When I started my doctorate, I wanted to bring more academic rigour to my work as a health, safety and wellbeing professional. I wanted to understand the relationship between safety leadership and safety performance, contribute something useful to the workplace, and continue my own learning.
What I hadn’t fully appreciated was how much the process would turn the questions back towards me.
How was I interpreting the numbers? What assumptions was I bringing to a conversation? Was I listening to understand, or waiting to offer my own view? And when someone challenged my work, why did it sometimes feel like they were challenging whether I belonged?
Looking back, the doctorate changed more than my knowledge of safety leadership. It changed how I approach problems, engage with workers and respond when things don’t unfold as expected. It also helped me see that becoming a reflective practitioner isn’t something I can tick off as complete.
It is something I need to keep practising.
Looking beyond the direction of the graph
Earlier in my practice, I looked to lost time injury (LTI) and medical treatment injury (MTI) numbers, alongside recorded safety conversations, to understand whether things were improving or getting worse.
Those numbers mattered. They still do. But the doctorate helped me become more careful about what I thought they were telling me.
Learning more about Poisson regression drew my attention to the characteristics of injury-count data: non-negative integers, often with many periods where no injuries were recorded. My thesis also used negative binomial regression to examine changes in safety performance metrics. This pushed me to consider the data and the analytical assumptions, rather than simply choose a familiar way of comparing results.
The practical change was in the questions I asked.
Was the apparent movement meaningful? What could I reasonably infer from it? What else did I need to understand before calling it an improvement or deterioration?
I became less comfortable treating the direction of a graph as an explanation in itself. Greater analytical capability did not give me greater certainty about every result. In some ways, it made me more aware of where certainty was not justified.
Questioning “that’s how we’ve always done it”
This learning also shifted my perspective on chasing Zero and on incentives tied dogmatically to lost time injury frequency rates (LTIFR).
It gave me a stronger basis to challenge the default use of LTIFR incentives, particularly when the explanation was that this was how the business had always measured or rewarded performance.
I now want to understand the purpose. Why this measure? What does it reasonably tell us? Why is it an appropriate basis for an incentive?
For me, questioning the pursuit of a zero count is not the same as accepting that people should be harmed. It is about distinguishing the aspiration to prevent harm from the achievement of a numerical result. I am less willing to assume that meeting a target gives us a complete account of how safely work is being carried out.
There are also people behind those numbers.
That sounds obvious, but it is an important reminder when the discussion centres on a rate, a target or a comparison with last year. My doctorate strengthened my interest in the underlying stories and experiences, not only the movement of the measure.
The stories changed what I saw in the numbers
The focus groups and interviews complicated my initial interpretation of the data.
Workers’ accounts helped paint a picture of what the numbers meant in the reality of their work. They were not simply useful illustrations to add to the quantitative results. Sometimes they challenged the story I thought the numbers were telling.
Leadership conversations were one example.
Leaders getting out into the business could be experienced as box-ticking or tokenism, rather than as an expression of care and empathy. That made me question what the recorded conversation count actually demonstrated.
It could tell me that an interaction had been recorded. It could not tell me whether the worker felt listened to, whether the conversation helped anyone understand the work, or whether anything useful followed.
The number alone became less important to me than the quality of the interaction.
In my thesis reflections, I described learning to appreciate the depth that qualitative accounts brought alongside the breadth of quantitative evidence. That remains a useful way of thinking about it. I did not need to choose between numbers and stories. I needed to understand what each could contribute — and be willing to reconsider my interpretation when they did not fit neatly together.
Asking what we are actually trying to achieve
Another change has been slowing down the move from a workplace problem to a proposed solution.
I ask more questions now. What are we trying to solve? Why does it matter? What outcome do we want?
Clarifying the intended outcome gives me something against which to assess an intervention. Does the proposed approach actually address the problem? Is there a clear connection between what we plan to do and the result we want?
This reflects something I wrote in the thesis: becoming more considered about the “why and how” of an intervention, rather than jumping immediately to what would be implemented.
I also return to the intended outcome after implementation to assess whether the intervention worked. Completing the activity is not the same as achieving its purpose.
When the result is different from what we intended, I use an after-action review approach:
What was intended?
What actually happened?
What worked, and what didn’t?
What would we do differently next time?
For me, that is where evaluation and reflection come together. The result is not just a verdict on the intervention. It is something to learn from.
Work doesn’t stay still while we study it
Of course, describing that process makes it sound tidier than it often is.
Work is messy.
During my research, contracts ended, new contracts commenced and changes occurred within the senior leadership team. Workgroups operated in different client and industry settings. The organisation continued to change while I was trying to understand it.
