7 Insights Into Safety Leadership

Chapter 1: Safety Performance Leads Business Performance

Chapter 2: Safety Leadership Starts with Attention to Serious Injuries and Fatalities

Chapter 3: Safety Leadership—The Single Most Important Thing an Organization Can Do to Set Improvement in Motion

Chapter 4: Culture Sustains Performance—For Better or For Worse

Chapter 5: Leading Safety Starts with Understanding Safety

Chapter 6: The Role of Behavior in Organizational Safety

Chapter 7: Safe Decision Making and Cognitive Bias

Chapter 8: Conclusion and a Look Forward

In the words of the authors, “The seven insights presented in this book teach organizational leaders [those leaders safety professionals report to, including and especially, the CEO] how to become excellent in safety on purpose.”  The concepts and proven practices in this book draw on the authors’ work over many years at Behavioral Safety Technology. This book provides safety professionals with practical, research-based, insights into how safety leadership improves organizational culture, and how an improved safety culture ensures improved company-wide performance and worker job satisfaction. 

This book is not an in-depth discussion of leadership or cultural change, but references to important books and studies are found throughout. The authors also directly address the misconceptions surrounding behavioral safety, writing, “The role of behavior in incident causation is important, but it is only one piece… .” 

Readers familiar with Dr. Krause’s book, Leading with Safety, will discover a great deal more in this book in terms of deciding what to focus on and the necessary steps to develop a safety culture with the CEO and upper management leading the effort. It is a book that will both inspire change and show the way forward by the success of other companies. 

“The seven insights provide an excellent starting point for initiating dialog with senior leaders and helping them understand from a systems thinking perspective what it takes to have an effective safety process and the role they play.” –Mike Damasin, Assistant Vice President, Environmental Health and Safety, Cargill, Inc.