The Role of Safety Leadership in Organizational Success
Question:
Discuss “How Might Leadership Affect Safety Management”?
Safety leadership is the process of adding value to safety measures by defining the state that is desired, engaging in flexible efforts and accumulating a team. Safety leadership has been considered as essential factor for gaining success. Many companies are not able to achieve the goals of the organization due to effectiveness in safety leadership. the safety culture of any organization is driven by the leadership team which develops, cultivates and sustains an organization so that they can achieve operational excellence. Thus, this executive team of people sets the strategic direction and vision, provides resources and constantly lays emphasis on the importance of safety management in organizational setting (Clarke 2013). The continuous monitoring and developing of safety procedures provides insights, which will useful for the operational manager and the employees. Safety leadership will have an impact on the financial bottom line if it is maintained in an effective way. Effective safety leadership will have a positive impact on the behaviour and attitude of the employees. Moreover, it will facilitate in reducing the injury rates, insurance premiums and eliminates the production bottleneck, which will increase the productivity. Thus, excellence in safety management is essential for gaining excellence in operational management. The organizations having effective safety leadership will be able to manage the organization in a better way.
The business world consists of two types of leaders, one is inspirational leader and the other is the positional leader. The positional leaders will pilot the organization by power vested in the position they are holding. As stated by Clarke (2013), these types of leaders will direct their employees and give instructions about the work they will be doing. Thus, the subordinates do not have an option and they are bound to follow these kinds of leaders. On the contrary, inspirational leaders are enthusiastic, zealous and passionate about the work they do and this is the sole reason that they are able to inspire people around them. According to Clarke, Guediri and Lee (2017), they are driven by cause and purpose, which enables them to lead passionately. Therefore, instead of directing them what to do, they explain the valid reason for doing this. Thus, by focusing on the reason, these leaders will be able to inspire the people to think for themselves what is right and what should be done. Thus, the subordinates do not follow them because they have to rather they follow them because they ant to follow. On the contrary Cooper (2015), this does not mean that positional leaders cannot be an inspirational leader; a positional leader can be passionate about the things they are doing and trying to achieve. Thus, inspirational leaders are very much concerned about the safety factors, which is very much evident from their body language, words spoken and tone. Moreover, they are able articulate the future goals and objectives in such a way that there is clarity in the plan of action. Thus, they believe in joint efforts and invite the subordinates to work together so that they are able to achieve their goals in a better way.
Types of Leaders and Their Impact on Safety Culture
As stated by Delegach et al. (2017), effective leadership thus can considered to be a balance between caring and controlling which means that the effective leaders will care about the safety of the subordinates and people that are involved in activities. Thus, they will put their trust on the people about doing the thing in a right way and appreciate them for the work they have done. Similarly, they will control the activities and processes by providing the subordinates with a clear picture and direction of accountabilities, expectations and actions. Therefore, optimization of performance can be achieved when a leader is able to balance between the two factors. Imbalance between both these factors will result in an underperformance within the organization. There are generally three types of effective safety leadership styles and they are transactional, transformational and servant. According to Fruhen et al. (2016), transactional leadership is based on rewards and punishment; the leaders will incorporate this culture within the organization. Thus, the employees are rewarded for their good performance and punished for underperforming. Transformation leaders are concerned with shaping the organization in a new way, which will include identification of the factors that will identify their future goals, and doing everything to fulfil their objectives. The servant leaders will facilitate the employees to perform in a better way so that the organization can sustain in the industry.
