Worley

I have had the privilege to directly work with nine chief executive officers (CEOs) and hundreds of business executives (e.g., presidents, senior vice presidents, executive directors, directors, and vice presidents), leaders in higher learning academia, and leaders in civil service/emergency response, over my 33 years in safety space. As per my experience, personal and professional development, and applied research, I have decided that there are five most important executive safety leadership traits that I believe are the most important for leaders to exhibit to create and nurture a mature safety culture for their work family:

• Being authentic

• Being an effective communicator

• Being emotionally intelligent

• Leading by example

• Being approachable

The above five most important executive safety leadership traits are not different from any other critical leadership traits for other disciplines (e.g., finance leadership, operations leadership, human resources leadership, procurement leadership, legal leadership, and all others). The difference I see in the heightened importance of the safety leadership space is that a lack of strong safety leadership can lead to an immature safety culture, which typically results in injuries, environmental events, property damage, or worse.

Leading Through Authentic Safety Leadership: Authentic executive safety leaders who sincerely care about the health, safety, and well-being of their work family members create and nurture a mature safety culture, as compared to executive safety leaders who do not demonstrate authenticity in the safety leadership space. They demonstrate authentic care for their work family by providing the appropriate resources for the safety program. They naturally engage the work-family members where they work and create an achievable progressive safety performance strategy.

"Executive safety leaders should be capable of simply articulating their safety strategy tactical steps to achieve the strategy and inspire their work family and others to embrace the concepts."

I had the grand opportunity to work with an executive who scheduled route location visits to engage the work family at their work sites. He would spend the appropriate amount of time learning a little about the work-family member, discussing similarities (e.g., hometown, children, sports, degree majors, and hobbies), and talking about the overall goal of the organization as it pertained to the safety culture. Establishing that the executive has some of the same experiences, challenges, and interests as the work-family members provided a spiritual connection that cannot be made through a policy, email, video, or town hall.

Leading through Effective Communication: Executive safety leaders should be capable of simply articulating their safety strategy tactical steps to achieve the strategy and inspire their work family and others to embrace the concepts. Effective communicators in the safety space can explain and inspire others in a few simple words. Albert Einstein said, “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.” 

Leading through Emotionally Intelligence: Executive Safety Leaders understand and know how to apply emotional intelligence:

• Self-Awareness: Knowing what personally turns you ‘On’ and ‘Off’ is important to be aware of before serving others in the Safety Leadership Space. 

• Motivating Others: Safety Leaders must be able to excitingly promote their work and family members to “Take Action” in the safety space.

• Empathy and Sympathy: 1. Empathy is appropriate during all situations because it is related to supporting a work family member’s emotional situation (e.g., mistake, accident, sickness, financial loss, and others). Empathy is the act of actively listening with care for another person who may have experienced something sad that you have not but you can relate to it. 2. Sympathy is connecting with a person through a shared sad experience. 

• Social Skills: Comfortably engaging work family members is necessary for a Safety Leader. Starting and facilitating a conversation with work-family members is important to extract ideas, communicate information, and be connected in a safe space. 

• Self-Regulation: Controlling one’s behavior is important in all areas of life and leadership, including safety leadership. Safety leaders must not go too far in their emotions (e.g., happy, sad, angry, and others) because they can send the wrong messages to the work family and others. It is appropriate to show emotions, but they should not be extreme.

I have had the pleasure of being around several emotionally intelligent executive safety leaders who made others feel more important than them. To me, that is a profound characteristic of someone who is emotionally intelligent and focuses on serving others.

Leading through Example: There is a picture I commonly use in presentations of an executive leader leading his work family members in the direction of completing tasks by being in the front. Executive Safety Leaders must be viewed as people who do as much, if not more, than the work-family members they serve in the safety space. I am not inspired to follow an executive safety leader who does not follow the same safety rules, apply the same safety practices, and lead others in safety even when it is inconvenient. True executive safety leaders lead more through their behavior than their strategy and speech.

Leading through Approachability: The last extremely important character trait of an Executive Safety Leader is being approachable and available to the work family. Executive safety leaders who make themselves available to engage, actively listen, and coachwork family members where they work are very important. Executive leaders who go to where the work is done (e.g., welding table, lunchroom, assembly line, top floor of the construction project, material unloading station, printing room, and other work areas) to connect with the work-family members individually to inspire their work family members on a routine schedule are appreciated by the work-family at a higher rate than executive leaders who intend to connect through emails, videos, and memos.

I have experienced opposite extremes of the spectrum in executive leader engagement and being approachable:

• What “Good” Looks Like in the Executive Leader Work Family Member Safety Engagement Space 

I have visited work family members with executive leaders in the field many times to develop a relationship, learn about what is going on at the sharp end of the stick, and hear how leadership could support safe and effective work. Executive Safety Leaders show respect to the work-family members they serve by visiting them to hear and learn about their stories. Think about the show “Undercover Boss” and its intent. Executive Leaders must stay connected to the work-family to serve effectively in all areas of leadership, but especially in the safety space.

• What Not So “Good” Looks Like in the Executive Leader Work Family Member Safety Engagement Space 

I have been served by executive leaders who never visited the field or office work family members to develop a relationship, learn about what is going on at the sharp end of the stick, and hear how leadership could support safe and effective work. The most profound example is when I worked on the East Coast of the US for a previous employer. My executive leader would visit my location from his office without letting us know that he was coming. We lost the opportunity to plan conversations or to host a basic catching-up. He would also take a route in the office that minimized his opportunity to engage work family members before he settled in his satellite office, away from us. This example is the opposite of servant leadership.

The safety culture maturity heavily depends on the safety leadership character traits exhibited by the executives. Mature safety cultures are created and nurtured by effective executive safety leadership. The more focused the executives are focused on exhibiting the safety leadership character traits in service to their work family, the stronger the safety culture.