Whitepaper: The Courage to Intervene | Developing Ethical Leadership in the Next Generation of Process Safety Professionals

May 2026 — by Chris Powell, PE, CFSE, Director of Engineering — As the process industries experience the “great shift change,” developing the next generation of leaders requires more than technical competence. It demands ethical courage and the ability to influence others to uphold process safety under pressure. This paper explores how ethical decision-making and leadership behaviors can be intentionally developed through structured case-based learning derived from real engineering failures.

Drawing on historical and modern examples such as the Flint Water crisis, the Volkswagen emissions scandal, and the Challenger disaster, the presentation examines the ethical breakdowns that preceded technical failures and identifies leadership behaviors that could have altered outcomes. Each case is used to highlight the moral obligations of engineers to “hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public,” and to show how ethical reflection builds the foundation for process safety leadership.

Although the work does not present traditional process safety KPIs, it proposes leading qualitative indicators of ethical maturity, such as escalation behaviors, adherence to safety values under duress, and psychological safety for dissent, as precursors to measurable safety performance. The paper outlines a practical framework for integrating ethics-based reflection into leadership development programs, helping organizations sustain process safety excellence even as experienced leaders retire.

Introduction

Several years ago, during final commissioning activities on a newly installed Burner Management System (BMS), a corporate safety leader made a decision that delayed startup and imposed significant additional cost. The original validation and commissioning activities had been completed, and from a strictly procedural standpoint, the project could have moved forward. However, upon internal review, it became clear that portions of the work had been executed under schedule pressure and did not reflect the level of rigor the organization expected of itself.

No regulation required the activities to be repeated. There was no formal non-compliance. Yet the corporate safety leader required that key validation steps be re-executed in full before the equipment was placed into service. The decision was met with understandable resistance. Project timelines were affected, operational plans were disrupted, and the financial impacts were real.

What distinguished the moment was not merely the decision itself, but how it was communicated. The leader explained publicly that safety-critical work should never be rushed, “pencil-whipped,” or accepted at a standard below what the organization would defend in hindsight. If the work was not done correctly the first time, it would be done correctly before proceeding. The message was clear. Safety was not a box to be checked, but a value to be upheld even when operational pressures pushed in the opposite direction.

For many younger engineers and professionals observing the situation, the lesson extended well beyond the technical. They witnessed a senior leader absorb cost and friction in order to align actions with the company’s principles. They saw that organizational values were not conditional on schedule convenience.

Moments like this illustrate an important aspect of ethical leadership in process safety. Ethical leadership is often demonstrated not when a decision is obviously unsafe, but when a leader recognizes and interrupts the early stages of normalization of deviation before reduced rigor becomes accepted practice.

As experienced leaders across the process industries approach retirement, moments like this raise an important question. What exactly are we at risk of losing? While much attention has been given to the transfer of technical knowledge and institutional memory, less attention has been paid to the transmission of ethical leadership. It is this visible modeling of values-aligned decision-making under pressure that this paper explores.

This paper argues that as experienced process safety leaders retire, the deliberate development of ethical leadership capability becomes increasingly critical. Organizations can strengthen process safety performance not only by preserving technical expertise, but by training, equipping, and empowering leaders to make and model decisions that protect life and the environment even when those decisions carry personal, organizational, or commercial cost.

Structural Transitions in the Process Industries

The decision described in the introduction illustrates how organizational values are ultimately expressed through leadership behavior. Moments where safety-aligned decisions carry visible cost help shape how engineers and operators understand what their organization truly prioritizes. However, the context in which these leadership behaviors are transmitted is changing.

Across the process industries, organizations are experiencing what is often described as the “great shift change,” as a large cohort of experienced engineers and operational leaders approach retirement. Much of the discussion surrounding this transition has focused on the transfer of technical knowledge. An equally important question concerns the transmission of leadership behaviors that shape process safety decision-making.

