Leading and Learning Through Safety
Do you want to engage your culture? Safety is the first step to creating the motivation needed for people to perform their best. Each day, we have the chance to lead our teams and learn more about our people through an understanding of our safety climate. Through looking at current issues in HSE, we chat about creating cultural value through safety. Your host is Dr. Mark French, CSP, SPHR aka The Safety Dude.
Episode 216: Safety Tasks
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores how the tasks leaders assign can influence employee engagement, leadership credibility, and the effectiveness of workplace safety programs.
Drawing from research published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, the episode examines the concept of “illegitimate tasks”—work employees perceive as either unnecessary or unreasonable. Unnecessary tasks are activities that seemingly should not need to be performed at all, while unreasonable tasks are perceived as falling outside the legitimate responsibilities of an employee’s role.
This distinction has important implications for safety. Safety a...
Episode 215: Statistical Safety
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores how statistics and risk prioritization can help safety professionals focus limited resources on the hazards that matter most.
Using an example from his career in a chemical plant, Mark describes an unusual incident in which wind carried a small particle of dust around an employee’s safety glasses, ultimately resulting in prescription eye drops and an OSHA-recordable injury. While the incident deserved attention and an appropriate response, its low severity and low probability of recurrence contrasted sharply with the extensive investigation and corrective-action process th...
Episode 214 - Safety System
Safety systems are more than tools for preventing injuries—they can become the foundation for how an organization operates and improves. In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores how organizations can build effective systems from the ground up, particularly during startups and turnarounds.
The process begins with reliable data. Organizations need to understand what information they need, where it comes from, and whether it accurately reflects what is happening in the workplace. Without trustworthy information, leaders cannot make meaningful decisions. This same principle extends beyond safety into quality, delivery, and cost.
...Episode 213: The Safety Gemba
Going to where the work actually happens sounds simple. So why can it be so difficult?
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores Gemba, the Lean management practice of going to the “actual place” to observe work, interact with employees, and understand what is really happening.
Building on previous discussions about learning design and the Analysis phase of ADDIE, Mark explains that observation is one of the most powerful ways leaders can identify gaps between procedures, data, training, and the reality employees experience every day. An informal walk...
Episode 212: What Should We Learn
What makes workplace training meaningful? It may have less to do with the presentation itself and more to do with what happens before the first slide appears.
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French continues the discussion on learning design by exploring the Analysis phase of the ADDIE instructional design model. Drawing from interviews conducted as part of his doctoral dissertation, Mark examines how experienced safety trainers—often without formally calling it ADDIE—use analysis to understand their learners, identify knowledge and performance gaps, and make...
Episode 211: Learning Motivation
Safety training can check every regulatory box and still fail to connect with the people who need it most.
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores one of his longtime professional interests: how to transform required workplace training from a compliance exercise into meaningful learning that employees can actually apply.
Drawing from a recent experience attending an eight-hour regulatory certification course, Mark examines why technically accurate training can still fall short. Stock images, regulation-heavy PowerPoint slides, and worst-case scenarios may communicate the rules, but they do not always reflect...
Episode 210: Knowledge and Learning
This week on the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, Dr. Mark French examines two tragic workplace fatalities that highlight a common issue: the critical role of training, hazard recognition, and collaborative safety leadership. The first incident involves a 20-year-old worker who died after becoming engulfed in a grain bin. While grain bin hazards are well known, Dr. French emphasizes that familiarity can create overconfidence, especially among experienced workers. He discusses the importance of ensuring employees truly understand the risks rather than assuming prior knowledge and stresses the need for rescue equipment, emergency planning, and community outreach to equip...
Episode 209: Ethical Voice
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, Dr. Mark French explores an often-overlooked leadership skill: ethical decision-making. Rather than focusing on major ethical failures, this discussion examines the small, everyday moments where leaders decide whether to speak up, look the other way, or take action.
Drawing from a recent Journal of Applied Psychology article, Dr. French discusses the concept of "sharing as ethicizing"—the idea that discussing workplace ethical dilemmas with trusted family members or close confidants strengthens our willingness to act ethically at work. Those conversations help clarify ou...
