The state of safety leadership

Only 24% of leaders demonstrate strong safety leadership behaviours, according to a recent study of employee and self-report ratings.

For organisations whose leaders fall into the remaining 76%, poor or average safety leadership performance could be detrimental to safety outcomes, resulting in: misalignment of safety vision and expectations around safety-related decisions; reduced discretionary effort and compliance; reduced willingness to report incidents and hazards; and increased incident frequency and severity.

The study, which was conducted by safety culture expert Sentis, highlighted the key strengths and areas of opportunity for safety leaders. It analysed 8212 employees’ upwards perceptions of safety leadership, as well as 535 leaders’ self-perceptions of safety leadership ability, and has uncovered trends spanning industry and demographics. While the research suggests there are some areas we are doing well, there is certainly room for improvement when it comes to leading for safety excellence.

What makes a strong safety leader?

When it comes to driving a positive safety culture and safety performance excellence, it is hard to deny that strong, effective leadership is crucial. Leadership impacts every facet of an organisation’s safety culture, including attitudes and behaviours of team members, how team members interact with procedures and safety rules, and the physical work environment. Leaders set the tone of the culture and influence where teams focus their time and energy.

Effective safety leadership not only results in increased discretionary effort, but also improved employee productivity, quality and engagement. Helping leaders understand their safety leadership capability enables them to capitalise on their strengths and develop their areas of opportunity.

8 safety leadership competencies

Sentis has previously identified and validated eight critical behaviours that define effective safety leadership performance. These competencies form the basis of the study and results that follow.

Effective safety leaders:

• support team members through active monitoring of decisions and actions, and ensure alignment with the corporate safety strategy, vision and values;
• recognise and reward team members based on demonstrated effective safety behaviour;
• actively care for the health, safety and general wellbeing of team members;
• collaborate or share ownership of safety with team members by asking for active participation in safety decision-making and empowering individuals to take personal responsibility for safety;
• share a vision for safety and facilitate the development of team goals, targets and plans to achieve it;
• inspire the team to achieve the safety vision and safety excellence through motivational and encouraging communication;
• role model safety-compliant behaviours that set the benchmark of what is expected from the team;
• challenge team members to think about safety issues and scenarios in ways they might not have considered before.

So, how do safety leaders perform when mapped against the criteria above?

The Sentis study explored two key sets of data: upwards perceptions (how employees view their direct leaders) and self-perceptions (how leaders view their own abilities).

Key findings

Interestingly, results indicate key trends for safety leadership competency — irrespective of industry, location and even demographics such as age, tenure and position. Across the board, employees rate leaders highest for Actively Caring. However, when it comes to Recognising, leaders perform poorly.

When compared to leaders’ own perceptions of their abilities, the results tell a different story. While Actively Caring still rates highly, leaders appear unconfident in their ability to articulate and facilitate a clear safety vision. So what can safety leaders take away from these findings?

Implications for leaders

Leaders need to improve the frequency and consistency of recognition and reward for strong safety performance.

It may seem intuitive that we can influence team behaviour through positive feedback, recognition and provision of rewards for good performance. But how conscious are leaders of the behaviours they actually reward? And how strategic are leaders in building the attitudes and behaviours they want to see in their team?

There are many ways a leader can recognise or reward a team member, ranging from private praise to public recognition, through to tangible or material rewards. Leaders should ensure that feedback is linked back to effective safety behaviours and is provided genuinely — insincere feedback is often worse than no feedback at all.

But a word of warning — in order for reward and recognition to be effective long term, it must build intrinsic motivation within the workforce. Rather than taking a ‘carrot and stick’ approach, which can often result in individuals complying only when there is a promise of reward or threat of punishment, intrinsic motivation ensures workers undertake safe behaviours because they want to, not because their supervisor is watching.

To build intrinsic motivation, leaders must understand the psychological needs of the individuals within their team. For some, this might be the opportunity to develop competency and mastery in their role through new tasks, challenges or increased responsibility. For others, it could mean an increased sense of autonomy or social relatedness.

Leaders who encourage intrinsic motivation to engage in safe behaviours also encourage a rewarding culture that reinforces personal ownership of safety.

Leaders need to improve their skills in sharing the organisation’s safety vision

Why do leaders rate themselves so poorly for Vision? Is it because they feel their organisation lacks a clear vision for them to share with their team? Is it a lack of skill in roadmapping activities and goals to help progress the team to achieve the vision? Or is it a lack of communication skill that impacts leaders’ ability to share the vision clearly and consistently?

Regardless of the reasons driving the result, the implications are clear. The ability to create, share and reinforce a compelling safety vision is a leadership skill that motivates and provides guidance and direction. A safety vision sets the standard of excellence and gives individuals a goal to work towards. It creates meaning in the day-to-day safety activities that teams undertake.

When a team is inspired and engaged by a vision, they know where they are going and what they need to do to get there. Importantly, they continue to work towards shared goals associated with the vision, even when their leader is not physically present.

Leaders can help drive enthusiasm and ownership over the safety vision by: helping team members to understand how their role contributes to the overall vision; keeping the vision front of mind in weekly and monthly meetings; aligning reward and recognition strategies to team members meeting the expectations of the vision; and explaining the ‘why’ of business decisions and how they relate to the overall safety vision of the organisation.

Leaders need to continue to show they care

Truly effective leaders develop genuine relationships with their employees. In turn, this positive relationship leads to increased employee willingness to not only work harder, but more safely.

The discovery that Actively Caring is rated highly by teams and leaders alike is perhaps the most encouraging result of the study. While leaders would benefit from developing their abilities to recognise and reward teams for high safety performance, and share a clear and consistent safety vision with their team, at the end of the day, they need to care. They need to care about the safety, health and wellbeing of the people they lead.

Surely if an organisation has a team of leaders who genuinely care about their people and who want to keep them safe and well, then the remaining skills and competencies can be acquired. The motivation is there. More often than not, it just comes down to providing leaders with the training and support they need to demonstrate safety leadership excellence.

Sentis specialises in safety culture measurement and transformation. An expert in applied psychology and neuroscience, Sentis helps organisations to enhance and move beyond compliance to empower employees to work safely — not because they have to, but because they want to. Offering training, coaching and consulting, Sentis has helped more than 250 companies and 140,000 people think differently about safety since 2003.

For more information on the Sentis safety leadership study, additional results (including industry and position breakdowns) and recommendations for leaders, visit sentis.com.au.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Photocreo Bednarek