CRSP

Would I Follow Me as a Safety Leader

One of the best ways to evaluate personal safety capability and effectiveness is to reflect on how our safety leadership style and character traits would influence us to willingly and follow ourselves as a safety leader. Would you follow yourself as a safety leader?

Ask yourself “Would I Follow Me as a Safety Leader”. Think about how you serve others as a leader (e.g., supervise, manage, direct others, advise, and provide services) in the following basic ways:

• Effective Communicator

• Authentic Relationship Builder and Nurturer

• Sharer of Resources and Authority

• Separator of Behavior from Character

• Applier of Accountability

An Effective Communicator shares information, sets expectations, receives feedback, and gives feedback to ensure the work family members are aware of what the overall purpose is for the individuals and work family, collectively. Safety leaders must be clear in their directives and sharing of information. Being a good listener is also part of the effective communication process.

I had a safety leader midway in my career who did not effectively communicate what she needed or wanted from me. She would have a broad discussion of what she desired as my product of work, but it was not a focused discussion. It was like telling me to bring her a rock without telling me the size, color, material makeup, or other specifics that she desired in the rock. I became very frustrated in guessing what she needed and wanted because I anticipated being turned away with my work products that I submitted to her.  Ineffective communication can demotivate work family members, lead to unintended events, and other negative outcomes.

An Authentic Relationship Builder and Nurturer focuses on learning about his / her work family members as individuals and as a group. Some of the best servant leaders who I have experienced and studied, took the time to develop relationships that included work and personal life knowledge of the work family members (e.g., personal family makeup, career aspirations, hobbies, and other).

One of my favorite and effective servant leaders served me and 500 other work family members at a chemical plant in Southeast Virginia in the early 2000’s. He visited as many work family members as he could on a routine basis to converse about what was important to them, starting with what was going on in their personal lives. Before he settled in his office for the day, as the Plant Manager, he would meet them where they worked: in the plant in the laboratory, or at their desk. He developed a relationship with the work family that made us feel connected and valued as individuals.

A Sharer of Resources and Authority empowers us to make value added decisions on where we focus energy and resources to get things done. It also helps developing leaders grow in the experience and capability.

I was asked to lead a group of engineers and maintenance work family members in bringing a process area back to the original state post a fire event which was a great responsibility and outside my comfort zone. I had never led an effort like this before because my background was HSE, but the plant manager and the executive leadership team believed in my leadership capability to collaborate and make the right decisions. This was a huge growth step in my leadership development. The sharing of resources and authority with me by the executive leadership team of facility to bring back from a costly event served me well in my professional development:

• Collaboration Skills

• Effective Communication Skills

• Time Management Skills

• Influencing Others Without Authority

• Delegation Skills

• Applying Accountability

• Budget Management

Good Safety Leaders knows to Separate Behavior from Character because they learn about work family member’s intentions to be able to differentiate between mistakes, omissions, and commissions, when it comes to observed actions.

I have led and participated in thousands of event investigations over the past 34 years. Understanding how work family members normally behave is important in understand their involvement in the event causation. Like others, I make mistakes, omit steps, and make decisions with the right intentions that don’t always turn out as intended.

I learned about James Reason’s Culpability Decision Flow Chart in 2010, and it has been a cornerstone of how I have led and contributed to event investigations ever since.

Applying Accountability starting with the Safety Leaders (themselves) is a fundamental character trait of a good leader. Humans are fallible and usually the human contribution to an unplanned event is secondary to a system defect. Work family members don’t plan injuries, negative environmental impacts, or property damage as normal behavior. However, the disregard of policies, procedures, and the exhibition of unsafe acts requires leadership to apply accountability. The history of At-Risk Behavioral Omissions and Commissions are of Big Interest to me in separating Behavior from Character.

Good Safety Leaders ensure that expectations have been effectively communicated, feedback channels are available for questions and improvement recommendations and coaching on exhibited behaviors (good and not so good) have been executed.

I would follow myself as a leader because I am focused on:

• Being as Effective Communicator

• Focused on Establishing Authentic Relationships

• Sharing Resources and Authority

• Separating Behavior from Character

• Applying Accountability to Everyone (Inclusive of Myself)