Episode 208: The Dark Triad
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores the concept of the Dark Triad of personality—narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy—and examines how these destructive personality traits can undermine leadership effectiveness and workplace safety.
Drawing from organizational psychology research, Dr. French explains that while these traits may occasionally produce short-term results, they ultimately erode trust, silence employees, and create environments where safety and ethical decision-making suffer.
The episode begins with narcissism, highlighting leaders who believe they always know best, dismiss employee input, and quickly shift blame when...
Episode 207: Empathy vs Ego
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French reflects on a recent verbal de-escalation training experience and shares key lessons that extend far beyond conflict management. The training focused on how workers who interact with the public can safely navigate tense situations, recognize potential dangers, and communicate in ways that reduce rather than increase conflict.Â
One of the biggest takeaways was the importance of practice-based learning. Dr. French emphasizes that effective training is not simply about transferring knowledge through lectures—it must provide a safe environment where participants can ask questions, make mistakes, rec...
Episode 206: Proper Protections
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety Podcast, Dr. Mark French examines two tragic workplace fatalities that highlight the critical importance of hazard recognition, machine guarding, emergency preparedness, and personal accountability in safety leadership.
The first case involves a bakery employee who was fatally pinned between a malfunctioning conveyor and a stainless-steel collection tray. Dr. French explores how seemingly routine equipment issues can become normalized over time, leading workers to repeatedly perform unsafe tasks such as clearing jams without properly de-energizing equipment. He discusses the dangers of "normalization of deviance," where workers become comfortable...
Episiode 205: Visible Safety
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, host Dr. Mark French explores the nuances of organizational risk management and seasonal workplace dangers .
Balancing Public vs. Employee Safety
Dr. French begins by discussing two uncommon, nearly identical workplace fatalities occurring within the same week at typical lumber and home goods stores across the United States, where employees were crushed by unstable lumber stacks . He notes that while these stores present highly visible, strict safety protocols to the public—such as using flaggers and gating off active forklift areas—this standard does not alwa...
Episode 204: TN Safety Conference 2026
In this episode of Leading and Learning through Safety, Dr. Mark French reflects on his recent experience at the Tennessee Safety Conference in Nashville, a premiere event he has attended for numerous years. As a multi-time speaker, he emphasizes the high caliber of research and expertise shared at the conference, noting the value of learning from those who live these safety experiences daily.Â
Leadership: Competence and Commitment
The core of Dr. French’s talk centered on the leadership principle of "meeting people where they are". He introduces a framework focused on two...
Episode 203: Changing Behaviors
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety Podcast, Dr. Mark French explores how leaders can turn good intentions into real behavioral change in the workplace. Drawing on research from the December 2025 issue of the Consulting Psychology Journal, the discussion focuses on practical, evidence-based strategies for helping people move beyond simply understanding safety practices to actually applying them consistently.Â
At the center of the conversation is the “Three E’s” model of behavioral change: Enlighten, Encourage, and Enable. Enlightening people is the first step—providing knowledge, awareness, and the rationale behind a policy or proces...
Episode 202: Real Safety
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French examines a tragic news story out of Michigan involving two young workers who lost their lives due to hydrogen sulfide exposure while performing well maintenance. What initially appears to be a confined space incident reveals something deeper: a failure of basic training, hazard recognition, and rescue preparedness.
The workers were using hydrochloric acid to descale a residential well located beneath a porch — a clear permit-required confined space. The chemical reaction likely produced hydrogen sulfide gas, a highly toxic and deadly substance. One worker entered the we...
Episode 201: Learning Matters
In this episode of Leading & Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores new research from the February 2026 Journal of Applied Psychology examining how safety training contributes to workplace safety. The featured meta-analysis reviews numerous studies to evaluate the true impact of safety training on knowledge, skills, attitudes (KSA), and overall safety outcomes.
Dr. French reflects on one of the most persistent challenges in safety leadership: making regulatory training meaningful. Using hazard communication as a practical example, he discusses the difficulty of keeping repetitive, compliance-driven content engaging—especially for long-tenured employees who hear the same material year after ye...
