Transform your Safety Culture
If you’re anything like most companies, your leaders are probably chosen first and foremost because they were good ‘on the tools’, they were high performing operators and were promoted primarily due to this fact alone.
The trouble with this approach becomes quickly apparent. Tools don’t have feelings. That is, while the newly promoted leader may have been a master on the job they may have no idea how to motivate and influence real people with real emotions, strengths and flaws. And for safety to work, emotional engagement is paramount.
One of the biggest issues we consistently see on sites with a weak or dysfunctional safety culture is that they have not commissioned their leaders properly and as a consequence, the behaviour of their workforce is directly reflecting the quality of their leadership.
Quite simply, if you don’t commission your leaders properly, by giving them the skills and tools they need to development their leadership ability, then it is entirely unreasonable to expect them to lead effectively. Likewise, if your leadership group doesn’t understand what their role is they’re going to have a rather hard time satisfying your expectations.
In this paper we provide a clear and simply definition of the role of a safety leader, focus in on one particular leadership skill that will give you the best bang for your buck and describe a valuable leadership tool for strengthening your safety culture and increasing motivation and productivity.
Defining the role of a leader in the safety space is simple. It’s all about managing the message.
Now, before you say this is a load of rubbish, just hear me out. As a leader you are constantly managing the direction, flow and content of messages.
Messages come from above you, are translated and edited and then transmitted to those beside and below you. You also regularly collect messages from those who work for you. These messages are collated, summarised and prioritised and then sent back up the chain of command to achieve a certain outcome or effect.
Every time you prioritise one task over another you are effectively sending a message to your workers that one thing is more important than another thing. Whether they are aware of it or not your workers are affected by this act of prioritisation as they are receiving a message about the things that you, as their leader, think are important.
Arguably even more powerful messages are constantly being transmitted by your appearance, demeanour and actions than by those you write, type or speak.
Let’s take a simple example here. Let’s say one of your workers has come to speak to you about a safety matter that is personally very important to them. You are a manager and therefore busy. What message do you think you are broadcasting to your employee if, while they are telling their story, you are intermittently checking your emails or constantly glancing down at your phone? I’d wager they’re going to walk away from that encounter deflated, thinking you care more about your inbox than their safety.
This is where Emotional Intelligence really comes into play. To be a good manager you need to be able to organise and allocate resources effectively, recognise patterns, plan and execute your plan; skills which are heavily reliant on IQ.
To be a good leader though you need to be able to identify and manage your emotions and the emotions of others, effectively regulate your emotions and use your emotions to convey the right message when, how and to whom it matters most. In short you must have high Emotional Intelligence (otherwise known as, EQ).
Emotional Intelligence is a fundamental building block of any strong, positive and resilient culture. If the leadership team, actively commit to developing their Emotional Intelligence you are not only going to see an increase in morale and productivity you will also see a similarly significant decrease in safety incidents across the site.
There is now a large body of research demonstrating that everybody’s moods and emotions are, quite literally, contagious in the workplace. But a leader’s mood spreads the fastest and has the greatest effect (Goleman et al, 2001).
When a leader is in a happy mood the people around them view everything in a more positive light. This subsequently makes your workers more optimistic about their ability to achieve their objectives, increases creativity and the efficiency of their decision-making and makes them more inclined to be helpful.
An emotionally intelligent leader can monitor their mood through self-awareness, change their emotional response to achieve more favourable outcomes, understand the impact of their emotions and deliberately choose to act in ways that create positive moods in others (Goleman et al, 2001).
Emotional Intelligence is a powerful and influential factor when it comes to building a strong and enduring safety culture and is a fundamental skill for all leaders. The good news is that, unlike IQ which is essentially static, you can increase your EQ with the right direction and deliberate practice.
In Summary
Ensuring that our leaders are correctly commissioned and able to perform their role, is a critical (and arguably, non-negotiable!) first step in ensuring you have the effective, high-performing safety culture you want. When looking to commission your next cadre of leaders an excellent place to start is to ensure they know what the message is, how they are to manage it, that they have the Emotional Intelligence to execute with maturity, empathy, positivity and a keen sense of self-awareness.
References
CPP Global, Human Capital Report, (2008), Workplace Conflict and how Businesses can Harness it to Thrive, available at, https://shop.themyersbriggs.com/Pdfs/CPP_Global_Human_Capital_Report_Workplace_Conflict.pdf
Freedman, J., (2012), At the Heart of Leadership: How to get Results with Emotional Intelligence (3rd Edition), Six Seconds.
Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. & McKee, A., (2001), Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance, Harvard Business Review, December 2001, pp.41-51.
Quinn, R.E., Faerman, S.R., Thompson, M.P. & McGrath, M., (2010), Becoming a Master Manager, Wiley, New York.
Rosenberg, M.B., (1983), A Model for Nonviolent Communication, Pennsylvania: New Society Publishers.
Rosenberg, M.B., (2003), Nonviolent communication: A Language of Life, Encinitas, Puddledancer Press.
Salovey, P. & Mayer, J. D., (1990), Emotional Intelligence, Baywood Publishing Co., Inc.
Thomas, K. W., (1976), Chapter 7: Organizational Conflict, in, Kerr, S. (ed.) (1979), Organizational Behavior, Grid Publishing Inc., Columbus, Ohio, pp. 151-181.