I recently joined Safety+Health magazine’s “On the Safe Side” podcast (Episode 74) to talk about something most safety programs never put on a scorecard: trust. Not morale. Not culture in the vague, poster-on-the-wall sense. Trust, measured the same way you’d measure a near-miss or a lagging indicator – as something that either gets built on your crew or doesn’t, and shows up in whether people speak up before something goes wrong.
I built on this same theme on stage at the 2026 NSC Safety Summit in Baltimore in May. Here’s the short version of what I told the podcast, and what I dug into deeper on that stage.
What trust actually has to do with safety
Trust is the thing that decides whether a worker says something before an incident, or stays quiet until after one. Every safety program I’ve ever walked into already has the training. What it usually doesn’t have is an answer to a simpler question: if your newest crew member saw something unsafe right now, would they actually say it out loud, to the person who could do something about it?
That’s not a training gap. That’s a trust gap. And it’s the gap I spend most of my time on stage and in the room closing.
From buddy to boss: why new supervisors don’t speak up either
Here’s a pattern I see in almost every industry I work in, from utilities to construction to healthcare: you promote your best technician to foreman. Six months later, nobody on the crew wants to work for him, and he’s not speaking up to his own boss either.
We teach people how to do their jobs. We don’t teach people how to lead. So the newly promoted supervisor is still thinking like a peer. Yesterday he was the guy on the crew. Today he’s the one who has to tell his buddy something was done wrong, and nobody taught him how to do that without burning the relationship. He has no tools in his toolbox for it. So he either stays quiet, or he leads by threat instead of trust. Both cost you people, and both cost you safety.
The three pillars I build on: trust the training, trust the process, trust your people
This is the order it has to go in, and skipping a step is where most programs fail.
Trust the training. In the Air Force, nobody got into the cockpit without the training to back them up. If your crew doesn’t trust that the training actually prepared them, they won’t trust their own judgment in the moment that matters.
Trust the process. A process only works if people believe it was built for them, not against them. If your crew thinks the process exists to assign blame after the fact, they’ll work around it instead of through it.
Trust your people. Only after the first two are real can you ask people to trust each other and trust their leadership enough to speak up. This is the step that actually prevents the incident, and it’s the step everyone tries to start with.
The goal, every time, is simple: everybody goes home with 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 arms and 2 legs. I’ve heard that exact phrase from safety directors in three different industries. It’s not mine, it’s theirs, and it’s the clearest way I know to say what trust is actually for.
What this means for safety leaders and associations
If you run a safety program, a safety association, or you’re planning a conference and your members keep asking how to get people to actually speak up, this is the conversation worth having before your next event:
- Where in your organization did someone get promoted on tenure instead of readiness to lead?
- Does your crew believe the process was built for them, or built to catch them?
- If your newest hire saw something wrong today, who would they tell, and how fast?
Those three questions are usually a better diagnostic than another round of refresher training. It’s also the heart of my safety keynote.
Listen to the full conversation
I go deeper on all of this in Episode 74 of Safety+Health’s “On the Safe Side” podcast, where I also previewed my keynote at the 2026 NSC Safety Summit in Baltimore. Listen to the episode on SoundCloud or read the full show notes on Safety+Health.
You can find more of my conversations on the Podcast Appearances page, and the full framework in my book, No Fail Trust®.
Frequently asked questions
What is trust-based safety culture?
A trust-based safety culture is one where workers believe their training, their processes, and their leadership are built to protect them, not to assign blame after something goes wrong, which is what makes them willing to speak up before an incident instead of after one.
How does trust affect workplace safety outcomes?
Trust is what determines whether a worker reports a hazard, stops an unsafe task, or stays quiet. Programs that focus only on training or compliance without building trust often see the same near-misses repeat, because the missing piece isn’t knowledge, it’s whether people feel safe speaking up.
Why don’t new supervisors speak up about safety issues?
Most new supervisors were promoted for technical skill, not leadership training. They’re still thinking like a peer and haven’t been given the tools to hold their former coworkers accountable, so they default to silence or to leading by threat instead of trust.
Where can safety associations hear Jason O. Harris speak about this?
Jason discusses the value of trust in the workplace on Episode 74 of Safety+Health’s “On the Safe Side” podcast, and brought the same themes to the stage at the 2026 NSC Safety Summit in Baltimore. He’s available to bring this talk to safety associations and conferences directly – book Jason.
No Fail Trust Flight Companion Guide