By John Hidley

How important is leadership to the success of a behavior-based safety (BBS) initiative? To safety in general? Our experience with thousands of clients over 20 years has shown us that leadership is one of the most critical factors.

Conceptually, this makes sense: the leadership role, more than any other function, shapes and influences the workplace culture. Practically, however, this finding is problematic. In such a large and ever-changing entity as an organization, how do you recognize the upstream leadership activities that produce downstream results? Even knowing that, how do you approach the task of developing leadership for safety among the dynamic and busy individuals who make up the senior-most level of an organization? This article will offer some answers.

The Safety-Leadership Connection

Understanding the implications of leadership's role in safety and how to leverage that role is a prominent topic in the EH&S field today - probably because it seems counterintuitive. It strikes people as odd that leadership would be so central to employee-driven efforts. After all, the BBS approach is successful in part because it engages front-line employees in safety activities traditionally reserved for supervisors or managers.

Another reason this subject has become so important is that the research is changing how we think about organizational leadership. Rather than reinforcing the "prescribe and allocate" maxim of good leadership, the research shows a picture of leadership that actively shapes how its organization does things. Perhaps most important, the research shows that effective leadership is definable in terms of behavior.

For most leaders and organizations, this evidence underscores what they already know by experience: Leadership activities matter at every level of the organization and they impact downstream outcomes. But how do organizations leverage this link to achieve the desired results? And how does an organization even know if its leadership needs improvement or that it's doing the right things to support safety?

Recognizing the Signs of Disconnect

Oftentimes, leaders who struggle to improve safety look very similar to leaders who are successful in this area. They state the same objectives, voice the same kind of support and even allocate the same kinds of resources. But their organizations, even superficially, can differ quite a bit. Experience shows us that just as there are signs of strong leadership in the organization, there are also recognizable signs of disconnect between leadership intentions and organizational functioning including:

• Ongoing poor safety performance -- A site may experience a persistently high accident rate or a continuing failure to improve accident rates in spite of ongoing efforts. In some cases, there might be an initial success after which the improvement stalls and performance is stuck on a plateau.
• A hands-off mentality -- People express that safety is important but "not my job." Employees tend not to volunteer for safety activities or take accountability for safety tasks.
• A perceived divergence between safety and other performance goals -- Employees experience an ongoing conflict between safety and other performance values such as cost, quality or production. Employees tend to take risks - and are sometimes injured - in order to meet goals they perceive to be more important than safety.
• Poor communication -- Management says safety is important but employees either don't get or don't believe the message. Safety is not internalized as a way of doing business.

In addition to these, there are signs unique to a BBS effort that indicate a leadership-safety disconnect. These include:

• Excessive struggle - Performing day-to-day process activities, such as observations or meetings, seems to take more energy than it should. Larger tasks, such as barrier removal, may seem nearly impossible.
• Us vs. Them mentality - Process activities are surrounded by a high level of "us vs. them" issues. For instance, people may tend to frame process challenges in terms of "management" and "worker" terms, persistently expressing a lack of trust in management, or even holding the process hostage.
• Ambiguity - People involved in the process have difficulty getting things done or knowing whether things have in fact been done.
• Poor engagement - Engagement in the process spreads slowly or not at all. Process leaders have difficulty recruiting observers or maintaining interest in the safety process.

Next week, we'll discuss the first of three basics steps to improve the effectiveness of safety leadership in an organization.

This article is based on one that originally appeared in the January/February 2004 issue of Perspective Magazine and is reprinted with permission.

TRAINING BLOOPERS

The Language of Safety/La Lingua de la Seguridad

With 5 years under my belt, I still remember my first training session as the Director of Security & Safety at a 500-suite resort in Las Vegas.

I was assigned to train our facilities department in the use of PPE. I was very well prepared - excellent video, handouts on each type of required PPE and a topic training guide. The employees were very receptive to the training and I was giving myself a mental pat on the back for such an excellent job. I must have thoroughly covered the topic...no questions.

I then distributed a 25-question quiz for documentation of the training. Two employees started right in on the quiz and the remainder started whispering among themselves. An employee then asked me if I had the quiz in Spanish. OOPS. Realizing that I had not tailored my training to the audience, I quickly announced that the same training would be held the following week, same day, same time, for all employees with Spanish as a first language. The following week I presented the same video and handouts in Spanish.

That day, I learned an important lesson about safety training: One size doesn't always fit all. It's extremely important to tailor generic safety training to the audience. Although I don't speak Spanish, I have continued to safety train in Spanish for the facilities, housekeeping and food & beverage departments, with the assistance of Spanish-speaking employees. Safety training must be evaluated on the basis of the employees' comprehension, not the trainers'.

George G. Grover
Director of Security & Safety
Alexis Park Resort
Las Vegas, NV

Editor's Note: What's the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you during a training session? Send your stories to me at glennd@bongarde.com. (If you want to remain anonymous, just let me know and we won't print your name -- I promise.)

LEADERSHIP IN ACTION

Angelia Walker: NASA leader who has her feet on the ground.

A short quote from the great men and women of history.

"Everyone's asking questions, keeping up a constant flow of information. That's the first sign of a positive safety culture and a healthy engineering environment."

Angelia Walker
Manager, Safety, Reliability and Quality Assurance Policy Assessment Department
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

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