going.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So um, yeah, they would just always fight for you never questioned that, right? So um it was just a different story with the other department. And um one thing that was getting really frustrating with the other department is when the e board being so impressionable, um, especially towards the end of my career before I left, was that they were starting to get something was becoming a little off, right? So the three um our three-year contract was coming up, and it was just they were saying that the chief was offering these things, just um nothing was gonna be written, it was all spoken promises. I knew from our the previous department, you never do anything based off of spoken promises because it never pans out, it's always a tactic. And old got old timers, they know that. Old timers know that spoken promises are broken promises, right? So you never base off of a contract with that. And so I remember specifically at a union meeting, which mind you, okay, get this. They put into our union contract for our union dues to pay for beers at the American Legion to pay for our beers while we were drinking during our union meetings, which what right? Only 30-year-olds would do that, right? Like, yeah, so get drunk after the union meetings. We would do that after our other too. But not to be. Sorry to break the veil, but uh, you know, and that's another issue, right? We do that as a coping mechanism that as firefighter, anyone in the first responder realm, that's a whole different issue. But putting that into our union contract, that like our union dues are paying for our beers while we're drinking, during our union meetings, making huge decisions for our contract, and now you're being blindsided by the strong chief that's promising you these things, saying that you're gonna get a 3-1-1, like 3%, 1%, 1%, and then it turns into like a 4-1-0. You know, it was just like, and then they're taking away a lot of stipends and then promising after that. And I'm just like, you you don't understand what you're about to give away because you're never gonna give it back. And they're like, he's promising X, Y, and Z. And then after that, all of these people are then promoted. I was like, all right. Yeah, this is what happened. This is this is the impression. Impression and impressionable, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Exactly, the impressionable, and I think that that's why like part of the experience is to learn to sit there for five years and watch it. And I say five years, I think for any job, you know nothing for five years. You may think you know everything, but then you have something like that. Like, why drink beers? I I don't understand that. I understand after. Frankly, I understand prior, uh, but I don't understand during. Um, and it's not endorsing that, it's just noting the behavior. Um I think that the other part too that you mentioned is that there's a lot of shift in mentorship. And I think that for me, one of the greatest things that I do as a therapist to other therapists is try to mentor them. And a lot of people would say to me, Well, um, how much are you how much do you want? And usually I say, get me a coffee or go for breakfast or whatever. But I feel like the fired police used to have that mentorship type of environment that has slowly gone away, not only because we're losing the people with a lot of experience, but we're also losing a lot of people who are willing to do that. Uh, you talked about that. And you know, if you had a good mentorship, you have someone from the e board who's been there for a few years going, This is wrong, guys, we can't do that. But I think it's missing, and I think mentorship is key, I think, to the fire service, police service. I think that it goes for a whole lot of different things. Uh, but I think the mentorship is clearly something that has shifted in that environment, if you ask me.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And that's what happens when you lose that mentorship, is that it becomes toxic because if you have one person that's driving the force and you don't have that checks and balance, you lose that mentorship and you lose the leadership. And then that one person is I mean, if they're toxic and they're saying all those other people are toxic, then all those young people are gonna be just as toxic as that one person because they're gonna be just as impressionable. And it's sad because then you look back and you're just like, wow, I saw what those guys were before, and now I see who they are now, and you're like, you are a product of the environment now, and it's sad.

SPEAKER_02:

It is extremely sad, and I think that what I'm gonna do here is end the first episode of our two-part series right now, and move on uh time-wise to uh just saying thank you for now, and we'll see you on episode uh 226.

SPEAKER_00:

Please like, subscribe, and follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful. And as a reminder, this podcast is for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor for consultation. If you are in a mental health crisis, call 988 for assistance. This number is available in the United States and Canada.

People on this episode

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Steve Bisson

Host
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Courtney Romanowski

Co-host
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Renae Mansfield

Guest