E. Kevin Kelloway, PhD.

The Problem With Safety Leadership

The age-old question:

What IS Leadership?

“Leadership is an intangible quality with no definition. That’s probably a good thing, because if the people being led knew the

definition, they would hunt down their leaders and kill them.”

-Scott Adams

The Dilbert Definition of Leadership

To take people1 to places they would not have gone by themselves, and get them to do

things they otherwise would not have done … and think it was all their own idea!

1 Could be followers/subordinates, peers or supervisors

The Working Definition of Leadership

Safety Leadership

To have people demonstrate both safety compliance and safety

initiative because… it is their own idea!

What We Know About Safety Leadership

• Over multiple studies employee perceptions of safety leadership emerge as one of the best predictors of safety outcomes (Mullen & Kelloway, 2011)

• Safety Leadership can be taught

Safety Leadership Works

• Leadership is associated with improved attitudes, perceived safety climate, safety knowledge, safety behavior, safety events and injuries

• Extensive anecdotal reports

Barling, Loughlin & Kelloway (2002)

2.5

2.6

2.7

2.8

2.9

3

3.1

3.2

3.3

Leader NonLeader

Climate

Climate

Barling et al. (2002)

3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5

3.6

3.7

3.8

3.9

4

4.1

4.2

Leader NonLeader

Knowledge

Knowledge

Barling et al. (2002)

Transformational Safety

leadership

Safety Knowledge

Perceived safety

climate

Safety- Related events

Occupational injuries

Kelloway, Mullen & Francis (2006)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Leader NonLeader

Behavior

Behavior

Safety Leadership Can Be Taught (Mullen & Kelloway, 2009)

• 84 health care managers from 21 different sites in NS • 648 employees (direct reports) • Managers participate in a .5 day workshop • Pre-tests and 3 month post-tests • Randomly assigned to 1 of 3 conditions

– General Transformational Leadership Training – Safety Specific Transformational Leadership Training. – Control Group (No Training)

Results of Training: Managers’ Data

•No differences at Pretest

•At Post-test, significant differences in managers‘self-efficacy, safety attitudes, and intent to promote safety

•Safety TFL training is most effective 3

4

5

6

TFL SAFETY TFL CONTROL

Manager Self-Efficacy

3

4

5

6

TFL SAFETY TFL CONTROL

Intent to Promote Safety

3

4

5

6

TFL SAFETY TFL CONTROL

Safety Attitudes

Results of Training: Employee Data

• No Differences at pretest

• Post-test differences on safety leadership, safety climate, safety events, and injuries

3

4

5

6

SafetyTFL

SafetyClimate

TFL SAFETY TFL CONTROL

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

Events Injuries

TFL SAFETY TFL CONTROL

Conclusion

• Safety specific transformational leadership training resulted in improved self-efficacy, attitudes and intent among managers

• Safety specific transformational leadership training resulted in improved safety climate, events and injury rates among employees

• Safety specific transformational leadership training appears to be a low cost effective intervention

S.A.F.E.R. Leadership

What do transformational safety leaders do?

A Starting Point

• Years of doing safety and general leadership training with behavioral goal setting

• Two WCB (NS) conferences with industry leaders who have achieved positive safety outcomes – coded their stories for themes

S.A.F.E.R. Leadership (Wong, Kelloway & Makhan, in press)

• Speak – talk the talk

• Act – walk the walk

• Focus – unrelenting concern for safety

• Engage – get others involved

• Recognize – when we are doing the right thing

Speak

• Talk about the importance of safety

• Tell Stories

– Giving life to safety

• Ask Questions

– Safety first

– Data analysis

• Zohar’s work on supervisory safety

communication

Act

• Model the behavior you want to see

– Safety first, accountability etc.

• Safety an explicit consideration

– Safety, Productivity and Profit

• Make Safety your first priority

– Explicitly consider safety

• Stand up for safety

– Call people on their behavior

Focus

• Create accountability

– Leadership scorecard

– Define roles

– Plans, systems, goals

– Thematic focus

• Safety is not a program

– Takes time, resources maybe years

Inconsistent Leadership (Kelloway, Mullen & Francis, 2006; Mullen, Kelloway

& Teed, 2011) • Compared the effects of “passive” and

“transformational” safety leadership

• Passive leadership degrades safety climate and safety outcomes

• When leaders engage in passive leadership (Inconsistent) they are less effective

Engage

• “Safety Champion” is the wrong model

• Need to involve everyone in safety

• Nobody knows the job as well as the person who does it.

• Importance of listening (especially to new people, junior people)

• Need to engage internal and external partners

Recognize

• Value and recognize (not reward)

– Effort, commitment, performance,

achievement

• Tell the story

– Provide feedback (good and bad)

– Consequence management (full range)

• Cannon & Kelloway (2014) – power of

positive recognition

THE RESEARCH

• Develop 360 measure and validate

• Develop training and coaching process

• The NB trials – to commence in September

• Research opportunities

- Developing safety leaders

- Does senior “leadership” affect safety performance?

- How does leadership interact with safety systems?

- Other??

“Learning is defined as a change in behaviour. You haven’t learned a thing

until you can take action and use it.”

-Don Shula and Ken Blanchard

THANK YOU!!!!!

Kevin.kelloway@smu.ca

References

• Barling, J., Loughlin, C., & Kelloway, E.K. (2002). Development and test of a model linking safety-specific transformational leadership and occupational safety. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 488-496.

• Kelloway, E.K., Mullen, J., & Francis, L. (2006). Divergent effects of passive and transformational leadership on safety outcomes. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 11(1), 76-86.

• Mullen, J. & Kelloway, E.K. (2009). Safety leadership: A longitudinal study of the effects of transformational leadership on safety outcomes. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 20, 253-272.

• Mullen, J. & Kelloway, E.K. (2011). Leading to occupational health and safety. In J. Campbell Quick and L. Tetrick (Eds). Handbook of Occupational Health Psychology. Washington, DC: APA Books.

• Mullen, J., Kelloway, E.K., & Teed, M. (2011). Inconsistent leadership as a predictor of safety behavior. Work & Stress.25, 41-54.

• Wong, J.H.K., Kelloway, E.K. & Makhan, D.W. (in press). Safety Leadership: The SAFER model. To appear in S.Clarke (Ed). Psychology of Occupational Safety and Workplace Health Handbook. Chichester: Wiley.

E. Kevin Kelloway, PhD.

• Canada Research Chair in Occupational Health Psychology and Professor of Psychology at Saint Mary’s University.

• Authored over 150 articles and book chapters

• Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the Canadian Psychological Association, the International Association of Applied Psychology and the Society for I/O Psychology