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Safety from the top down

Leadership, you, and working safely

by Dr. Larry Cole

Based on the response from the introductory article published in this magazine (some of you have requested training on this topic), we decided to write a series on this subject.

There are three major components to a safe workplace environment: 1) safety procedures/standards, 2) the employee, and 3) the leadership behaviors. You will learn about the leadership behaviors that have a positive or negative impact upon safety regardless of the quality of the first two variables. Consequently, you will want to copy the “Doctor is In” article of the current issue that addresses personal change plus each subsequent article in this series. You will also want to share these with your workforce. In addition to the personal change dynamics, you would benefit from reading People-$mart Leaders: Maximize People, Performance, & Profits in which my son and I detail how to manage the energy associated with organizational change.

In the words of Stephen Covey, “Let’s begin with the end in mind.” The leadership components listed in figure 1 denote positive leadership styles that have a positive impact upon the safety culture, which leads to an increased awareness of the importance of personal safety. The end result includes a safer working environment with reduced incidents, reportable accidents, and personal injury. Of course, all of this translates into profitability.

I know that not defining the leadership characteristics in figure 1 is not good journalism, but I’m asking you to be patient as you will learn about the leadership characteristics in future articles. For now, simply keep in mind that positive leadership produces positive safety results. Space limitation, however, does allow us to define the safety variables that are impacted by leadership behaviors.

Safety Climate. This is the degree that employees see managers (particularly senior level managers) place a strong emphasis or a priority on workplace health and safety.

I’ve seen instances in which managers believe they are promoting a safety climate, but employees do not share that perception. Obviously, that’s not a desired end result. Remember, the perception that others have of you can be more important than your perception of yourself.

Safety Participation. Participation is the degree to which the employee will do whatever is required to promote the company’s safety program. That is, they are mimicking upper level management.

Safety Compliance. Compliance is the degree to which employees adhere to using safety equipment and procedures because these are the company’s procedures. The important point is to understand that employees are adhering to safety to support the company’s initiative, not to protect their health and safety.

Safety Motivation. Motivation is the degree of effort the employee puts forth to maintain or improve their personal safety as opposed to doing what’s best for the company.

Our research shows there is a direct relationship between the first three safety variables with the degree that employee’s put forth an effort to maintain or improve their personal safety. Think of a flow chart, senior managers promote safety which leads to the employee’s willingness to promote the company’s safety program. Promoting the company’s safety program in turn leads to adhering to the company’s safety procedures. The net result is an increased awareness to maintain or improve personal safety.

The focus of future articles is to highlight the details of the leadership behaviors that positively impact these safety variables. A cautionary word: There will be one article devoted to leadership behaviors that produce a negative impact on safety. Still today, there is an effort to hire “safe people,” but leadership will impact whether these safe people put forth the necessary effort to work safely!

Keep reading!