Episode 200: Storytelling
This episode explores storytelling as a powerful driver of safety, learning, and meaning at work. Drawing on academic research and real-world examples, the discussion explains how personal stories—especially near-misses and close calls—can overcome the “it won’t happen to me” mindset that undermines risk awareness.
Key themes include:
The difference between storytelling for entertainment vs. storytelling for impact (poignancy)Why timing, setting, and psychological safety matter when sharing experiencesHow vulnerability and empathy make safety messages memorable and meaningfulThe leadership role in being present, listening, and inviting stories—without forcing themWhy safety culture is built less through...Episode 199: Re-humanizing the Organization
In the first episode of Leading & Learning Through Safety for 2026, Dr. Mark French explores a challenging but critical topic: organizational dehumanization and its direct impact on leadership, safety, and human dignity at work. Drawing from a December 2025 Journal of Applied Psychology article titled “Seeing the Good in the Bad: A Self-Affirmation Model for Organizational Dehumanization,” the episode examines whether any redeeming outcomes can exist in workplaces that treat people as numbers rather than humans.
Dehumanization often shows up subtly—viewing employees as spreadsheet entries, productivity metrics, or cost centers instead of people with autonomy, competence, and em...
Episode 198: Communication
In this end-of-year episode of the Leading & Learning Through Safety Podcast, Dr. Mark French reflects on seasonal safety challenges and why December consistently brings unique risks to the workplace. While safe driving remains a recurring concern due to holiday scheduling, distracted motorists, and increased roadside work, Mark places special emphasis on a rising and more troubling trend: workplace violence.Â
This time of year heightens personal stressors—family pressures, financial strain, holiday demands—and those stressors inevitably enter the workplace. Mark discusses how normal disagreements can escalate into severe incidents when tensions are already high...
Episode 197: Unwinding from Work
In this episode of the Leading & Learning Through Safety Podcast, Dr. Mark French explores the psychological importance of the home-to-work transition (HWT) — the intentional process of mentally and physically unwinding after a workday. Drawing from a recent article in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, Mark examines how continuous activation of stress systems throughout the workday requires a deliberate unwinding process to maintain long-term wellbeing.
Mark reflects on his career as a frontline safety professional, often serving as the lone point of responsibility for a 24/7 operation. He highlights the reality many safety leaders face: constant av...
Episode 196: Cultural Building Blocks Part 2
In this episode of the Leading & Learning Through Safety Podcast, Dr. Mark French continues his exploration of how organizational culture is built through both action and inaction. Drawing from research published in the Consulting Psychology Journal (APA, Sept. 2025), he highlights that while values are abstract, culture becomes real through observable practices—what people actually do every day.
Mark explains that every organization operates within three behavioral zones: actions that align with values, actions that work against them, and inaction, where leaders or teams choose to do nothing at all. He connects th...
Episode 195: Cultural Building Blocks Part 1
In this episode of Leading & Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French dives deep into one of his favorite topics—organizational culture—and how emotional intelligence shapes the environment where people truly thrive. Drawing from research published in the Consulting Psychology Journal, Mark explores the concept of an EI-supportive organizational culture and unpacks what it really means to live out corporate values instead of merely displaying them on paper.
Through his signature “garden analogy,” Mark illustrates how culture, like a plant, flourishes only when the environment provides nourishment, care, and room to grow. He breaks down the rese...
Episode 194: A Tale for Training
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety Podcast, Dr. Mark French takes a deep and heartfelt look at lone worker safety—a topic that tragically resurfaces too often in today’s workplaces. Inspired by a recent real-world incident where a lone distribution worker lost their life after a stack of boxes collapsed, Mark explores how training, resource constraints, and unrealistic productivity metrics can intersect to create deadly conditions.
He reflects on the delicate balance between efficiency and safety—how metrics like trailer “cube-out” levels, while intended to drive performance, can quickly become dangerous...
Episode 193: Inspect What You Expect
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores the timeless leadership principle of “inspect what you expect,” rooted in the lean concept of gemba—going to where the work is actually done. Safety and lean thinking should be natural partners, but too often leaders set expectations without validating them through presence and follow-up.
