By John Hidley

In Part 1 of this series, I described the signs of disconnect between an organization's safety leaders and its work force. There are three basic steps an organization can take to build stronger leadership:

• Evaluating where you are and determining where you need to be,
• Identifying critical leadership behaviors, and
• Implementing a leadership development system.

Today, I'll talk about the first of these steps.

Background: 3 Advantages of Safety Leadership

Experiencing one or more of the signs of disconnect is reason enough to make an effort to build stronger safety leadership, that is, to strengthen the link between an organization's leaders and its safety objectives and activities. Some of the other advantages of doing this:

• Leadership strengthens behavior-based safety (BBS) efforts. Strong leadership supports the success and sustainability of employee-driven safety efforts. Organizations with strong safety leadership are also better able to optimize their investment in BBS by translating lessons learned into other performance areas, such as quality or cost reduction.
• Safety leadership supports all safety efforts. Strong safety leadership goes beyond sustaining BBS efforts. Strong leadership supports safety more broadly. Leaders who take advantage of this effect also necessarily build a platform for broad performance improvement by "leading with safety" into other areas.
• Safety leadership improves other forms of leadership. In my experience, when organizations establish strong leadership in safety, they also build stronger leadership in other areas. As leadership becomes stronger, it fosters a culture of high performance, challenge and accomplishment.

Evaluating Where You Are & Deciding Where You Need to Be

Identifying the signs of leadership-safety disconnect gives the organization a general sense of the need to address problems. An intensive assessment of organizational functioning is then necessary to identify the specific areas for focus. What are those specific areas? Organizational psychology research shows nine measurable characteristics predictive of successful safety outcomes:

1. Teamwork: The effectiveness of workgroups in meeting targets and deadlines.
2. Workgroup relations: The degree to which co-workers respect each other.
3. Procedural justice: The level that workers rate the fairness of first-level supervisors.
4. Perceived support: The level to which employees feel the organization is concerned with their overall well-being.
5. Leader-member exchange: The strength of relationship that workers feel they have with their supervisors.
6. Management credibility: The perception of consistency and fairness of management in dealing with workers.
7. Organizational value for safety: The level of the organization's overall commitment to safety.
8. Upward communication: The adequacy of upward messages about safety.
9. Approaching others: The probability that workers will speak to each other about performance issues.

Conclusion

By selecting one or more of these areas to focus on, senior leaders can strengthen the ability of the organization to engage the energy of its employees.

Next week, we'll discuss the second step of improving leadership: Identifying critical leadership behaviors.

ODD JOB

Unusual professions as listed in the U.S. Department of Labor's Dictionary of Occupational Titles:

A cowpuncher: Requires strong lungs, a supple spine and a tough posterior.

COWPUNCHER

A cowpuncher is a ranch hand who tends to herding, castrating and branding cattle. A cowpuncher also helps with horse training, riding alongside to prevent the rider or horse from being injured. Other duties include inspecting and repairing fences and watering troughs.

Cowpuncher is a dangerous job involving high risk of slip and fall injuries, as well as musculoskeletal damage due to continuous vibration, bending and twisting. Other occupational hazards include heat stress and respiratory ailments due to dust and mold. The working conditions vary, but generally cowpunchers face long hours of strenuous work with pay ranging from $6 to $14 per hour.

LEADERSHIP IN ACTION

Driver Kyle Busch walked away from this wreck uninjured - the way NASCAR drivers almost always do.

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

"When a driver gets hurt, I almost have a guilty feeling. I always wonder, what could I have done to keep him from getting hurt?"

Jamie DiPietro
Technical Safety Inspection Supervisor
NASCAR

Source: "Golden Corrall 500," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 21, 2005.

Story Tools:  Email This Post  Print This Post Top