Experienced leaders often carry not only deep technical expertise, but also practical judgment developed through years of navigating operational pressure and technical uncertainty. As these leaders leave the workforce, organizations face the challenge of ensuring that both technical competence and leadership norms are sustained in the next generation.

Industrial operations inevitably function within environments where production targets, project schedules, and capital constraints compete with safety priorities. Major incident investigations repeatedly show that these pressures influence decision-making environments, particularly when technical uncertainty is present (Hopkins, 2012).

At the same time, organizational structures have evolved. Many companies operate across geographically distributed assets, rely more heavily on contractors and specialized expertise, and maintain leaner staffing models. These changes can improve efficiency, but they may also reduce opportunities for informal apprenticeship through which personnel historically learned how experienced leaders approached difficult safety decisions.

Taken together, these structural transitions do not imply that organizations today are less committed to safety. They simply highlight the importance of deliberately reinforcing the leadership behaviors that support sound safety decisions as experienced leaders retire and organizational complexity increases.

What Ethical Leadership Means in a Process Safety Context

Discussions of ethics in engineering are often framed in terms of professional codes and individual integrity. These principles are foundational, and most engineers readily agree that protecting the safety, health, and welfare of the public should guide their work. In practice, however, the ethical dimensions of process safety leadership rarely present themselves as clear distinctions between right and wrong. Instead, they typically emerge through routine operational decisions made under conditions of uncertainty, competing priorities, and incomplete information.

In many situations, the safest course of action is not immediately obvious. Engineering analyses may indicate that equipment can continue operating within acceptable limits. Procedures may technically have been followed. Operational momentum may favor continuing planned activities rather than revisiting earlier work. Under these conditions, individuals may not recognize that safety margins are gradually eroding, or they may feel uncertain about their authority to challenge decisions that appear already accepted. The result is that well-intentioned professionals sometimes make expedient decisions that appear reasonable in the moment, even if those decisions incrementally reduce the rigor applied to safety-critical work.

Over time, incremental compromises can reshape what an organization considers normal. Conditions that were once viewed as deviations may gradually become accepted practice, a phenomenon commonly described as normalization of deviation (Vaughan, 1996). As this occurs, safety margins may gradually erode without any deliberate decision to lower standards. Instead, the organization adapts to small departures from expected rigor until those departures are no longer perceived as unusual.

Within this environment, ethical leadership plays a critical role. Ethical leadership in process safety involves recognizing and interrupting the early stages of normalization of deviation even when doing so requires slowing work, questioning accepted assumptions, or absorbing operational cost.

The commissioning example described earlier illustrates this dynamic. The decision to repeat commissioning activities was not driven by regulatory non-compliance or a clear technical failure. Rather, it reflected recognition that the work had not been performed with the rigor expected for a safety-critical system.

Understanding ethical leadership in these operational terms helps explain why leadership behavior plays such an important role in sustaining process safety performance. The challenge facing many organizations is therefore not simply to employ individuals with strong personal values, but to ensure that leadership behaviors that reinforce those values are consistently demonstrated and supported throughout the organization.

How Ethical Erosion Occurs

Major industrial accidents rarely begin with deliberate misconduct or reckless disregard for safety. Instead, investigations consistently show that incidents emerge through a sequence of decisions that appear reasonable within the context in which they are made.

One mechanism through which this occurs is the gradual normalization of deviation. When small departures from expected standards do not immediately produce negative consequences, they can become incorporated into routine operations. As these departures accumulate, the boundary between acceptable practice and deviation becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish. The resulting decisions may continue to appear technically defensible, even as safety margins erode.

Operational momentum often accelerates this process. In complex industrial environments, work frequently proceeds under schedule commitments, production targets, and project milestones that encourage forward progress. Within such contexts, the most expedient decision may be the one that allows operations to continue without interruption. While these pressures are not inherently incompatible with strong safety performance, they can create conditions in which revisiting earlier assumptions or pausing work for additional verification becomes increasingly difficult.

