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- Leonardo’s Lesson: Harmony Begins With Observation
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Category Archives: Leadership
Earning Executive Influence: Six Lenses for EHS Innovation and Payback
What if your EHS team had to earn the business before it could earn the influence? EHS leaders frequently talk about wanting greater influence with executive management. We want to be involved earlier in business decisions, have operating leaders seek … Continue reading
Posted in Business Accumen, Career Skills, EHS Management, enterprise risk management, Innovation, Leadership, Leading at Scale, Sustainable Strategy
Tagged AI, Artificial Intelligence, business, business-value-of-ehs, EHS Management, ehs-innovation, ehs-leadership, ehs-management, ehs-strategy, executive-influence, news, Operational Risk Management, safety management systems, safety-leadership, technology
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If Everything Still Comes to You, You Haven’t Scaled Leadership
As leadership responsibility grows, working harder and staying involved in everything stops working. Drawing on experience scaling an organization from 15 to 300 people, this article explores how EHS leaders can multiply their impact through people, management systems, governance, delegation, digital tools, and AI—and build an organization capable of making thousands of good decisions every day. Continue reading
Posted in Business Accumen, EHS Management, enterprise risk management, Leadership, Leading at Scale, operational integrity
Tagged AI, Artificial Intelligence, EHS leadership, ehs-leadership, Enterprise Leadership, Leadership, Leadership Scale, operational excellence, safety leadership, safety-leadership, technology
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Leonardo’s Lesson: Harmony Begins With Observation
I have been reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo da Vinci, and it has caused me to think about leadership, observation, and the way human beings fit within the larger order of nature. Leonardo’s genius is obvious, but what interests me most is his method. He studied the world with uncommon curiosity. He observed water, light, motion, anatomy, plants, machines, and the human form with the discipline of both an artist and a scientist.
That is the inspiration for this article. Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man gives us more than an image of proportion. It offers a lens for thinking about harmony, structure, humanity, and the systems we live and work within. For leaders, especially in complex operating environments, there is a practical lesson here: observe deeply before acting, understand the pattern before changing the work, and make sure strategy survives contact with operational reality. Continue reading
Posted in Career Skills, EHS Management, Leadership, Personal Growth, Professional Skills, Sustainability Leadership
Tagged art, business, EHS, harmony in nature, history, Leadership, Leonardo da Vinci, manufacturing leadership, observation, organizational change, philosophy, regulatory integrity, safety leadership, safety-leadership, scientific method, sustainability, systems thinking, Vitruvian Man, Walter Isaacson
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EHS Data Analysis Heuristics: Turning Performance Data Into Better Decisions
By Chet Brandon EHS data is only useful when it helps leaders make better decisions and take timely action. Incident reports, corrective action records, hazard observations, audit findings, injury data, exposure information, and corrective action trends all contain signals. The … Continue reading
Decision-Ready Information: The Modern Standard for Leadership in Complex Organizations
Organizations are drowning in information and starving for judgment.
My latest article on LeadingEHS.com explores the concept of decision-ready information and compares it to the classic management discipline of completed staff work.
The core idea is simple: leaders do not need more dashboards, alerts, reports, or raw data. They need information that has been interpreted, contextualized, risk-ranked, and shaped into clear options and recommendations.
This discipline matters across EHS, sustainability, operations, cybersecurity, process safety, and enterprise governance. Whether we are dealing with AIoT signals, process safety data, ESG disclosures, or operational risk indicators, the challenge is the same:
-What is happening
-Why does it matter
-What could happen next
-What should we do?
Decision-ready information converts complexity into accountable leadership action. Continue reading
The Discipline of Space: What Miles Davis’ Music Continues to Teach Me
Leadership is a personal journey. Clarity, inspiration, and insight do not come only from books, meetings, metrics, or formal training. They come from many parts of life—music, art, reflection, relationships, struggle, and the quiet moments that help us see ourselves more clearly.
My recent article reflects on how Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue continues to teach me about restraint, space, discipline, focus, and renewal.
Sometimes the lessons that shape us most arrive from unexpected places. Continue reading
Posted in Leadership, Personal Growth, Personal Reflection, Professional Skills
Tagged Ahmad Jamal, All Blues, Apple Music jazz playlist, art and leadership, best jazz albums, Bill Evans, Blue in Green, classic jazz albums, creative leadership, creativity and discipline, discipline of space, emotional intelligence, finding focus through music, Flamenco Sketches, George Russell, jazz, jazz and personal growth, jazz history, jazz music, jazz playlist, John Coltrane, Kind of Blue, leadership lessons from jazz, Miles Davis, Miles Davis Kind of Blue, Miles Davis music, modal jazz, music, music and leadership, music and mindfulness, music that inspires, personal growth through music, reflective listening, reviews, safety-leadership-zen, So What Miles Davis, the power of restraint, Thelonious Monk, timeless music, writing
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Cyber-Physical Risk in the Age of AI: How Safety Professionals Help Directors Make Better Operational Technology Investment Decisions – Part 4
As the final article in this four-part series, Fay Feeney and I bring the conversation into the boardroom. Operational technology is no longer just an engineering concern—it is a governance test. As AI-enabled assets reshape industrial operations, directors are approving new risk profiles, resilience assumptions, and value-creation models. Continue reading
Posted in AI, Artificial Intelligence, EHS Management, enterprise risk management, Leadership, Machine Learning, Sustainability Leadership
Tagged AI, AI operational technology risk, AIOT Resilience Index, Artificial Intelligence, board oversight cybersecurity, business, cyber physical risk management, cyber-physical risk management, enterprise risk management OT, industrial cyber resilience, Leadership, operational technology governance, OT capital investment risk, OT cyber risk, safety professionals and cybersecurity, technology
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Leadership 101: Positive Leaders Have a Healthy Dose of Skepticism Too
One of the greatest pleasures of leadership is seeing those you lead succeed. The more success that occurs, the better the team does. However… in dynamic and complex situations things won’t always go as planned. The experienced leader is always … Continue reading
Posted in Business Accumen, Career Skills, Leadership, Leadership 101, Uncategorized
Tagged business, Leadership, philosophy, Politics, trust
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Embodying the Ideal: Rooseveltian Americanism and the Pursuit of National Unity
We, as Americans, and as a nation, are not fully living up to the revolutionary ideals upon which our republic was founded. This deeply concerns me, particularly the increasing cynicism among younger generations regarding our nation and their role in … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Leadership, Uncategorized
Tagged Culture, donald-trump, Governance, history, news, Politics, theodore-roosevelt, trump, unity, world-politics
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