Thought Leadership

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For many, pending deadlines and packed schedules are not overwhelming, but instead can be a driving force that pushes them toward greater productivity. We have processes to streamline, goals to achieve, promotions to earn, debt to eliminate, exercise regimes to master, dreams to chase, and people to help and inspire.

Two weeks ago, I went to a presentation by Kelly McBride on the topic of ethics and the media. Kelly is the ethicist with the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg FL. She also contributes to an NPR broadcast.

Have you ever experienced a time in your life when you were having trouble coming up with an idea? Have you ever observed someone at work saying, "I can't do that" and then nothing happened, or you said, I can't do that" and find that you're stuck?

What is truth when it comes to safety? The regulation-oriented data tells us a part of the story with respect to training, incident records, safety meetings, work orders, policies/procedures and the like. Observations add a bit more insight to what our people are actually doing when they are occasionally being watched/evaluated by others.

How often do you thank the members of your safety team? Whether they are safety professionals or volunteers on your safety team or even people who have been appointed based upon their position in your organization, they are a special group of people. As a safety speaker, I always end any presentation to safety teams or leaders with a thank you on behalf of all the people they protect.

On Friday, July 11, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told a national press conference he was “disappointed,” “deeply troubled,” “frankly angry,” “astonished,” “unsettled,” “upset” and had lost sleep over safety lapses at CDC facilities that “never should have happened.”

Former U.S. president Harry Truman had a rule: any letters written in anger had to sit on his desk 24 hours before they could be mailed. If at the end of the “cooling off” period, he still felt the same sentiments, he would send the letter. By the end of his life, the letters that Truman never mailed filled a large desk drawer.

Have you ever given thought to how powerful the written word is? Safety speakers and safety professionals are primarily communicators. Understanding the tools we use to communicate is critical to our success. In our field, you often hear phrases such as, “walking your talk,” “being a safety example” and the ever popular, “actions speak louder than words.” I would suggest words are, in fact, actions. 

ISO 45001 is the number given to ISO’s effort to create a standard for an occupational safety and health management system. This project is well underway, but before the status update, let me begin with some background on occupational safety and health management systems.

Why are our most important leaders, responsible for driving improvement in performance, culture and results, often our most inexperienced, undertrained, underdeveloped and incapable? Most of us have seen the situation when the super employee becomes the supervisor without ever being taught how to be an effective leader.