You’ve seen this person on a job site. Maybe you’ve worked for them. Maybe (and this might sting a little) you’ve even been them.

This is what fear-based management looks like, and in a world built on tight deadlines, high stakes, and crews that have to trust each other with their lives, it’s more than just a bad vibe. It’s a safety problem.

What fear-based management looks like

This kind of management doesn’t always show up as yelling (although sometimes it does). More often, it’s more subtle: taking credit for the crew’s ideas, making people feel stupid for asking questions, or responding to mistakes with public humiliation instead of a real conversation.

The result? People stop asking questions, even the critical ones. They stop flagging problems. They start covering their own backs instead of having each other’s. And eventually, the good people stop calling you for work altogether.

The real cost

Fear-based leadership can have dire costs, including your crew’s safety.

When people are afraid of looking bad, they play it safe in the wrong ways. They won’t offer the idea that saves two hours of strike. They won’t tell you the motor is making a weird sound until it actually fails. They won’t say “I think we have a problem” during load-in when there’s still time to fix it. In a business where we work at height, with rigging, live power, and fast turnarounds, a culture of silence is how people get hurt.

Psychological safety, the belief that you can speak up, make a mistake, or ask a question without getting judged, criticized, or blamed, is essential. On a production set or in a venue, psychological safety is what makes someone feel safe enough to alert someone when something looks wrong.

Psychological safety doesn’t just save shows. It saves lives.

How to lead without fear

Be the person who explains the why. Crews work smarter when they understand the goal, not just the task. Give people enough context to do their jobs well and safely.

Normalize mistakes as information. When something goes wrong, don’t seek to place blame. Instead, ask questions that help you understand how the systems currently in place allowed this to happen. A mistake should be a teachable moment, where teams learn better processes for the future.

Give credit out loud. When someone on your crew solves the problem, say so. In front of people. It costs you nothing and builds the kind of loyalty that makes a crew want to bring their best every single call.

Ask for input before decisions are final. You don’t have to take every suggestion, and not all decisions will require input, but asking signals that you see the people around you as skilled professionals, not just hands. And when your crew knows their voice matters, they use it when it counts most.

The best leaders in this industry share something in common: their people want to work for them again. Not because the job was easy, but because they felt safe, respected, trusted, and like what they did mattered.

Thanks for reading! If this is our first time meeting, you can learn more about me and the work I do here.

Subscribe now

According to The Travelers Injury Impact Report, workplace injuries during a worker’s first year on the job have risen to 37% of all claims, resulting in more than 5 million missed workdays. The share of overall claim costs has climbed too, from 32% to 34% in just five years. A 2019 study backed this up, finding that new workers face an elevated risk of injury and calling for a stronger focus on hazard awareness, hazard protection, and worker empowerment from day one.

New workers don’t yet know the environment, the hazards, or the unwritten rules that experienced workers take for granted. And in fast-moving, high-stakes environments, their vulnerability is amplified. Recognizing this fact isn’t about doubting new workers. It’s about giving them a fair shot at doing the job safely.

So what can you do about it?

Take a page from the apprenticeship model

There’s a reason apprenticeships have been the traditional pathway into the trades for centuries. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, apprenticeships provide skills-based education that prepares workers for good-paying jobs while giving employers the opportunity to build a highly-skilled workforce. Employers who offer apprenticeships receive measurable returns by improving productivity, reducing turnover costs, and increasing worker retention, yielding 40% to 50% in investment gains.

The apprenticeship structure works because learning happens gradually, with guidance, and with safety woven into every step. New workers aren’t instantly thrown into the deep end; they build confidence and competence over time, under the watch of experienced professionals who model the right way to do the job. That way, safety practices are built into the foundation.

Onboarding that goes beyond paperwork

Not every company in the trades can run a formal apprenticeship program, but every company can adopt the same mindset. Too often, onboarding is treated as a formality, a stack of forms to sign before someone heads to the floor. But onboarding is where safety culture either takes root or doesn’t. A thoughtful onboarding plan doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need to be intentional.

