Leadership At Every Level - Functional Leadership - Chief Scott Thompson

F.I.R.E. is excited to welcome Chief Scott Thompson as part of our Leadership At Every Level lecture series! Chief Thompson is a 40-year veteran of the fire service, retiring in 2026 after serving 17 years as Fire Chief of The Colony Fire Department in The Colony, Texas.

Throughout his career, Chief Thompson has been a respected hands-on, workshop, and classroom instructor. He regularly presents at fire service conferences across the country and was a FDIC keynote speaker in 2024. Chief Thompson is also the author of The Functional Fire Company: Positioning Small Groups for Success and Survival(PennWell, 2018), a respected resource focused on building effective, high-performing fire companies.

His topic of Functional Leadership is based on 30 years of formal leadership exposure and experience in the fire service, research conducted for his book and observing some of the busiest and successful fire companies in the country.

Chief Thompson will discuss the following

• Defining Success in the fire service. To truly achieve success, we must be able to define and demonstrate what success looks like.
• Functional vs. Dysfunctinoal fire companies
• High performance fire companies vs average fire companies.
• The Big 3 influences in all fire department organizations.
• Character - personal influence
• • Culture - organizational influence
  • Leadership - commitment influence
• The 5 functional target outcomes
• • Operational coordination
  • Increased company level contribution
  • Cooperation
  • Consistency
  • Self-correcting
• The 5 commitments of a functional fire company
• • The commitment to being above average
  • The commitment to a chosen culture
  • The commitment to quality character
  • The commitment to courageous leadership
• Leading the functional fire company

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from one of the fire service’s experienced and influental leaders!