I could not hold the workplace still, introduce an intervention and assume that everything afterwards was a consequence of what I had done.
That matters beyond the research methodology. It reflects the setting in which I practise.
A clearly defined outcome does not guarantee a straightforward path towards it. I still need to understand what else is happening, how people experience the approach and whether the original explanation of the problem remains useful.
Workers’ accounts reinforced this. Something that looked clear in a measure or a plan could become more complicated when discussed with the people doing the work.
I have not responded by abandoning planning or evaluation. I have become more interested in connecting them with ongoing inquiry. What are we noticing? What has changed? What do we need to reconsider?
The challenge is to act with purpose without holding so tightly to the plan that I stop seeing what the work is revealing.
Reflection can change the next step, not just the next project
One account from the research made this practical.
A participant described a team moving furniture using a company ute. The task was taking too long, and lifting the furniture onto the ute required a height they considered less safe. They reconsidered the approach and changed to a tractor with a lower-based trailer.
The participant reported that the change reduced the lifting height, allowed them to move more furniture and made the task more time-effective. They implemented the revised approach immediately.
This was informal review during the work, rather than a formally documented after-action review. That distinction matters, but it does not diminish the practical connection between noticing a difficulty, reconsidering the method and changing what happened next. The benefits were reported by the participant, not independently quantified.
Across the research project, 19 completed after-action reviews were also shared with me. They generated learning about planning and scheduling, weather considerations and preventative equipment checks.
These examples remind me that reflection does not always require a lengthy exercise after everything is finished. It can inform the next step while work is underway.
They also remind me to distinguish between identifying an improvement, implementing a change and demonstrating its effect.
Starting with the work, not my safety message
These insights changed how I interact with workers and how I coach leaders.
I start by trying to understand the work:
What are people doing?
What did they consider when planning and carrying it out?
What makes the work difficult?
How could the business improve outcomes for them?
From there, I focus on what could go wrong, particularly what could kill someone. What critical controls are in place to prevent that? How do people know those controls are effective?
The sequence is important to me. I want to understand before offering my interpretation.
When a difficulty or ineffective control is identified, I encourage leaders to work with workers on possible solutions. Where they can act, commit to action. Where the solution needs support beyond their authority, advocate for it and follow up.
The conversation should be an opportunity to understand and support the work, not simply another activity to record.
“We’ve raised this before”
Throughout my career, I have heard workers say:
“We’ve raised this before and nothing happened, so we stopped raising it.”
That statement has stayed with me.
It makes me question what silence means. For those workers, not raising another concern did not necessarily mean the problem had disappeared. They described reaching a point where they no longer saw value in continuing to raise it.
When I hear this, I acknowledge their frustration and apologise that this has been their experience. If it is the first time I have personally heard the concern, I explain that while recognising it may not be the first time they have raised it.
I then commit to investigating and getting back to them with whatever insight I uncover.
I am not promising a solution before I understand the issue. I am committing to pursue it and respond.
That follow-through has become central to how I understand meaningful leadership engagement. Listening matters, but so does what happens after the conversation.
Making room for people I might otherwise miss
This has also made me more deliberate about worker voice.
I distinguish between whether people feel able to speak and whether they believe speaking will make a difference. My concern extends beyond safety concerns to the ideas and creativity we may never hear if people stop contributing.
I seek input from people who are less likely to speak or who remain silent in the room. This includes paying attention to opportunities for young workers, women and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to contribute, without assuming that everyone within those groups has the same experience.
I gently encourage insights early in a session and usually go around the group before closing to offer another opportunity. I also try not to share my perspective until others have had a chance.
That last part requires some work on my side.
When the room goes quiet, I want to fill the silence. I might speak, offer an answer or crack a joke. I interrupt that urge by focusing on my breathing or counting to ten.
It is a small practice, but it makes listening more concrete. I am not simply asking others to contribute. I am managing my own impulse to take the space back.
When feedback felt like a judgement of me
The doctorate also brought a discomfort I found harder to manage.
In the thesis, I described external review as humbling and constructive. Looking back, that does not fully capture what it felt like.
At times, I experienced critique of my work as questioning whether I was worthy of undertaking the doctoral journey. It brought up feelings of being an imposter. Did I belong here? Was I capable enough?
My initial response was to withdraw. In fact, I ghosted my academic supervisors for almost 6 months.
However, with my supportive supervisors, I returned to the feedback and wrestled with it. We worked through what was being questioned, what needed attention and how I could reach a better understanding and final outcome.
