Be the Light
Here’s how you can become a brightly shining safety light in your organization.
“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.”
Light. We literally cannot live without it.
In addition to sustaining life, light can be used in various other ways, including helping us to see clearly and sanitizing unsafe conditions. That sounds a lot like what safety is all about, which means that safety professionals need to be the light. With that in mind, let’s discuss how you can become a safety light – one that shines brightly.
Light is Revelatory
When you lose something in the dark and then turn on a light, what you couldn’t see before becomes obvious. Put another way, what was always there can easily be found in the light.
The same is true with human factors, such as rushing, risk tolerance, overconfidence, distractedness and complacency. People are subject to inaccurate risk perception and unsafe behaviors. They make errors. But these factors are difficult to identify without light.
In your role as a safety leader, you can serve as the light by incorporating human factors discussions into job briefings and huddles. You can also use human and organizational performance (HOP) tools to manage controls and reduce errors. Start with the self-checking tool, remembering the STAR acronym: stop and think before performing a task, take action, and then review performance by comparing desired versus actual outcomes.
Light Helps Us Focus
Sometimes we use overhead lighting to see more broadly. When narrower lighting is required, we might use a flashlight. You can act as an overhead light by kicking off pre-job briefings with general discussion about the day ahead and the work to be completed. Then switch to flashlight mode, using two-minute drills to sharply focus crew members on the task to be performed. Consider how a football TEAM (Together Everyone Accomplishes More) huddles before every play and use that as a model. Huddles are a fantastic opportunity to use the HOP self-checking tool.
Here’s another opportunity to shine your safety light: use football TEAMs watching game film as a model for post-job briefings. Briefings must be ongoing, not singular events.
Light Purifies – If We Don’t Bypass Safety Protocols
With good intentions, people navigating their way through airport security often pick up their empty bins and stack them at the end of the conveyor belt. That’s a problem at many airports. Why? Because there’s an ultraviolet light situated at the end of the conveyor that cleans the bins. Light purifies, turning hazardous conditions into safe ones.
We can draw two points from this. First, you must be the light for your own personal safety. Don’t wait for someone or something else to protect you. Shine your light by identifying and mitigating unsafe conditions; too often we wait for those conditions to correct themselves or be corrected by others. And second, as with the airport bins, never circumvent safety procedures or disable or remove safety devices.
Light Burns
At the start of every summer, I tell my wife, “This is the year I’m going to get a darker tan than you.” She laughs because she knows it won’t happen. I burn and peel because sunlight is a hazard that can cause harm if you don’t protect yourself from it.
Be the light by using the hierarchy of controls to protect yourself from hazards. In this case, I would first opt to stay out of the sun. If that’s not possible, I’ll need to curb my exposure by going outdoors early or late in the day; limiting the time I spend in direct sunlight; finding shade; slathering on sunscreen (reapplying when necessary); and wearing a hat, sunglasses and adequate clothing.
Light Ignites
Kindling catches fire when you use a magnifying glass to direct sunlight onto it. In the same way, you can use your light to ignite your passion for protecting people and encouraging their growth.
Don’t hide your brightness. Shine your safety light from a hilltop for all your TEAM to see, a constant reminder to them that light sustains life. We never want to leave anyone on our TEAM – or ourselves – alone in the dark.
About the Author: David McPeak, CUSP, CIT, CHST, CSP, CSSM, is the director of professional development for Utility Business Media’s Incident Prevention Institute (https://ip-institute.com) and the author of “Frontline Leadership – The Hurdle” and “Frontline Incident Prevention – The Hurdle.” He has extensive experience and expertise in leadership, human performance, safety and operations. McPeak is passionate about personal and professional development and believes that intrapersonal and interpersonal skills are key to success. He also is an advanced certified practitioner in DISC, emotional intelligence, the Hartman Value Profile, learning styles and motivators.
About Frontline Fundamentals: Frontline Fundamentals topics are derived from the Incident Prevention Institute’s popular Frontline training program (https://ip-institute.com/frontline-online/). Frontline covers critical knowledge, skills and abilities for utility leaders and aligns with the Certified Utility Safety Professional exam blueprint.
Be the Light
January 14, 2026, at 11 a.m. Eastern
Visit https://ip-institute.com/frontline-webinars/ for more information.