Investigations into major incidents across the process industries reveal similar patterns. Events such as the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the 2018 explosion at the Husky Energy refinery in Superior, Wisconsin, and the 2019 fire at the Intercontinental Terminals Company facility in Deer Park, Texas demonstrate how technically defensible decisions made within routine operational contexts can gradually reshape assumptions about acceptable risk (Hopkins, 2012; CSB, 2018; CSB, 2019).

These examples illustrate a common theme: ethical erosion rarely occurs through a single dramatic decision. Instead, it develops through a sequence of technically defensible choices made within complex organizational environments. When operational momentum, incomplete information, and shifting expectations combine, the gradual normalization of deviation can make it difficult for individuals to recognize when safety margins are being compromised.

Under such conditions, ethical leadership becomes particularly important. Leaders who pause work to request additional verification, challenge accepted assumptions, or escalate concerns play a critical role in interrupting these dynamics.

Organizational Reinforcement of Ethical Leadership

Preventing ethical erosion requires more than relying on the judgment of individual leaders. Organizational systems and leadership signals strongly influence whether safety-aligned decisions are recognized, supported, or discouraged. While personal integrity remains essential, the environment in which leaders operate plays a significant role in shaping how safety priorities are interpreted during routine operational decisions.

Research on process safety leadership emphasizes that visible reinforcement from leaders is a critical factor in sustaining strong safety culture (CCPS, 2015). Employees continuously observe how leaders respond when safety concerns are raised, work is slowed, or additional verification is requested. These responses communicate powerful signals about what the organization truly values, particularly when safety decisions carry operational or financial consequences.

One important signal concerns how organizations respond when operational momentum is interrupted in the interest of safety. In environments where schedule performance and production targets dominate performance discussions, individuals may hesitate to question assumptions or request additional scrutiny. Conversely, when leaders demonstrate that raising concerns or pausing work will be supported rather than criticized, employees are more likely to intervene when safety margins appear uncertain.

Clear escalation pathways also influence whether potential deviations receive appropriate attention. When escalation processes are unclear or perceived as ineffective, individuals may conclude that raising concerns will have little practical impact. Organizations that provide clear channels for escalation and respond constructively to concerns help ensure that potential deviations are addressed before they become normalized.

The example described in the introduction illustrates how these reinforcing signals operate in practice. By requiring the BMS commissioning activities to be repeated and explaining the reasoning behind that decision, the corporate safety leader not only addressed a specific concern but also reinforced a broader organizational expectation. Safety-critical work must be performed with the level of rigor that the organization is prepared to defend in hindsight.

Organizations ultimately receive the safety culture they reinforce. When leaders visibly support individuals who pause work, escalate concerns, or request additional verification, they strengthen norms that help protect safety margins.

The Mentorship Gap

Historically, many leadership behaviors that support strong process safety performance were transmitted informally through observation and experience. Engineers and operators learned not only technical practices, but also how experienced leaders interpreted uncertainty, responded to operational pressure, and decided when additional rigor was necessary. These lessons were rarely taught explicitly. Instead, they were absorbed through repeated exposure to how respected leaders approached difficult operational decisions.

In this informal apprenticeship model, early-career professionals often observed moments when experienced leaders paused work, challenged assumptions, or escalated concerns despite operational inconvenience. These decisions served as powerful signals about how the organization expected safety margins to be protected. Over time, such observations helped individuals develop judgment regarding when a situation required additional scrutiny or intervention.

As the process industries undergo generational leadership transition, this mechanism of leadership transmission may become less reliable. The retirement of experienced leaders reduces opportunities for younger engineers to observe how complex safety-related decisions are handled in practice. At the same time, organizational structures that rely on distributed teams, lean staffing models, and increased contractor participation can limit the frequency of direct interaction between early-career professionals and senior leaders.

Organizational researchers have described how complex systems can gradually “drift into failure” when deviations accumulate without visible intervention from experienced leaders (Dekker, 2011). When opportunities to observe those interventions decrease, individuals may rely more heavily on procedural compliance rather than judgment developed through experience.