Mark recounts observing a construction crew working without proper PPE, despite safety glasses being available. One worker wore them on the back of his head, another tossed new ones aside after seeing no one else using them. This real-world exampl...
Episode 192: Better Information
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety Podcast, Dr. Mark French explores how occupational fatalities and serious injuries are often underreported—or poorly reported—by the media. He emphasizes that every worker who leaves for the day but does not return home deserves more than a passing mention in the news. Instead, incidents are too frequently summarized through obituaries or crowdfunding pages, leaving little information for professionals to analyze, learn from, and use to prevent future tragedies
Dr. French highlights several recent cases: a young father fatally injured in a meat processing faci...
Episode 191: It's the Law
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French shifts focus from technical safety to the broader issues of mental health, organizational justice, and fairness in the workplace. September marks International Suicide Prevention Month, and Mark emphasizes the importance of recognizing that mental health is real, even if invisible, and that everyone’s story matters.
He critiques inconsistent workplace practices through a case study involving alleged violations of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, FMLA, and Pump Act at a national grocery chain. The story illustrates how poor management decisions, inconsistent policy application, and lack of...
Episode 190: Meaningful Safety Experience
In this episode of Leading & Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores the intersection of meaning, leadership, and generational diversity in the workplace.
Drawing from his leadership training experiences, Mark reflects on the importance of making safety training meaningful to individuals. He explains that without personal relevance, training often fails to influence behavior. A powerful story from early in his career illustrates how meaning can shift when context changes—what once felt pointless gained value when reframed as building a shared vocabulary.
Mark then connects this concept of “meaningfulness” to genera...
Episode 189: Training for All
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French highlights the moral imperative of safety as a foundation for leadership. He emphasizes that prioritizing people’s well-being opens the door to empathy, innovation, and stronger organizational culture.
Recent safety incidents underscore persistent risks. Roadway accidents—particularly during summer travel—remain frequent, reminding us of the dangers of distracted or inexperienced driving. Dr. French shares a personal reflection as his 17-year-old prepares for independent driving, noting both the risks of injury and the lifelong consequences of liability. He encourages listeners to remind novice and distracted driver...
Episode 188: Safety Success
This episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety shares a rare and inspiring safety success story from rural Kentucky. A 68-year-old farmer became trapped in soybeans inside a grain bin — a dangerous, permit-required confined space. Such incidents, often unreported in family farming, have historically caused fatalities, especially among youth. In this case, the local volunteer fire department, equipped with a “turtle tube” grain bin rescue device, performed a flawless rescue.
The equipment, donated by the Graves County Farm Bureau and local agricultural businesses, works by isolating the trapped person from surrounding grain, reducing crushing pressure and allowing safe r...
Episode 187: Hazards and Risk
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores the tragic consequences of neglecting workplace safety through the lens of a devastating explosion at a biofuels plant in Nebraska. The explosion killed a 32-year-old employee and his two young daughters, who were waiting at the site to go to a doctor’s appointment. The incident highlights the very real and human cost of safety failures—not just for workers, but for entire communities.
Mark reflects on how preventable the event was, citing past OSHA violations and air quality complaints indicating excessive wood dust esca...
Episode 186: Training for All
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, Dr. Mark French revisits the foundational topic of adult learning in the workplace, particularly in the context of safety training. He reflects on his own journey from nervous novice to experienced trainer, emphasizing how repetitive safety topics must still be delivered meaningfully to engage a diverse audience. Mark discusses the challenge of delivering impactful safety training to a mixed group—ranging from janitorial staff to office workers—with only a short window of time and broad regulatory requirements to meet.
He highlights the limitations of one-size-fits-all Powe...
Episode 185: Safety and Security
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, Dr. Mark French explores the increasingly blurred lines between safety and security, especially for field teams working in unpredictable public environments. Reflecting on a recent visit to a street lighting crew in a high-risk urban area, he shares his concern for worker safety amid uncertain external threats. Traditional safety protocols fall short in these contexts, and current de-escalation training—typically designed for healthcare or retail—doesn’t fully apply to field operations.
Dr. French discusses the challenge of managing safety in situations where workers may encounter homele...
