Kevin Burns Blog

Safety leadership has little to do with position or title.

Safety leadership has little to do with position or title. One needs not be in a management or in a supervisory position to be a leader. In fact, some of the best leaders are ordinary employees. They just happen tzo possess certain traits that cause others to ask their advice or input. They tend to stand a little taller than some of their fellow employees. And it’s not because they are more experienced or have greater tenure. Mostly, leadership is about the person you are and the way you carry yourself.

In this series of safety leadership posts, we are exploring personal traits. Leadership goes beyond experience and technical expertise. To become a leader requires more than years on the job or seniority in a company. Leadership is a lifelong commitment to self-improvement. Leadership is about being outward-focused; concerned about the well-being of others.

As was outlined in the first post, this is not the definitive and exhaustive list of leadership traits. There will be many. And with each post, I will offer up three traits so that you will hopefully take the time to do an honest self-assessment on each of the traits. So with that being said, let’s explore the next three traits of safety leadership:

Do you have the traits of a safety leader? Use this post as a self-assessment tool.

Over the past couple of years, I have written much about safety leadership but not in the sense of a management or supervisory position. The safety leadership that I subscribe to is a personal one.

Leadership requires no title or position. In fact, some of the best workplace leaders are just ordinary employees who happen to possess certain traits that causes others to look up to them and to seek their advice. They are the people who tend to make the first move and ask the first questions. They do not let their ego or uncertainty stand in the way of doing the job right. They ask the questions to be certain of what is expected of them and they ensure they have right information to make good decisions, especially where their own safety is concerned.

Leaders are not managers necessarily although some management people may possess great leadership skills. Other managers, supervisors or safety people may be void of the traits of leadership but still have the authority of their positions. Having authority, a title or a position does not make you a leader. It makes you a manager. Not the same.

There is a vast difference between people seeking out your opinion based on your authority and those who might seek your counsel because of your ability to be focused on helping others to achieve better.

Do you have the traits of a safety leader? Why not use this series of posts on safety leadership as a self-assessment tool to determine how well you score? We feature just a few traits each post to allow you to determine how well you're doing. This post is not the definitive and exhaustive list of traits of safety leaders. There are many more than those listed here. Here are the first three traits of safety leaders:

Are you aware that a front-line supervisor has more influence on safety performance than senior management?

Are you aware that a front-line supervisor has more influence on safety performance than senior management? Here’s why. The front-line supervisor, as the name would imply, lives at the front-line. The front-line supervisor has more frequent contact with employees. Armed with decent supervisory skills, caring and conscientiousness, a supervisor has more influence in front-line activities than a senior manager.

It’s important for companies to choose the right person for supervisory positions. They need to be the right mix of personal skills and technical ability. Choosing that person, sadly, happens the wrong way far too often. The tendency is to pick the most senior person on a crew and give them a supervisory role. But even a company like Google found out that employees want more from their supervisors.

Google’s Project Oxygen surveyed all 38,000 Google employees to determine what the employees wanted from their supervisors. Out of the eight top traits, technical expertise finished dead last. Google employees wanted their supervisors to have things like good coaching skills, to be approachable, to have a focus on always improving, to be a good communicator and someone who empowers the team. Google employees are not as tightly regimented in their workday as front-line laborers. So you can imagine how having those skills in tightly-run, high-risk environment would be needed even more.

For the supervisor, it’s imperative that they understand that authority and influence are two very different things. Anyone can be the boss and throw their authority weight around. That takes no skill. Influence, though, takes skill and the right mindset.

Here are three areas where you as a front-line safety supervisor can develop better influence:

There are requirements to cover in safety meetings. They require a balanced approach. Engagement and safety have to work together.

No one has ever complained that the safety meeting was too short. In fact, cheers go up when the safety meeting somehow magically ends early. Safety meetings are the only legally required meetings of an organization besides the shareholders’ Annual General Meetings. But nowhere in the OH&S Act does it require safety meetings to be dull, dry, boring or long.

This article addresses longer format meetings like safety days, stand-downs, or any other multi-hour safety event.

Safety meetings can either be effective or confusing. Yes, there are requirements to cover in the safety meeting but it has to be a balanced approach. Engagement and safety have to work together.

Here are three ways that you can shorten the length of the safety meeting and still be more effective at engaging your people: