When it comes to driving a positive safety culture and safety performance excellence, it’s hard to deny that strong, effective leadership is crucial. Yet, only 24% of leaders demonstrate strong safety leadership behaviours, according to our latest study of 8747 employees across heavy industry.
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.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you see poor performance in any area of your safety climate, you’re also likely to uncover issues in safety leadership.
Discover Safety Leadership Trends
The State of Safety Leadership report uncovers seven key findings. It examines responses from 8747 employees across agriculture, aviation, industrial services, manufacturing, mining, nuclear, oil and gas, transport and utilities. Comparing team and leader perceptions of safety leadership ability, the report explores:
- safety leadership strength across heavy industry;
- self-perceptions of safety leadership versus team perceptions of leaders’ ability;
- leader ability to demonstrate effective reward and recognition;
- leader ability to share and reinforce a compelling safety vision;
- leader ability to demonstrate active care with their team;
- impact of age, tenure and position on safety leadership perceptions; and
- industry comparison of key development areas.
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—regardless of whether you’re leading on the frontline, in middle management or at an executive level.
Download your free copy to learn the full results of the study and how to guide leadership assessment and development in your organisation.
