The Stoic’s Guide to Resilience for Safety Professionals
Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of Safety Pro Weekly!
As safety professionals, we face constant pressure from all sides. Incidents, government inspections, pushback over production pressures and cost, lack of support, and sometimes more than anything, the emotional load of being responsible for preventing harm.
Many of us feel constantly overwhelmed, frustrated, or drained.
You’re blamed when incidents happen.
You face resistance when you ask people to work safely.
You often feel like you care more about safety than others.
Sometimes the most important characteristic of good safety professionals is sheer resilience in the face of all of these competing pressures.
One of the philosophies that I have found helpful in my reading is that of Stoicism.
Stoicism is an ancient Greek philosophy that teaches us to focus on the things we control, accept the things we can’t, acknowledge emotions without letting them dictate behaviour and live our lives according to our values, not our circumstances.
For safety professionals, Stoicism aligns perfectly with the job. Many of the challenges we face are unpredictable, out of our control and perhaps in no other field is there such a need to model calm, controlled leadership.
Lets look at some Stoic principles we can adapt to fit our role:
1. Control What You Can, Accept the Rest.
“Some things are up to us, and others are not.” - Epictetus
What Epictetus is getting at here is that while you can’t always control outcomes, you can control your own efforts to influence those outcomes.
You can influence behaviour, but you can’t force it. You can teach, coach, and lead to the best of your ability. You can control your preparation, communication, follow-up, and leadership presence.
Beyond that, you need to accept that things will not always go your way and fretting over that which you don’t control only wastes effort and detracts from the thing you do.
2. Respond, Don’t React.
“You have power over your mind, not outside events.” - Marcus Aurelius
It can be very easy given the pressure that comes with the job to react impulsively at times and either say the wrong things or make knee-jerk reactions that can be damaging in hindsight. As safety professionals, the stakes are too high to allow momentary emotions to influence your behaviour.
Instead, get in the habit of taking a brief pause before speaking, especially on an emotional topic. Often, asking a simple question to clarify another person’s point of view gives you the space to think clearly and puts the onus back on the other person to clearly and logically think through the problem.
Stoicism doesn’t ask you not to have emotions, but it challenges us to notice our emotions and reactions without being ruled by them.
3. Focus on Values Over Outcomes.
“Just that you do the right thing. The rest doesn’t matter.” – Marcus Aurelius
You can’t guarantee zero incidents.
What you can guarantee is consistency, honesty and leadership.
When safety professionals act with integrity by putting others first, doing what they say they will do and acting fairly and impartially, they set the tone for the entire safety culture of the business.
4. Practice Negative Visualization.
“What is unlooked for is more crushing in its effect. Unexpectedness adds the to the weight of a disaster.” – Seneca
Seneca may have been the world’s first risk assessment expert. If we expect the worst, we can only be pleasantly surprised when things go right.
By visualizing adversity ahead of time, Seneca was able to reduce fear, stay calm under pressure and not be blindsided by misfortune. This mental rehearsal allowed him to meet the challenges of the day with composure instead of panic.
Trying to anticipate what can go wrong is a big part of a safety professional’s job. Keeping potential hazards and risks top of mind allows us to prepare controls to combat them.
5. Reframe Challenges as Training.
“The obstacle is the way.” - Marcus Aurelius
Every conflict, pushback, or inspection failure is training for better leadership.
The key to this is to take time to reflect on the struggles you’re facing and look for the lesson. The most effective practice for turning obstacles into opportunities is daily journaling. Marcus Aurelius used this to great effect when he lead Rome through some of its darkest times. By writing down the events of each day and his personal reflections, he was able to make sense of the struggle and devise ways to learn from it and use difficult situations to his advantage.
Within every challenge you face lies the opportunity to become a better safety leader and a better person.
That’s it for this week, if you’re interested in learning more about Stoicism, I highly recommend the work of Ryan Holliday, an American author who has written extensively on Stoicism, including books such as The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, and Courage is Calling. You can check out his work here.
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Cheers,
Dan.