Before a new employee’s first day, they should already understand the basic safety rules, how to properly use PPE, and what hazards exist in their specific workplace. On day one and beyond, starting each shift with a brief safety rundown and clear job expectations sets the tone. Limiting the scope of early assignments lets workers build confidence and competence in one area before moving to the next and reduces the risk of putting someone in a situation they aren’t ready for.

Two other elements are especially critical. New workers learn by watching, and who they watch matters enormously, so your first step should be to assign them a mentor who takes safety seriously. Pairing a new hire with someone who cuts corners sends one message; pairing them with someone who does the job right sends another. Second, make it clear from the start that speaking up about safety concerns is not just allowed, it’s expected and encouraged. A worker who feels empowered to say “something doesn’t seem right here” is one of your greatest safety assets.

Psychological safety is part of the plan

A new worker’s first priority is usually keeping their job. When you’re still proving yourself, speaking up can feel like a risk, especially if the workplace culture doesn’t actively counter that feeling. Psychological safety has to be built into how a workplace operates from the very first day a new employee walks in.

Building a culture where new workers feel safe to speak up requires more than telling them the door is open. They need to know specifically who to go to with a concern. They need to feel confident that they will be listened to, not dismissed or made to feel like they’re overreacting. Most of all, they need to see that something actually happens because their concern was taken seriously. Without that feedback loop, the message workers receive is that speaking up doesn’t matter, or worse, that it comes with consequences.

Investing in new worker safety isn’t just about avoiding injuries in the first few weeks. It’s about building the kind of workforce where safety is instinctive; where the worker you onboard today becomes the safety-minded mentor your next new hire learns from. That cycle starts with what you do on day one.

For more tips, please read my book “Uncorporate Leadership.” Now available on Amazon and through Barnes & Noble. Now available as an audiobook!

Buy my Book

Share

Subscribe now

In the trades, safety depends on clear communication, trust, and a willingness to learn. But when ego enters the picture, all three of those things begin to erode. Understanding how unchecked ego shows up in leadership and what to do about it can be the difference between a thriving crew and a dangerous one.

Below is a look at the three most common ways ego-driven leadership manifests on the job site, and the lasting damage each one causes. If any of it sounds familiar, there are also a few questions at the end worth sitting with.

Ego takes the credit

When a leader is driven by ego, personal recognition becomes the priority rather than the work itself or the team behind it. This shift quietly damages morale. Workers who feel their contributions go unacknowledged become disengaged, and disengaged workers are far more likely to make costly mistakes on the job.

A leader focused on self-interest also tends to be a poor listener. When someone is more concerned with how they’re perceived than with what’s actually happening on the job site, the voices of their crew stop registering. Over time, people notice. They stop speaking up, stop offering ideas, and start doing just enough to get through the day.

Ego assigns blame

When something goes wrong, a leader driven by ego looks outward for someone to fault. The consequence of this is significant: workers stop reporting problems. Near misses go unlogged. Hazards get overlooked. Nobody wants to be the one who raises their hand, so small issues grow into serious ones before anyone says a word. A blame-first culture not only hurts morale, it actively makes the job site more dangerous.

Ego grabs control

Micromanaging is a hallmark of ego-driven leadership. When workers aren’t trusted to do their jobs, innovation dries up and growth stalls. People stop sharing ideas because they’ve learned their input doesn’t matter. Empowerment requires a leader who can step back, and ego rarely allows for that. The result is a workforce that feels boxed in, underestimated, and checked out. High turnover follows, and with it, the constant churn of inexperienced workers filling roles they haven’t had time to learn fully.

These patterns don’t exist in isolation. Together, they build an environment where workers feel unsupported, undervalued, and unsafe, and where accidents become a matter of when, not if.

Is your ego in the driver’s seat? If you’re not sure what’s driving your leadership, ask yourself a few questions:

• Do you seek out other people’s opinions, even when they might prove you wrong?

