Building Trust and Authenticity as a Safety Professional
Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of Safety Pro Weekly. I hope you had a great holiday season.
Authenticity is hard to define, but easy to recognize. You know it when someone has it, and you feel it immediately when they don’t.
Early in our careers as safety professionals, many of us feel pressure to fit a certain mold. We assume there is a “right” way to show up in the role, and we try to live up to an image of what a safety professional should be. Over time, this can pull us away from our natural strengths and, ironically, undermine the very thing we need most: trust.
Most safety professionals tend to drift toward one (or more) of these familiar roles.
The Expert
Can quote regulations chapter and verse
Relies heavily on legal or technical arguments
Often comes from a culture that values documentation over influence
May struggle to connect on an interpersonal level
The Enforcer
Focuses heavily on rule compliance, especially minor infractions
Has little interest in understanding why rules aren’t followed
Views safety as a matter of right and wrong
Often operates from a fear of losing authority
The Nice One
Hesitates to speak up, even when something is clearly wrong
Avoids confrontation at the expense of safety
Looks the other way on “small” issues
Feels caught between leadership expectations and frontline realities
The truth is, most of us have elements of all three. Each of these roles contains something useful, and none of them are inherently wrong.
The problem arises when we try to perform one of these roles instead of showing up as ourselves. When we lead from a place of inauthenticity, our message weakens. Trust erodes. Credibility suffers.
If you’re like most safety professionals, driven, conscientious, and hyper-responsible, it’s worth remembering this: no one expects perfection. What people do expect is honesty, consistency, and genuine care.
Authenticity doesn’t mean being casual or unprofessional. It means aligning what you say, what you believe, and how you act. When you do that, trust follows.
Here are four practical ways to build trust and credibility while bringing more of your authentic self into your safety work.
1. Understand the Work
You cannot make meaningful safety recommendations without truly understanding the work. Not at a surface level, but in detail, as it is actually performed.
That understanding only comes from spending time with the people who do the job every day.
Observe the work. Ask questions. Listen more than you talk.
Learn how the job is really done, not how it looks in a procedure.
Use curiosity to build credibility. No one expects you to know everything, but they do expect you to care enough to learn.
When workers see that you are making an effort to understand their reality, trust begins to form.
2. Communicate for Your Audience
Front-line workers and senior leaders process information differently. If you want your message to land, you must adapt how you communicate.
With front-line workers:
Use clear, practical, respectful language
Focus on how the safe way can also become the easy way
With senior leaders:
Speak in terms of risk, exposure, cost, and reputation
Connect safety issues to business outcomes
Authentic communication is not about saying the same thing to everyone. It’s about translating risk in a way that makes sense to the listener.
3. Be Consistent
Consistency is one of the fastest ways to build (or lose) credibility.
Apply standards fairly across all roles. If PPE is required in an area, it applies to everyone: the CEO and the new hire alike.
Your message must also be consistent in public and in private. If you don’t believe in the rule or expectation you are enforcing, people will sense it immediately.
And if you truly don’t believe in it, change it.
4. Learn in Public
Nothing damages credibility faster than pretending to have all the answers.
Strong safety professionals are willing to admit uncertainty, ask for input, and learn alongside others. When you invite people into the problem-solving process, trust grows.
Paradoxically, people trust you more when you are honest about what you don’t know.
Practical Takeaway
At the end of the day or week, ask yourself:
Did I listen more than I talked?
Did I understand the work before making recommendations?
Did I translate risk appropriately for my audience?
Did someone trust me with a real problem?
Safety work is built on trust and influence, not authority. Regardless of your title, credibility is earned through how you communicate and how clearly people can see that you care about what matters most: keeping workers safe.
That’s it for this week.
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Safety Pro Weekly is published every Tuesday on LinkedIn and Substack.
Cheers,
Dan
