Does Leadership Style Impact Safety?

What role (if any) does leadership play in safety performance? Turns out, a significant role, but first let’s define what we mean by safety performance and leadership as it relates to this study.

Safety Performance

Organizations serious about safety show their commitment a variety of ways. Most use a variation of the OHSA’s (Occupational Health Safety Administration) 6 factor framework consisting of: (1) Management & Leadership, (2) Worker Participation, (3) Hazard Identification & Assessment, (4) Hazard Prevention & Control, (5) Education & Training, (6) Evaluation & Continuous Improvement. 

As this framework is operationalized you will see a large number of practical aspects including: a safety vision, safety listed as a core value, a safety manual, OH&S committees, morning huddles / tailgate meetings, a safety moment/share to kickoff every meeting, field level risk assessments, safety rules/policies/procedures, training, audits, investigations, contractor involvement, rewards, consequences, metrics/KPIs, leadership presence, and ongoing discussions about how to build a safety culture to keep safety front-of-mind both to avoid complacency, as well as raise-the-bar on safety performance.

Leadership

Turning our attention to leadership we first need to ask, what makes for good leadership? Casting a vision? Creating task clarity? Building strong relationships? Getting team input? Pushing a fast pace?  Growing people? Perhaps the bigger question is: Should a leader focus on only one style?   The reality is that great leaders do all of the above in the right time, place, and dose.

Joint research by Harvard University and Korn Ferry identified 6 Leadership Styles and the impact of leadership style on climate and results (Leadership That Gets Results, 2000).  This research showed that the style of a leader accounts for 70% of the variance in the climate between work areas, and the climate accounts for 30% of the variance in results. Clearly, the leader sets the tone.

The 6 Leadership Styles

A brief summary of the six leadership styles is shown below:

The research shows that to build a culture of high performance, leaders should strive to master the full toolbox of all 6 leadership styles. It is of note that world-class leaders have command over 4+ styles (19% of leaders globally). Sadly, this same research shows that most leaders have command over only 1 style, meaning the vast majority of leaders need to learn the power of the full toolbox. A one trick pony doesn’t cut it as a leader.

The Connection Between Safety and Leadership

This 2018 analysis combined data from two sources: (1) a 2017 safety survey ranking organizations on each of physical safety and psychological safety, (2) the 2017 completion of our Six Leadership Styles tool (180° feedback) which included data from the top 3 levels of management (Executive, Executive-1, Executive-2). In total, the data set included 26 organizations, 217 leaders, rated by a total of 1,302 workers. We then analyzed the data for relationships between leadership style(s) and safety performance.

Insights

Do certain leadership styles correlate to safety?  3 key findings emerged:

• Organizations with the best performance on safety (either psychological or physical) were consistently the same ones whereby leaders had command over more leadership styles (averaging 4.1 leadership styles)
• Organizations with lower safety performances consistently had command over a smaller number of the 6 leadership styles (averaging 2.2 leadership styles)
• Different leadership styles had varying correlations to safety performance. The impact of each of the 6 leadership styles are show below in Table 1

Table 1

Conclusions

The 3 main conclusions are:

1.     Effective leadership is essential for effective safety performance.

2.     Leaders need to develop all 6 leadership styles. While certain leadership styles are more correlated to safety performance, ALL the styles have their time and place, reinforcing the importance of developing yourself in all six styles.

3.     Leaders need to be careful with pacesetting. While it has some specific benefits, much has been written about the detrimental impact of this style. High standards, working 24/7/365, fast-moving, high volume, and close-control, can be been seen as impatient, perfectionist, production trumping safety, and that nothing is ever good enough.

This research confirms other Korn Ferry research correlating the six leadership styles to various organizational metrics including: engagement, retention, employee performance, revenue growth, cost control, and now…safety performance.

What’s the mix of leadership styles on your team? Is it helping or hindering? Leaders can discover their mix of the six leadership styles by completing a 180° degree feedback tool that provides a foundation for development planning and growth as a leader.

 Author

Brent Pederson is a Senior Client Partner with Korn Ferry, a global management consulting firm. He does extensive work in leadership development, coaching, assessments, succession, performance management, and is a regular author and conference presenter. Prior to his 12 years in consulting, Brent spent 15 years in a direct leadership role in 2 different energy sector organizations. He can be reached at 1.306.359.0181, email at [email protected], or on LinkedIn.