I always keep a manual safety step for unofficial automation for this exact reason.

Current example: I have a script I run for my wife that de-duplicates some data against historical excel files and submits it via an API to Mailchimp, to tag members for a triggered email. I run this manually for her about once a week. It does not alter anything unless I supply the '--go' option. That lets me check the output to see that it makes sense (sometimes they add extra data columns or she forgot to do contact/tag setup on her end).

I absolutely never have the computer run stuff without me watching unless I control the entire process end to end, it's non-critical, or management has requested it officially so I can point to specs when it goes wrong. Usually when I have a semi-automated process that is proven to work, then that's the time to bring it up with management to try and make it more official (if they're not the sort to drown it in red tape).