• When no one acknowledges your work, do you feel angry or deflated?

• When you fail, do you look for the lesson or take it personally?

Strong leaders, as the saying goes, silence their egos to learn from their critics. In the trades, where the stakes of poor leadership are measured not just in dollars but in lives, that distinction is everything.

Thanks for reading! If this is our first time meeting, you can learn more about me and the work I do here. Be sure to click “Subscribe” in the upper right-hand corner so you never miss an issue.

We talk a lot about safety in our industry, but there’s a hazard that doesn’t show up on a job site checklist, one that can be just as deadly as any physical risk: the state of a worker’s mental health. Surveys show over 80% of tradespeople have dealt with anxiety, low mood, or work-related stress in the last year.

It’s all connected

Mental health doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In the trades, it’s tangled up with several other well-known occupational hazards:

Sleep deprivation. Long shifts, overnight calls, and irregular schedules are standard in many trades, including live events and entertainment production. But it’s about more than just being tired. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), being awake for 17 hours produces impairment similar to a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%, and staying awake for 24 hours is comparable to a BAC of 0.10%, which is above the U.S. legal driving limit. In short, a sleep-deprived worker is just as dangerous as an intoxicated worker.

Not only does chronic sleep loss impair judgment and reaction time, it also has a significant impact on one’s physical and mental health. Long-term sleep deprivation can lead to issues like anxiety and depression, memory problems, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and even diabetes.

Substance use. Whether it starts as a way to manage pain, decompress after a brutal week, or simply fit into a workplace culture, substance use is a recognized risk in the trades. It’s also deeply linked to untreated mental health struggles and can create serious safety hazards on the job.

Physical injury and chronic pain. The relationship between physical and mental health runs both ways. Injuries lead to chronic pain, loss of income, and isolation, which are all major triggers for depression, anxiety, and even PTSD. Up to 45% of chronic pain patients experience depression, and injuries often trigger long-term psychological stress, significantly lowering quality of life.

Financial stress. Gig-based and seasonal work means income insecurity is often a way of life for many trade workers, and it has major effects on their mental health. Financial insecurity is closely linked with depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders.

Safety culture isn’t complete without mental health

Real safety culture means addressing the whole worker. Not just their body on the job site, but their mind, their circumstances, and their ability to ask for help without fear. That means normalizing mental health conversations, training leads and supervisors to recognize warning signs, and making sure workers know what resources are available to them. That may sound intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be.

The organization Behind the Scenes, a charity that provides physical and mental healthcare grants to tradespeople in the entertainment field, recommends what they call a “Toolbox Talk.” I promise, it’s not another meeting, just a few intentional sentences woven into the meetings and communications you’re already having, like a safety briefing, a production meeting, a department huddle, even an e-mail. The goal is to normalize the language of mental health and well-being in spaces where safety is already being discussed.

Getting started is a three-step process. First, identify the stressors relevant to your specific workplace, the meetings where this fits naturally, and the benefits you want to prioritize. Second, communicate; BTS provides sample language to help you get started, or you can craft your own. Third, spread the word, and encourage colleagues and partners at every level to join in the meeting.

Even a few sentences can make a measurable difference in employee confidence, community, and safety. When crew members hear their leads talk openly about mental health, it signals that asking for help is acceptable, and that signal can save lives.

Resources

If you or someone you know needs support, check out a few of these resources.

• I can’t recommend Behind the Scenes enough. As part of their mental health initiative, they offer resources around suicide prevention, substance use, and much more. There are even grants available for mental health counseling.

• The 988 Lifeline offers free and confidential help, 24/7/365. You can call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org

• FindTreatment.gov is a free, confidential, and anonymous resource for anyone seeking treatment for mental and substance use disorders in the United States.

• If you’re not sure where to start on your Toolbox Talk, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) offers free guides and presentations.

Mental Health Awareness Month is a good reason to start talking, but the need doesn’t go away in June. Mental health is a safety issue. It’s time we treated it like one

.