Alive and Well at the End of the Day, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 1THE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE

Leadership commitment without capability won’t produce excellence.

— Plant Manager Van Long

What do I do to lead people to work safely? How do I manage safety performance? These are two of the most important questions every leader in business and industry needs to ask. But, asking is not enough: every leader in business and industry must have practical answers to these questions that can be counted on to work in the real‐life world of operations.

That is exactly why Alive and Well at the End of the Day was written. It’s a book about the practice of safety leadership, written for leaders in business and industry the world over.

CALLING ALL LEADERS

Who are the leaders in business and industry? What makes them leaders? In a book written on safety leadership, answering these two questions is the perfect place to begin.

Likely you’re a leader. You may hold a formal position of leadership: supervisor, manager, or executive. Normally, when you hear the term supervisor, it’s used to describe the front‐line supervisor. However, the definition of a supervisor is someone responsible for the work of others; in that sense the CEO and the plant manager are supervisors, too.

Yet, in practice, not every leader is a supervisor—and not every supervisor is a leader. There are always leaders who don’t hold formal positions in the ranks of management and supervision. There are leaders in staff organizations: safety leaders can usually be found in the Safety ...