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Leadership Styles and Safety

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Do Certain Leadership Skills Reduce Workplace Injuries?

April 23, 2009

Wendy L. Stein

Research Concepts and Skills

Clemson University


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Abstract

This research project examines certain leadership skills and the effect those

skills have on workplace safety performance. The purpose of this research is

to define leadership skills and explore the relationship with current safety

practices, culture, and outlines statistical reporting requirements by the

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). According to the

article, “Transforming Safety Culture”, Simon and Cistaro, published in the

April 2009 issue of Professional Safety, Top Management’s buy-in of safety

and establishing an organizational safety culture is not the only key to a

successful safety record. The article claims leadership initiatives must be

put in play in order to facilitate the change for a positive safety culture.

The focus of the research is to align first line supervisor’s skills and

their abilities to be creative in their initiatives for safety and promotion

of the safety culture.

The energy and manufacturing sectors have expended considerable research

dollars in determining the importance of the leadership factor for

organizational safety effectiveness, Flin and Yule, 2004. Although senior

management has the most influence on the safety culture of the organization,

that same management must focus that influence down to the supervisor who is

in fact ultimately responsible for enhancing the safety culture by

cultivating it and allowing it to grow on the front line.

The outcome of this research suggests that when recruiting supervisors, the

selection, hiring and promotion practices should incorporate a requirement to

look for specific leadership traits, primarily transformational leadership,

in order to foster the current safety culture, attitudes and attributes.


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Safety leadership is really about setting the example and leading by the

example that is set. What types of traits do safety leaders harbor? What

are important safety goals? How well does the supervisor achieve their

safety goals? And, what types of leadership techniques do those supervisor’s

employ to influence subordinates? This research will reveal that the

transformational leader is more instrumental in achieving safety goals than

the transactional leader.


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Do Certain Leadership Skills Reduce Workplace Injuries?

Numerous definitions exist as to, “What makes a leader” “What traits

define a leader?” The military’s description of primary leadership goals,

(many still believe a leader must be born), are that the basic non-

commissioned officer’s leadership skills must be present and are necessary to

be effective, the list goes on. Wikpedia and other web based definitions

focus on the visionary, the one who sets the example, the one who puts all

others needs before his, or the one who is action oriented. In a health and

safety setting the word leadership is broadened to encompass certain duties

such as, legal and statutory compliance, organizational core values, and

someone who can influence others to adopt those behaviors. The general

consensus in the safety leadership can be loosely defined as, “A supervisor

who possesses knowledge, skills and the aptitude necessary to fulfill a job

requirement, and will put safety at the forefront of every task or

assignment. The safety leader strives toward continuous improvement, and is

able to influence subordinates into thinking safety and acting safely, thus

reducing workplace injuries. A list of leadership skills and requirements

was noted by Health and Safety several years ago, but one factor that hasn’t

changed is a heightened requirement for increased training of leaders. This

study was based on the safety results of a transactional leader versus a

transformational leader.

The act of punishment and rewards between a supervisor and a

subordinate is a “transaction”. The transactional leader gets tasks done by

focusing on persuading their employees to perform well by promising rewards

in the form of pay increases or bonuses. The employee who does not perform

well receives no rewards and may be penalized by receiving disciplinary


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actions and/or a suspension of pay. This type of leader may focus on

workplace standards and procedures, and pay little attention to subordinates

unless a problem arises. When the leader does not control the rewards and

penalties it can and usually does result in ineffective performance by all

parties concerned where safety is concerned.

The transformational leader puts their employee’s needs above his/her

own. This leader uses charisma and power to influence employees into wanting

to do a good job, taking pride in their work, and looking after each other

where high hazards exist, this type of intangible reward focuses on behaviour

and praise. The relationship requires a good deal of trust in the leader on

the part of the subordinate. Employees focus on the leader’s behavior and in

an effort to please him/her and their co-workers strive to be the very best

employee possible. The employee will put out the “extra mile” if they

believe in their leader. Bernard Bass (2000) maintains that a

transformational leader “intellectually stimulates” their employees by

challenging them to be the best at what they do. The leader teaches new ways

of doing things and inspires his employees to be creative in their approach

to completing assigned tasks.

