Inspire From Within
Does this sound familiar?
The business is expanding, demands are rising, and risks are creeping in. But you’ve got a solution— locked and ready to go. You’re confident this initiative will boost safety engagement, shift behaviours, and get the team thinking differently. But barriers exist: the annual plan is set, budgets are allocated, and your boss says there are no extra resources. You know safety demands agility—something the planning cycle doesn’t allow.
What are your options?
Budgets are tight, and extra resources are scarce. That’s what the Everyday Massive team heard again and again from top safety leaders last year. Like many we partner with, they spend time lobbying for resources, flexibility, and say. Ultimately, they want more influence.
The pandemic proved the value of health and safety teams. At the time, Everyday Massive partnered with one of the world’s largest organisations — over a million employees worldwide, all needing support to adapt safely and swiftly. Together, we delivered health and safety communications that saw real and immediate results. The success of the programs elevated the influence of this health and safety team in their company. And did additional budget, resources, and clout follow the delivery of such impactful work? Absolutely.
But you don’t need a pandemic to gain influence. Influence is a skill that can be taught so that everyday moments can have a massive impact. Our bespoke leadership programs include a range of influencing capabilities developed specifically for each organisation. Depending on the needs of a particular workforce, we help leaders at every level — frontline, people and executive — become more inspiring, engaging, collaborative, and importantly, influential.
THE WHY FOR INFLUENCE
Beyond securing budgets, bringing initiatives to life and ensuring you’ve got the people to deliver great safety outcomes, you might wonder what else influence can deliver?
To be honest, that all sounds pretty key to us, but we are living in times of great volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.
There are sometimes four generations of people in the one workplace — each generation experiencing its own preferences and nuances when it comes to communication, learning and engagement. Plus we have a workforce that’s bombarded with corporate messages, cynical about change and perpetually late to complete mandatory training. Essentially, if they don’t see the value or feel invested, they simply tune out — and hey, we get it.
This is where influence is a game-changer. It helps safety leaders connect, have meaningful conversations, and build trust—transforming safety from a compliance exercise into a shared responsibility. It shifts safety from a burden to an enabler, helping people do their best work and go home safe every day.
WHAT GOOD LOOKS LIKE
Influence isn’t about being the loudest or pulling rank. It’s about connection, credibility, and clarity. Influential leaders align safety with operational goals and communicate in ways that inspire action.
They listen first, making safety relevant by linking it to real-world challenges. Good influence is consistent—built through authentic interactions, not just one persuasive conversation. When influence is strong, safety leaders don’t fight for a seat at the table; they’re invited to it.
INFLUENCE IN ACTION
01 Storytelling
Facts and figures are important, but stories connect people to meaning. Effective safety leaders use storytelling to make risks, lessons learned, and safe behaviours more relatable. A well-told story can cut through noise and make safety feel personal rather than just another compliance requirement.
As an example, let’s say your company just saw a 12% jump in productivity. On the surface, it looks like a strong quarter, but you know there's a direct correlation to the new traffic management system. Clearer walkways, better signage and stricter rules to prevent shortcuts. The result? Fewer incidents and near-misses, less downtime, and faster, more efficient movement across the warehouse.
That 12% boost didn’t happen by chance. It happened because when safety improves, so does performance.
02 Active Listening
Influence starts with understanding. Great safety leaders don’t just talk; they listen — deeply. They ask open-ended questions, reflect back what they hear and ensure people feel heard. You can’t tell a great story with just facts and figures — you also can’t make informed safety decisions with data alone. Numbers highlight the problem, but real conversations uncover the why.
We love the TEDS framework for being more open-ended when asking about matters of safety and wellbeing — Tell me about, Explain to me, Describe to me, Show me how. When people trust that their concerns and ideas are valued, they’re far more likely to engage. Plus, when you get to the heart of an issue, you can design safety initiatives that actually solve the problem. And because they’re built on real insight, they’re far more likely to succeed, increasing your influence.
03 Adapting communication styles
Not everyone responds to information in the same way (remember all those generations working together?). Some people need data, others need visuals, and some just want the big picture or the ‘must do’.
Let’s say you’ve rolled out a new near-miss reporting process. Data and frontline feedback told you complexity was a major barrier, so you designed a system that makes reporting easier than ever. You’ve done everything right.
But after launch, only half the workforce is using it. The reality is, the other half might be willing to use the system, but they haven’t got the message.
The issue isn’t participation — it’s communication. People absorb information differently. A one-size-fits-all approach won’t cut it — for the frontline or executive level.
To influence people's attitudes, you need to layer communication and tailor it to your audience, reinforcing the message in different ways. Your ideas might be game-changing for the organisation, but if they don’t reach the right people, they’ll never have the impact they deserve.
A final thought
As workplaces strive for better safety, influence in leadership matters more than ever. Regulations set the foundation, but influence determines whether safety is truly embraced.
After nearly two decades working with influential leaders, we’ve seen that the best safety leaders don’t enforce safety from above—they inspire it from within.
A version of this blog was originally written by Chief Strategy Officer Jess Daly, edited by Sally Coates, and published in the March/April 2025 edition of Safeguard magazine, New Zealand’s largest WHS publication.
