Stop Being the Hero: What a Marketing Book Taught Me About Safety Leadership

I just finished Donald Miller's Building a StoryBrand 2.0—a book about marketing and brand messaging—and couldn't put it down. Not because I'm pivoting careers, but because it changed how I think about safety leadership.

For those unfamiliar, Miller's book presents a framework for clarifying your message using the power of storytelling. It's designed to help businesses connect with customers by positioning the customer as the hero and the brand as the guide. His writing is refreshingly clean and simple, with relatable examples that make the concepts stick. (Storytelling is key to recall, after all!)

But here's what really hit me: throughout the entire book, I kept thinking about how we "sell" safety to frontline workers. The parallels were undeniable.

The Hero vs. The Guide

Miller's framework is built on a crucial distinction: Luke Skywalker vs. Yoda. The hero vs. the guide. (Shout out to Tim Page-Bottorff as he would support this analogy!)

How often do we, as safety professionals, walk onto job sites trying to be the hero? Swooping in to "save" workers, telling them what they need to do like they don't already know, positioning ourselves as the experts who have all the answers?

As a scholar practitioner who spends considerable time in the human and organizational behavior space, I can tell you: this doesn't move the needle. It doesn't influence people. It doesn't create lasting change.

We need to be the Guide, not the Hero.

The workers are the heroes of their own story. Our job is to be the mentor, the coach, the guide—setting them up for success, equipping them with what they need, and believing in their ability to keep themselves and their teams safe.

Miller talks about how guides possess two critical qualities: empathy and authority. In safety, this means we need both the technical expertise AND the genuine concern for workers' wellbeing. We can't just show up with a clipboard and regulations. We need to understand their world, their pressures, their constraints, and their goals.

Key StoryBrand Takeaways for Safety Professionals

1. The Three Levels of Problem Miller breaks down problems into external, internal, and philosophical levels. This was a revelation for how we approach safety communication.

In safety, the external problem might be "fall hazards" or "inadequate PPE." But the internal problem—the one that actually motivates people—is often "I feel micromanaged," "I don't feel valued," or "I'm stressed about productivity vs. safety trade-offs." The philosophical problem? "I deserve to work with dignity and return home to my family every day."

When we only address compliance and hazards (the external problem), we miss the deeper motivations that actually drive behavior. What if our safety talks addressed all three levels? What if we acknowledged the internal struggle and connected it to the bigger philosophical truth?

2. Clarity Over Cleverness Miller is relentless about this: confused people don't take action. They tune out. They disengage.

Safety is notorious for acronyms, complex procedures, and compliance jargon. We create "noise" with our over-complicated messaging. Think about the last safety campaign you ran—was it crystal clear, or did it require workers to decipher what you meant?

What if we simplified our JSAs, toolbox talks, and safety campaigns? What if we stopped trying to sound technical and started trying to be understood? Workers shouldn't need a decoder ring to understand how to stay safe.

Miller would tell us: if you confuse, you lose.

3. Give Them a Plan (Not Just a Problem) One of Miller's key story elements is that the guide must give the hero a clear, simple plan. Not a 47-page manual. Not a vague directive to "be safe." A plan they can actually remember and execute.

Miller recommends no more than three to four steps. How does this translate to safety?

Instead of: "Review the JHA, conduct a pre-task assessment, ensure all controls are in place, and maintain situational awareness throughout the task..."

Try: "1. Stop and look for hazards. 2. Put controls in place. 3. Stay alert. 4. Speak up if something changes."

The guide's job is to make the path clear and achievable.

4. Call Them to Action (Direct and Specific) Miller distinguishes between "transitional" calls to action (small, easy first steps) and "transformational" ones (the big commitment). In marketing, a transitional CTA might be "Download the free guide" while the transformational one is "Buy the product."

In safety, what are our calls to action? Too often, they're vague: "Stay safe out there" or "Don't take shortcuts."

What if we got specific? Transitional: "Take two minutes before this task to walk the area with your crew." Transformational: "Commit to speaking up every single time you see something unsafe—even when it's uncomfortable."

Clear, direct, actionable. That's what moves people from intention to action.

5. Paint the Picture of Success AND Failure Miller emphasizes showing both what success looks like AND what failure costs—the stakes. In safety, we're well-trained on the failure side (injuries, fatalities, regulatory consequences). We lead with fear.

But what about success? What does it look like when the hero wins?

Miller would have us paint that picture vividly: "You finish this project injury-free, your skills sharpened, your crew trusting each other more, and you walk through your front door tonight with a story about the problem you solved—not the injury you sustained. Your kids run to hug you. You're present for dinner. You're building something you're proud of."

That's the story workers want to be part of. That's what inspires action.

6. Make Your Message So Simple a Caveman Could Understand It Miller uses this memorable phrase to drive home the clarity point. If your safety message requires a college degree to understand, you've already lost.

Our industry loves complexity. We love demonstrating our expertise through technical language. But expertise isn't about sounding smart—it's about making complex things simple enough that everyone can act on them.

The guide simplifies the journey. The guide removes barriers. The guide makes it easy for the hero to succeed.

The Bottom Line

This book isn't about marketing. It's about communication, influence, and human connection—everything we need to be better at in safety.

Miller's framework gave me a lens to see what we may be doing wrong: making safety the hero instead of the worker. Overcomplicating the message instead of clarifying it. Focusing on problems without providing clear plans. Leading with fear instead of painting the picture of success.

If we want to truly influence frontline workers, we need to step out of the spotlight and into the role of guide. We need to make them the hero of their safety story.

Here's my challenge to fellow safety professionals: Read more business books.

We live in our safety bubble—same conferences, same books, same echo chamber. But leadership, communication, behavior change, organizational culture? Other industries have been wrestling with these challenges for decades, often with better frameworks than we have.

Donald Miller has nothing to do with safety, and yet this book gave me more practical insights for my work than the last three safety-specific books I read combined.

Get out of the safety section. Read marketing books. Read leadership books. Read organizational psychology. Read business strategy.

Our industry will be better for it. Our workers will be safer for it.

What business book has unexpectedly changed your approach to safety? Drop your recommendations below—I'm continuing to build my reading list.

Reference: Miller, D. (2025). Building a StoryBrand 2.0: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen. HarperCollins Leadership.

Dr. Ashley Gill, CSP is a safety consultant and researcher who helps organizations build sustainable safety cultures. When not conducting safety culture assessments or teaching, she can usually be found in a bookstore or testing new coffee shops with a good leadership book.