Safety Leadership: Just Business or Actively Caring

By: Christina Merriott, CHST (Sr. Safety Facilitator)

What does safety leadership mean to you?

Ask just about anyone and they can tell you safety is good for business. Companies will set up Safety Goals and Procedures to encourage and inspire their employees to work safely. Goals like “Zero Injuries” or “Zero Liabilities” have good intentions. Safe Work Procedures look great on paper and do well as a basis for employee training. Are these practices effective in creating a safe work environment? To truly create a safe working culture, you need quality Safety Leadership.

Good Safety Leaders know that the “zero injury” goal alone is not an effective means to inspire safe work practices. It easily equates to worn out phrases like: “do it because I told you to” or “let’s work safe today now get to it”. Do these phrases help employees know how to work safely? Adults are not young children who may do exactly as told without question. Adults want to understand why they are doing something. Good Safety Leaders will instruct their workers in not just the tasks, they will give them the knowledge to understand why the task is important and how to accomplish it as safely as possible. Not because safe work is good for business, but because they care about the safety of their workers.

Over several years of observing various crews and their leaders, I asked myself what makes the difference between good crews and great crews. What was it about the leaders that crew members would follow them anywhere. Anywhere as in changing companies and in some cases moving across the country. What creates such loyalty? The Leader actively cared about the crew. Expectations were set, often very high. Instructions were given with detail, including safe work procedures. The leader was also open to feedback from the crew. The team was encouraged to speak up, especially when safety and quality were involved. The leader held them accountable to the expectations and fiercely defended them when they did everything to the best of their abilities in the face of adversity. As a team, they worked safely not just because they were told too, but because they were given the tools, knowledge, and support to achieve their goals. Most of all, they know their leader actively cares about them and inspires them to actively care about each other.