Leading and Learning Through Safety
by Dr. Mark A French
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.
Episodes
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Episode 220: Adult Learning
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French continues the Back to Basics series by exploring how adult learning theories can help leaders introduce meaningful change while maintaining a sense of safety, security, and predictability in the workplace. Safety is more than...
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Episode 219: Safety Motivation
Change is essential for organizational growth, but why do employees often resist it, even when the change is designed to protect them? In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French continues his exploration of the fundamental definition of safety and its relationship to...
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Episode 218: Defining Safety
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French goes back to the fundamentals of safety, motivation, and leadership to explore a deceptively simple question: What does it really mean for people to feel safe? Using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a starting point, Mark...
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Episode 217: A Proactive Approach
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French challenges a common approach to measuring safety performance: relying on OSHA recordable injuries and other lagging indicators as primary measures of success. Using the simple example of water on the floor, Mark explains how...
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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....
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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…
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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...
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Episode 177 - TN Safety Recap
🎙️ Podcast Summary: Tennessee Safety Conference Recap & Lessons in Leadership In this episode, Dr. Mark French reflects on his experience at the Tennessee Safety Conference, highlighting both inspiring takeaways and sobering moments. A major segment featured Tennessee OSHA’s annual fatality…
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Episode 176: KY Legislation
A podcast discussion led by Dr. Mark French about new safety legislation moving through the Kentucky House. The conversation centers on two key legislative changes: State Plan Reversal: Kentucky’s OSHA program is under threat of being restricted to only enforcing standards that are as effective…
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Episode 175: Bridging the Gap
The podcast episode from "Leading and Learning Through Safety" hosted by Dr. Mark French focuses on the significance of ethics and values in safety leadership. Dr. French discusses how companies often face a disconnect between stated values and actual practices, leading to cognitive dissonance…
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Episode 174 - Ethical Decision Making
The podcast episode discusses the relationship between ethical decision-making and workplace safety. Hosted by Dr. Mark French, the episode explores how distance from the work environment affects ethical judgment in safety-related decisions. Dr. French references an article from the Journal of...
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Episode 173 - Mental Health and Safety
In this episode of Leading and Learning Through Safety, Dr. Mark French explores mental health as a workplace issue, sparked by a Professional Safety Journal article on mental health and suicide in construction. He emphasizes that while work doesn’t necessarily cause mental health struggles, it…
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Episode 172 - Abolishing OSHA
The podcast episode discusses a legislative proposal to abolish OSHA, introduced by an Arizona Congressman who argues that workplace safety should be managed by states and private employers rather than the federal government. However, similar efforts in the past have failed, and the speaker...
About this show
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.
Hosted by
Dr. Mark A French
Categories