That experience changed how I receive feedback.
I have learnt that constructive criticism of my work is not a judgement of my worth as an individual. I can sit with it. I do not have to immediately defend myself or make the discomfort disappear.
I now come to think of this as holding feedback with open hands.
I can take it seriously without holding it so tightly that it becomes inseparable from how I see myself. That leaves room to consider what is useful, what needs clarification and what I might need to change.
I would not claim that critique has become effortless to receive. But I have matured in how I engage with it.
There is a connection here with allowing silence. In both situations, I am learning that discomfort does not have to determine my immediate response. Staying engaged can make room for something I would otherwise miss.
Remembering that I am part of the setting
Being an insider researcher gave me contextual knowledge, but it also meant I was part of what I was studying. My thesis recognised both the value of that familiarity and the potential for bias.
That remains relevant to my practice. Knowing the business does not mean my explanation is necessarily the best one. I need to consider accounts that challenge my expectations, including those that question practices in which I have been involved.
The doctorate also required me to explain my reasoning more clearly. I reflected in the thesis on improvements in the clarity and effectiveness of my writing and the benefits for my professional practice.
Experience still matters. But it does not remove the need to explain how I reached a conclusion or remain open to another interpretation.
I do not need to stand outside the messiness of work to contribute. I do need to recognise that I am part of it.
Tentatively seeing authentic safety leadership in practice
These reflections also help me revisit what I tentatively saw as authentic safety leadership.
My thesis explored safety leadership through four dimensions of authentic leadership: self-awareness, balanced processing, an internalised moral perspective and relational transparency. The qualitative findings connected these with accounts of care and empathy, relationships, collaboration and openness to learning.
I can now see connections between those dimensions and the changes I have described in my own practice.
Self-awareness becomes practical when I notice my urge to fill silence or recognise why feedback has prompted me to withdraw. Awareness does not automatically change the response, but it gives me an opportunity to choose.
Balanced processing connects with seeking quieter perspectives, holding back my initial view and allowing workers’ accounts to challenge my interpretation of the numbers. It also means considering feedback that I would rather not hear.
An internalised moral perspective connects with questioning whether established incentives serve a defensible purpose and keeping the people behind the figures in view. For me, it prompts a question about whether the decisions I support reflect the care I intend to demonstrate.
Relational transparency connects with acknowledging a worker’s experience, being clear about what I know and what I cannot yet promise, and taking responsibility for returning with an update.
The messiness of work gives these ideas their practical context. Their relevance is not that they provide an answer for every situation. They help me examine how I respond when the situation is uncertain or different from what I expected.
This has complicated what authenticity means to me. My first impulse is not always the response I want to enact. Sometimes acting consistently with my values requires me to interrupt that impulse, not express it.
I remain tentative about these connections. My reflections do not validate authentic safety leadership as a distinct construct or establish that my actions caused improvements in safety performance. The thesis itself identifies the idea as requiring further definition and validation.
What it gives me is a useful lens for examining the relationship between my values, my actions and how others experience them.
Intention is not the same as impact
This is an important boundary in the whole reflection.
I can describe how my approach has changed. That does not establish how workers experience it.
My commitment to follow up is not, by itself, evidence that someone experienced a meaningful response. Inviting quieter participants does not prove that everyone felt comfortable contributing. Allowing silence does not establish that every perspective was heard.
The same applies to interventions. An activity occurring, an outcome changing and an intervention contributing to that change are different claims. My thesis discusses the difficulty of assessing intervention effects amid organisational change.
Recognising the messiness should not become an excuse to avoid evaluation. It should make me more precise about what I know, what the evidence supports and what remains uncertain.
That includes being willing to hear that my practice was experienced differently from how I intended.
Still learning, still practising
My doctorate changed both the tools I bring to work and how I examine my use of them.
I am more capable of analysing safety data, but less willing to solely accept a target as a complete account of performance. I ask more questions before choosing an intervention and return to the intended outcome afterwards. I place greater importance on workers’ experiences, whose voices are missing and what follows a conversation.
I have also had to examine myself: my urge to speak, my response to criticism and the assumptions that come with familiarity and experience.
The doctorate has not led me to claim that I have become an authentic safety leader. It has given me a more considered way to ask whether the leadership I intend is reflected in what I do — and whether others experience it that way.
For me, becoming a reflective practitioner is not about finding a tidy answer to the messiness of work.
It is about working within that messiness without giving up on rigour, purpose or responsibility. Taking the work seriously, while holding my interpretations with open hands. And remaining willing to learn something that changes what I do next.