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Safety leadership, defined as "the process of defining the desired state, setting up the team to succeed, and engaging in the discretionary efforts that drive the safety value" (Cooper, 2010a) is widely recognized to be critical (HSE, 2001), especially when the prevailing safety culture is weak (Martínez-Córcoles, Gracia, Ines, et al., 2011). A company's safety culture is driven by the executive leadership team that creates, cultivates and sustains a company's journey to excellence (HSE, 2008). These executives set the vision and strategic direction, provide resources, and constantly emphasize and reinforce the importance of safety to people and the business.
Thus, ineffective safety leadership hinders the ability of many companies to achieve success (Cooper & Finley, 2013). Seeking to provide practical insights for safety practitioners, this article highlights several characteristics of effective safety leadership that result in safety culture excellence. These insights can be put to good use by safety practitioners, operational managers and employees.
Benefits of Effective Safety Leadership
Effective safety leadership is known to be financially beneficial to a company's bottom-line performance (Veltri, Pagel, Behm, et al, 2007). It positively affects employees' safety behavior and attitudes, helps reduce injury rates and insurance premiums, and contributes to increased productivity by eliminating production bottlenecks. Operational and safety excellence go hand-in-hand. Companies that are good at managing safety also manage operations well (Femández-Muñiz, Montes-Peón & Vázquez-Ordás, 2009).
Effective Safety Leadership Has a Purpose
The working world has two types of leaders: positional and inspirational. Positional leaders lead by virtue of the power vested in their position of authority. Such leaders operate by telling people what they want them to do. Thus, people follow because they have to.
Inspirational leaders are genuinely passionate and enthusiastic about their cause (Zenger, Folkman & Edinger, 2009) and, as a result, they inspire others. Inspirational leaders (those who are not solely reliant on positional authority) are driven by a purpose, cause or belief; they lead by passionately and precisely communicating why it is important for people to do the things that leaders ask them to do (Avolio & Bass, 2002). By focusing on the why, inspirational leaders inspire people to discover for themselves what feels right and what is most advantageous to them. People follow because they want to for themselves. Of...