The research and performance evaluations studied by different

researchers suggest that a transformational leader can be developed

regardless of their level in the organization. Correlations between a

successful safety record and the transformational leader have been noted

through the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass 2000) and through

review of performance records of successful safety leaders. Studies note

that transformational leaders are more likely to take the lead in the


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organizational safety programs, thus are more visibly recognizable and

therefore respected by both supervisors and subordinates across the board.

A study of 228 employees of a large engineering firm was completed and

leadership skills were ranked on the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire

(MLQ). Employees were asked which supervisors would they be most inclined to

put forth extra effort for. Supervisors were ranked from one to four star

leaders, four being the highest ranked transformational leaders. 22% to 24%

of one star leaders had employees who stated they frequently exerted more

effort on the job than what was required of them. An overwhelming 75% to 82%

of employees stated they frequently went the extra mile for the four star

transformational leaders (Bass 2000).

Many scholars and proponents of the behavior based safety (BBS) culture

are demonstrative in their view, a positive organizational safety culture

must begin at Top Management. The first argument is, the first line

supervisor is instrumental in persuading the employee to buy into the culture

and vision, ultimately demonstrating the success of the culture through a

reduction in workplace injuries. The safety message can be the same, but the

face to face individual reinforcement the transformational leader provides to

subordinates is indicative by the reduction in workplace injuries.

A study conducted by Dov Zohar, (Journal of Organizational Behavior

2002) on the relationship between a safety climate and leadership, suggested

that both transactional and transformational leadership had an impact on

safety behavior among workplace employees. This study by was conducted

almost simultaneously with a study by Hoffman and Morgeson (1999). Zohar

studied the relationship of leaders and subordinates based on the supervisor


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having a genuine concern for well being of employee safety before production

The supervisor’s response to safe versus unsafe acts could lead to a

predictor of workplace injuries. Hoffman and Morgeson conducted their study

on a leader’s commitment to safety and that relationship to safety records.

The results of the two studies led to a mediation model which states that

“job performance has direct safety implications, the quality of leader-member

interaction influences the leader’s concern for members’ welfare, which in

turn influences the safety-climate perception within the group, hence the

safety behavior of the group” (Bass, 1990; Fairhurst 1993, 2000).

The overall premise of the studies is that a management and leaders

must exhibit a genuine concern for safety and the well being of subordinates.

People want to know their leaders and company management care about their

well being. Keeping this in the forefront will subsequently yield the fruit

of open discussion around routine tasks and their associated risks; as well

as, high risk tasks which may require deeper discussion and assessments of

the associated hazards. Transformational leaders that can foster this type

of trusting relationship with subordinates can predict a reduction in their

workplace injury rates. Where safety is demonstrated as the priority over

production, the group is more likely to perform safely and look out for each

other’s safety. The perception and relationship will eventually lead to a

positive safety culture promoted and endorsed by Top Management. Of the 49

initial workgroups at a manufacturing plant Zohar studied, 42 groups

completed the entire study. Injury rates were recorded and calculated by on-

site medical practitioners; Safety surveys were distributed to each member of

the workgroups to assess safety leadership. The surveys measured tasks and

the associated risks and the Preventive Action (PA) factor of supervisor’s


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concern for well being, safety directives, and actions related to safety

being a priority over production. A five point scale assigned values from

“completely agree” to “completely disagree”. The results indicated that

supervisors who report to the same superior had varying ratings with respect

to safety being a priority over production. When the focus was put on high

hazard tasks both leadership styles assumed an ordinal order. Zohar’s

Hypothesis I - Transformational leadership will be positively related to the

safety climate (culture) and was shown to have a positive relationship.

