AUTHOR | KEYNOTE SPEAKER | LEADERSHIP ADVISOR
EVERY LEVEL
HAS A
LEADER.
Leaders are found at every level of an organization. Safety is simply the lens we use to find them.
The Conviction
Programs don't keep people safe. Leaders do. And what a leader is — not just what they do — is what shapes whether everyone goes home tonight.
— Scott Gaddis
The Writing
Where the thinking happens.
Essays on leadership, culture, and the work of safety — drawn from nearly four decades on plant floors, in boardrooms, and on conference stages.
Featured Essay · 14 min read
Psychological Safety: The precondition for everything else.
Why a concept from a Harvard hospital study became the most important variable in occupational safety. A serious look at what Edmondson's research and the data on underreporting are actually telling us — and why every leading-indicator dashboard built on top of a low-safety-climate is reading from a partial deck.
Read the essay
9 min read
The chess bishop
On influence without authority, and the diagonal career of the safety practitioner. Why your effectiveness is determined more by the breadth of your relationships than the size of your team.
Read
The Books
A body of work.
Two published volumes tracing the journey from participation to partnership, and from partnership to practice. A third book — From Practice to Presence — is in development.
Book One · 2024
From Participation to Partnership
A Journey to Safety at the Front Line
Why traditional safety programs plateau — and what changes when leaders at every level stop managing safety and start owning it. Drawn from 35 years on plant floors across GE, Kimberly-Clark, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Coveris.
Book two · 2026
From Participation to Practice
52 Weeks of 5-Minute Lessons for Safety Leadership at Every Level
A full year of weekly leadership lessons — short enough to read before a shift huddle, deep enough to change how your team thinks about safety.
Foreword by Malcolm Staves, Global Head of Health & Safety, L'Oréal
Currently writing the third volume — From Practice to Presence: Why Good Leaders Still Get Safety Wrong — and How to Fix It. Releases 2027.
The Implication
Leadership isn't a title. It's a behavior. And anyone, anywhere, can choose it.
The Shop
Take the work further.
Companion workbooks for From Partnership to Practice. Instant PDF downloads for individuals, teams, and facilitators.
120 pages. Reflection exercises, journaling prompts, and action planning for all 52 weeks.
Discussion guides and group exercises. Purchase one copy per team member.
Session plans, discussion frameworks, and facilitation notes for leading a team through the 52-week programme.
Signed and personalized. Include your inscription at checkout. Shipped within two weeks.
Signed and personalized. Include your inscription at checkout. Shipped within two weeks.
Both volumes signed and personalized. One shipment.
On Stage
Bring Scott to your stage.
Keynotes and workshops for safety conferences, executive leadership teams, and operational leaders across manufacturing, pharmaceutical, energy, and construction sectors.
01 Lead Like a Bishop
How to drive safety change when you don't control the budget, the org chart, or the people.
02 The People Closest to the Work
The case for treating the safety profession as a craft worth honoring — and the leaders who make that possible.
03 Stop Performing Safety. Start Practicing It.
An honest indictment of the difference between safety as theater and safety as discipline — from someone who's done both.
04 Out of the Shadows
Why safety leadership fails when it operates at a distance — and what closes the distance.
05 Lead Them Out
The partnership challenge to senior leadership: safety is yours to lead, not yours to delegate.
06 The Algorithm Can't Walk the Floor
What AI changes — and what it can't — in safety leadership.
Custom keynotes and workshops also available — built around the conference theme and the audience in the room.
The Newsletter
Safety leadership
in your inbox, monthly.
One essay a month. New book releases. Upcoming stages. No noise — just the thinking I'd share with a colleague over coffee.
About
Nearly four decades
of walking the floor.
Scott Gaddis is Vice President & Global Practice Leader, Safety & Health at Intelex Technologies, where he is a senior leader within the EHSQ Center of Excellence.
His career began on shop floors and ran through senior leadership roles at GE, Kimberly-Clark, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Coveris — work that taught him to write for the people he met early. The ones who built things, ran lines, and went home at the end of the day.
That conviction is the spine of his writing, his speaking, and his advisory practice. Two published books, a third in development, and a growing collection of essays — all turning on the same idea: that leadership is a behavior anyone can choose.
2
Published books · third in progress
40
Years in EHS leadership
4
Fortune 500 companies led EHS for
50+
Keynotes and webinars delivered