Before the holidays, we were discussing the role of leadership in the safety profession. I was cautioning against "inbreeding" - the phenomenon in which the members of a profession limit their search for new ideas and methods to within their own industry. Let’s pick up on this thread.

Where Will Leadership Come From?

To overcome the vestiges of inbreeding within our own profession, leaders will have to step forward with new visions and approaches. Who will supply that leadership?

In workplace safety, leadership can come from anywhere. Contrary to some beliefs, leadership in safety is not the exclusive domain of management. Unions can play a key leadership role, as can government. So, too, can safety professionals.

By leadership, I'm not talking about repeating the old safety clichés that have disguised themselves as leadership over the years. What I'm talking about is absolute, honest-to-goodness leadership. This will involve an understanding and focus on what needs to be done and how to do it along with the will and desire to get the job done. Those who can best articulate these issues and then not only talk the talk, but walk the walk will emerge as the safety leaders in the decades to come.

The Future of Leadership - The Workplace Context

The leaders, wherever they come from, will need to understand and work within the workplace of the future. An article in Fortune magazine describes what this workplace will look like:  

• The average company will become (is already!) smaller, employing fewer people.
• The traditional hierarchical organization will give way to a variety of forms, with the network of specialists foremost among them.
• The vertical division of labor will be replaced by a horizontal one.
• The paradigm of business will shift from making a product to providing a service.
• Work itself will be re-defined through life-long learning and higher order, rather than 9-to-5, thinking.

Richard Worzel, in his book, The Next Twenty Years of Your Life, paints a picture of the world of work which poses challenges for safety, especially with respect to the traditional ways in which we have approached incentives and recognition. Says Worzel:

"As routine work disappears, whether eliminated by automation or lost to workers in developing countries, routine workers will also vanish. The crucial work - and the crucial workers - that remain will be more entrepreneurial, more creative, more thoughtful than the average worker of the past. They will also be more challenging to manage because they will think for and of themselves; they will decide whether they are receiving as much as they are giving and whether they can demand more and get it. . . . To be sustained, creativity cannot be commanded, it can only be encouraged. This point is being lost in some of the uncertainty surrounding management today, and the practice that typifies the current fuzziness of thought is downsizing."

The Future of Leadership: The Necessary Skills

What skills will tomorrow’s safety leaders need to possess? According to an employability skills profile developed by the Conference Board of Canada, the skills employers are seeking in their employees are changing. Based on this profile, it is clear that leadership in the future will take on a different face from leadership associated with traditional safety initiatives. This will include academic skills such as:

• Writing, reading, computer literacy;
• Oral communication skills; and
• Critical thinking ability.

It will require personal management skills such as:

• Positive attitudes and behaviors;
• Responsibility and accountability; and
• Adaptability.

It will also involve teamwork skills like:

• Understanding and ability to contribute to the goals of the organization;
• Ability to work within the culture of the group;
• The ability to exercise give & take to achieve group results; and
• The capacity to lead groups and teams, where appropriate.

The Future of Leadership: The Necessary Style

Value judgements are constantly being made about leadership style, whether the leaders like it or not. Regardless of which leadership position you occupy, the challenge is to craft your safety management leadership style to maximize the full potential and resources of your organization and its people and to get rid of the paternalistic safety rhetoric that does nothing for the advancement of real safety improvement.

Which management styles work? And which don’t? Peterson, in Management: A Human Approach identifies the following as success factors of effective leadership (management) style:

• Supervisors with the best records of performance focus their primary attention on the human aspects of their subordinates' problems, and attempt to build effective work groups with high performance goals;
• General rather than close supervision is more associated with high rather than a low level of productivity; and
• Genuine interest on the part of a superior in the success and well-being of subordinates has a marked effect on performance. 

Conclusion

Next week, I will wrap up this series by applying these principles to the specific context of workplace safety leadership and offer a formula that safety leaders can use to break out from inbreeding and fashion workable solutions.

HOME SAFETY

Domestic Violence & the Bottom Line

By Glenn Demby

Boiled down to its simplest terms, workplace safety involves the interaction between the worker and the industrial environment in which he or she works. Traditional safety programs focus on minimizing risks posed by the industrial environment - on conditions such as machinery, the type of operations performed, etc. But to achieve success, the safety professional of the future will also have to address the other side of the interaction - the individual. They need to recognize that what happens to workers outside the workplace will affect how they feel and behave inside the workplace. As such, the worker's life outside of work is a variable in workplace safety.

This brings us to domestic violence. Domestic violence is not perceived to be an issue of workplace safety. After all, by definition, it's something that takes place in the home. But domestic violence is one of those outside of work factors that impairs performance, both economic and safety-related. According to one study:

• 24 percent of women between ages 18 and 65 have been involved in domestic violence;
• 37 percent of these victims reported that being the victim of violence had an impact on their work performance;
• 74 percent of domestic violence victims have suffered abuse, harassment or violence by their partner at work on at least one occasion; and
• 47 percent of executives said that their company had suffered some loss of productivity as a result of domestic violence to members of their workforce.

The bottom line: Safety professionals need to understand that domestic violence is not just a personal issue; it's a matter that affects the safety and financial performance of your business.

Source: MAG Regional Domestic Violence Council, see,

http://www.mag.maricopa.gov/dv/About_DV/Workplace/workplace.html.

ASK THE EXPERT
Safety Best Practices

For this week's "Ask the Expert," SafetyXChange is pleased to offer the services of David Hatton.

David Hatton is an experienced safety professional, involved with life safety codes for more than 36 years. Dave is the owner of Hatton Safety Consultants (HSC), which has provided consulting, training, compliance program development and safety audits to customers for 12 years. These clients include federal, state and local agencies, as well as public and private sector companies.

Dave is a member of The National Fire Protective Association - Electrical Section

International Association of Electrical Inspectors and the Association of Safety Professionals and is Past Vice President of the Middlesex Chapter of the Mass Electrical Contractor Association.

A graduate of Northeastern University's Fire Protective Systems Certification Program, Dave is an instructor for the National Center for Construction Education and Research. He's a Certified Level 1 Infrared Thermographer, is authorized by the US Department of Labor to conduct training under the OSHA outreach training for 10 and 30 hour courses, and has been approved by Red Rocks Community College for continuing education college credits .

Dave is a licensed Journeyman and Master electrician in Massachusetts and has worked on a number of electrical projects in the industrial, commercial and residential sectors. The focus of his work in the last 15 years has centered on Electrical and Fire Safety Codes, training development and delivery. Dave also teaches vocational trades programs in the Boston area, and is active in a number of states' continuing education training programs.

Dave and his wife Leslie enjoy traveling, photography and meeting new people, and have made the Boston area their home for the last 27 years. Dave collects electrical and fire alarm antiques and his wife collect non-technical antiques.

If You Have Questions for Dave

Dave Hatton is available to answer your questions on electrical and life safety codes.

Submit your questions to catherinej@bongarde.com. Dave will try his best to answer as many of your questions as possible. We'll publish your questions and Dave's answers in next Tuesday's SafetyXChange newsletter.

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