Hypothesis II - The safety climate will mediate the relationship between

leadership and workplace injury. However, the results did not yield a

reduction in injury based on the climate differences between transactional

and transformational leaders; although it did indicate that a positive safety

climate was positively related to the level of hazard and indirectly to

leadership style. These findings could be indicative of a heightened level

of awareness, which as a result was noted and reported on yearly performance

evaluations. Whereas, the transformational leader has a more open

communication process – promoting safety through the expression of the well

being of subordinates, Komaki (1998) stresses the importance that

transactional supervision is necessary “because effective monitoring and

rewards...is needed to maintain reliable performance during routine job

operations”. Safety priority was assigned a scale rating of one to five with

questions ranging from, “supervisor turns a blind eye to safety, as long as

there are no injuries” to statements like “supervisor was angry when he

witnessed an unsafe act”. The pattern indicated that transformational

leadership in respect to concern for others and closer personal relationships

among supervisor’s and subordinates promote a higher respect for safety


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practices and should lead to lower injury rates. Zohar suggests that future

research be conducted on the leadership-safety relationship.

Research conducted by Odea and Flin (2001) on offshore oil sites,

studied the managers experience level, style of leadership, and their safety

attitudes and beliefs. A questionnaire survey was used to study 36

organizations operating on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf, which

consisted of 157 sites. The questionnaire focused on experience, leadership

style, accident causation factors, safety climate, safety leadership, five

main outstanding safety issues, and data analysis. Their findings revealed

that experience had little to do with their leadership style or safety

attitudes. However, the study did point out that direct style leadership and

those with the least experience overestimated their capability in persuading

and influencing the workforce. Some Site Managers were aware of their

responsibility to safety; however, they had little influence over their

subordinates to behave safely, and often did not make on the spot corrections

regarding safety matters. An interesting correlation was found to exist, in

that a positive relationship between superior and subordinate open

communications in regard to safety accidents and near misses almost always

resulted in fewer workplace accidents. More than 50% of the Site Managers

preferred an authoritarian type of leadership style. Again, this study was

attempting to predict workplace injuries based on leadership style and

organizational culture.

Hale and Hovden, 1998, highlighted an array of managerial behaviors,

which have been linked back to safety studies that are interwoven with

positive safety cultures. They claim that the broad spanning term

“managements commitment to safety” be replaced with the term ‘participative


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management’. The critical focus in participative management is that

management actually gets involved in work and safety practices.

One common factor in these studies is the desire to enhance human

resources in the recruitment, selection, hiring, and promotion phases. The

assumption being that while studies can predict the type of leader that can

effectively reduce workplace injuries, inspire, educate, and develop a

productive workforce, everything else will fall into place.

After reviewing the cited research on the relationship between

leadership style and workplace injury reduction, I conclude that more studies

need to be conducted to validate more of the proposed hypothesis. The

occupational health and safety fields are currently being bogged down by

unreasonable targets and objectives that are based solely on days away from

work and restricted duty. The studies revealed interesting approaches on

human behavior and the direct relationship to workplace accidents. This

approach to leadership focus is quite different than the traditional approach

of engineering controls and constant work-site monitoring which typically

invalidate the role of the first line supervisor. The future possibility

that certain leadership styles may in fact reduce workplace injuries,

creating the ultimate safe working environment is hopeful.


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References

Avolio BJ, Bass BM, Jung DI. 1999. Re-examining the components of

transformational and transactional leadership using the MLQ. Journal of

Occupational and Organizational Psychology 72: 441-462.

Bass BM. 2002. From transactional to transformational leadership:

Learning to share the vision. Organizational Dynamics 23: 19-31.

Catchpole, K. (2009). Who do we blame when it all goes wrong? Quality

and Safety Health Care 18: 3-4.

Fairhurst GT. 2000. The leader-follower communication. In Handbook of

Organizational Communication, 2nd edn. Jablin F, Putnam L (eds). Sage: Newbury

Park, CA.

Hoffman DA, Morgeson FP. 1999. Safety-related behavior as a social

exchange: the role of perceived organizational support and leader-member

exchange. Journal of Applied Psychology 84: 286-296.

Komaki JL. 1998. Leadership from an Operant Perspective. Routledge: New

York.

O’Dea A. Flin R. 2001. Site managers and safety leadership in offshore

oil and gas industry. Safety Science 37: 39-57.

Reason JT. Managing the Risks of Organizational Accidents. Aldershot,

U.K: Ashgat


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Zohar D. 2002. The effects of leadership dimensions, safety climate,

and assigned priorities on minor injuries in work groups. Journal of

Organizational Behavior. 23: 75-92.

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