Episode 184: Getting Rest
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, Dr. Mark French explores the critical link between psychological safety, rest, and physical safety in the workplace. Traditionally, safety professionals begin with physical safety as a foundation, but Mark challenges that order by highlighting emerging research suggesting psychological safety—particularly the ability to truly rest—is foundational to overall well-being.
Referencing a meta-analysis from the Journal of Occupational Psychology, Mark discusses how earlier studies indicated vacations often fail to provide adequate rest. However, newer research shows a positive trend: people are learning how to rest more effe...
Episode 183: Going Beyond
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, Dr. Mark French explores the contrast between managing people the easy way versus the right way. Sparked by a discussion with a fellow safety professional and the media’s coverage of the Texas floods, Mark reflects on how safety failures are often sensationalized, leading to blame instead of meaningful solutions. He argues that while it’s easy to point fingers and assign fault, true leadership requires deeper examination of systemic causes and cultural influences.
Drawing on insights from How to Win Friends and Influence People, he crit...
Episode 183: Summer Hits
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, Dr. Mark French highlights the urgent need for proactive summer safety measures. As temperatures across the U.S. reach dangerous highs, several tragic workplace fatalities have occurred—many directly linked to extreme heat. Dr. French emphasizes that summer comes every year and should never catch companies unprepared. He cites multiple real-life cases, including the death of a postal worker in Texas, a softball umpire in South Carolina, and a 17-year-old tree trimmer in Michigan—each underscoring the devastating consequences of poor safety planning and lack of supervision.
Be...
Episode 182: Summer Time.
The episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, hosted by Dr. Mark French, centers on the pressing issue of summer safety, particularly heat stress and seasonal workplace hazards. Dr. French emphasizes the growing concern over heat-related illnesses due to rising temperatures across the U.S. He highlights ongoing OSHA hearings aiming to implement enforceable standards around heat stress, including rest breaks, hydration, acclimatization, and emergency response plans. While some argue the proposed rules are a one-size-fits-all approach, French stresses that many companies already exceed these baseline protections—and that the real issue is often a lack of en...
Episode 181: Leadership Onboarding
In this episode, Dr. Mark French explores the importance of onboarding new safety professionals through a leadership-focused lens. Reflecting on his experience guiding a newly hired safety team member, he emphasizes that onboarding should go beyond teaching technical safety skills. The real value lies in mentoring new professionals on how to apply their knowledge through effective leadership and influence, rather than relying on authority.
Mark shares his personal leadership development journey and underscores that true leadership success is realized when one can help develop others into capable leaders. He explains that his approach centers around influence, empathy...
Episode 180: The Language of Safety
This episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, hosted by Dr. Mark French, explores the use of euphemisms in leadership communication. Inspired by a recent article from the Journal of Applied Psychology, Dr. French discusses how euphemistic language—used to soften or reframe harsh realities—can diminish the perceived severity of serious issues like fraud, negligence, or safety violations. While euphemisms can serve a respectful purpose, overuse may lead to reduced accountability and weaker corrective actions.
Dr. French warns against leaders defaulting to either extreme: being overly blunt and personal, or excessively soft and indirect. Both...
Episode 179: Listen More
In this episode, Dr. Mark French dives deeper into the psychology of listening, reflecting on how powerful it is to be truly heard—and the responsibility that comes with listening effectively. He explores how our personal biases, distractions, and assumptions can distort communication, and stresses the value of active listening, including recapping and confirming understanding to ensure clarity.
French highlights the importance of meeting people "where they are" in conversations, especially when emotions or urgency are involved. Drawing from a tragic safety incident in North Carolina, he shifts focus to or...
Episode 178: Listen to Hear
In this episode of the Leading and Learning Through Safety podcast, Dr. Mark French explores the critical role of listening in leadership, particularly within safety-focused environments. The episode opens with a reflection on how genuine listening is often overlooked yet essential to inclusive and effective leadership. Dr. French emphasizes that active listening fosters open communication, trust, and ultimately, safer workplaces.
He shares a personal story about his child’s long-standing eye issues, which were finally addressed when a provider truly listened—leading to a proper diagnosis and treatment. This moment sparked deeper reflection on how often concerns are...