As experienced leaders retire, organizations may therefore need to take a more deliberate approach to ensuring that ethical leadership behaviors remain visible. Highlighting and discussing leadership decisions that demonstrate how safety commitments are applied under operational pressure can help the next generation of engineers understand how safety expectations should guide operational judgment.

Developing the Next Generation of Ethical Leaders

If organizations can no longer rely solely on informal mentorship to transmit leadership behaviors, they must become more deliberate in how ethical leadership is developed and reinforced. While formal training and management systems play an important role, many of the most influential lessons about safety leadership still come from observing how leaders make decisions in practice. For this reason, the everyday actions of leaders can significantly influence how safety expectations are interpreted across an organization.

Several leadership behaviors can help reinforce ethical decision-making in practice. Three are particularly important.

Explain safety decisions openly

When leaders make safety-aligned decisions, such as repeating incomplete work, pausing operations for additional verification, or escalating a concern, explaining the reasoning behind those decisions helps others understand how safety margins are evaluated. Without this transparency, employees may see only the operational consequences of the decision rather than the safety considerations that motivated it. Over time, openly discussing these decisions helps establish shared expectations about the level of rigor required for safety-critical work.

Encourage questioning and verification

Many safety-critical decisions involve interpreting incomplete or uncertain information. In these situations, individuals may hesitate to raise questions if doing so could disrupt operations or challenge established plans. Leaders who consistently invite questions, request independent verification, or revisit underlying assumptions signal that scrutiny is expected rather than discouraged. This behavior helps create an environment in which potential deviations are more likely to be identified before they become normalized.

Support those who intervene for safety

When employees observe that raising safety concerns results in constructive engagement rather than criticism or frustration, they are more likely to act when conditions appear uncertain. Conversely, when individuals experience negative reactions after slowing work or escalating a concern, they may become reluctant to intervene in the future. Leaders who visibly support individuals who pause work to address uncertainty reinforce the expectation that protecting safety margins is consistent with organizational priorities.

Together, these behaviors help ensure that safety expectations remain visible to the next generation of engineers and operators. While technical procedures define required safeguards, leadership behaviors shape how those safeguards are interpreted when operational pressures are present. Making ethical leadership visible in everyday decisions therefore plays a critical role in sustaining strong process safety performance.

Conclusion

The decision described in the introduction delayed startup and imposed real operational cost. From a procedural standpoint, the commissioning work had already been completed, and operations could have moved forward. Yet the corporate safety leader chose to repeat the validation activities to ensure that the work reflected the level of rigor expected for a safety-critical system.

Moments like this shape how safety leadership is understood within organizations. Engineers and operators learn not only from procedures and training, but also from observing how leaders respond when operational pressure challenges safety expectations. These visible decisions communicate how organizational values should guide judgment when competing priorities are present.

As the process industries experience generational leadership transition, the visibility of these examples may become less consistent. While technical knowledge can be documented and transferred through procedures and training programs, the leadership behaviors that demonstrate how safety commitments are applied in practice are more difficult to capture in written guidance.

Ultimately, the most enduring legacy of experienced process safety leaders may not be the knowledge they pass on, but the example they set. By openly explaining and supporting safety-aligned decisions, particularly when those decisions carry operational consequences, leaders help ensure that the next generation of engineers understands how safety values should guide decision-making under pressure.

References 

Hopkins, A. (2012). Disastrous Decisions: The Human and Organisational Causes of the Gulf of Mexico Blowout. CCH Australia.

Vaughan, D. (1996). The Challenger Launch Decision: Risky Technology, Culture, and Deviance at NASA. University of Chicago Press.

U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). (2018). Husky Energy Refinery Explosion and Fire Investigation Report.

U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). (2019). Intercontinental Terminals Company (ITC) Deer Park Terminal Fire Investigation Report.

Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS). (2015). Process Safety Leadership from the Boardroom to the Frontline. AIChE.

Dekker, S. (2011). Drift Into Failure: From Hunting Broken Components to Understanding Complex Systems. Ashgate Publishing.