As opined by Jiang and Probst (2016), transformation leaders aim to motivate the employees by directing, understanding and explaining to them. Thus, in order to motivate the employees, they will describe necessary conditions and how it can be achieved. Moreover, they encourage participation of employees so that they achieve their collective goals. Thus, collectively, they will address the issues and problems faced by the organization to develop the strategic plan along with their respective milestones. These kinds of leaders believe in interactive sessions where the leader aims to motivate employees by questioning and challenging the prevailing assumptions. This will enable the employees to grow at a personal level as well as at an organization level. Thus, bringing about a constant change in to the organization is one of the major characteristics of a transformative leader. On the other hand, Kelloway, Nielsen and Dimoff (2017) states, transactional leaders are establishing the relationship between the desired output and the performance requirements. These leaders consider the employees responsible for the work they are doing and their performance are monitored on a regular basis for performance enhancement. Thus, they will reinforce performance behaviour based on training and development program. This type of leadership is quite useful in invoking safety rules and regulations. These leaders will personally evaluate the safety measures and challenge them so that improvements can be made in them. Thus, regular acknowledgement of the safety issues and inconsistencies in the system will enable to make continuous improvements in to overall processes in the organization. Servant leaders try to improve the performance of the employees based on personal relationship (Liden et al. 2014). These leaders will support the employees by having an open conversation about the issue and providing them with possible support. They are trying to achieve change in the organizational environment by providing support, coaching and training the employees. Therefore, by fulfilling the needs of the employees and developing a work environment supportive is the basis of the servant leader. These leaders will actively participate in all the safety meetings and activities of safety committees.
Effective Safety Leadership Styles
According to the contingency theory of leadership, there is no correct form of leadership and each of these leadership styles has its own place and time. This means that based on the situation different leadership styles will be applicable in different times. Thus, based on the ability of the leaders to make their decision based on the different styles will determine the success and failure if the organisational performance (McCleskey 2014). Thus, the leaders that are more engaging, goal oriented and involving have a better chance of gaining success in their respective business. Thus, based on the situational demand, the appropriate leadership style will have to be selected. There, the bottom line is that the leadership will be based on the needs of the subordinates and not the needs of the leaders.
There are various risks and safety issues in an organization, which remains unaddressed and they will cause a problem known as last mile problem. This generally happens when the organization has no systematic ways of mitigating these issues due to budget issue and lack of time. The presence of these kinds of risks will undermine the safety leadership of an organization. Thus, an effective safety leader will constantly challenges the status quo to identify the reason for the issue of remaining unsolved As stated by Mullen, Kelloway and Teed (2017), ineffectiveness in safety management is the lack of communication and understanding safety management systems and policies associated with it. The leaders are left with uncertainties in accountabilities and responsibilities due to this very reason. Thus, in order to avoid these factors most of companies define the behaviours of the safety leadership in an organization. This facilitates the leaders in articulating and understanding the various elements in safety management.
On the contrary, Nijstad, Berger-Selman and De Dreu (2014) states, effective safety management cannot be achieve by the management of the organization alone. Therefore, collaboration with the stakeholders of the organization is important. This will consist of both the external and internal stakeholders of the organization. A common example is that the management will rely on the employees and staffs to identify potential threats, hazards and safety issues. Thus, the employees will not be able to improve the safety factors alone even if they are able to identify the risk factors. They are completely dependent on the management for directing and supporting the safety policies. Thus, working as a whole team would be essential for effectively managing the safety measures in the organization. Employee engagement is a key measure for improving the safety and risk standards in an organization. As stated by Pilbeam et al. (2016), employee engagement will motivate the employees to effectively identify the risk factors and highlight them in front of the management of the organization. It has been seen that organization using employee engagement are less prone to risk factors in the organization. The implementations of these measures are possible only from the leaders in the organization and effective safety leaders can perform this.
According to Van et al. (2014), safety leadership does not mean safety management, leadership will drive the safety performance of an organization. Safety leaders interact with the management and employees to motivate better safety measures but they are not directly involved in the safety management activities. Thus, they are setting an example and guiding the employees within the organization so that all the safety measures are followed according to the regulations. Thus, they are visionary in identifying the safety culture the organization should be developed and the path the organization should to achieve the goals of the stakeholders. Thus, organization performance is highly dependent on safety measures as the hazards and incident increase the cost structure of the organization. Moreover, the organizational reputation will be hampered due to unwanted hazardous situation and will have an impact on the sustainability of the corresponding to the environment (Clarke, Guediri and Lee 2017). It is essential for the organization to be a responsible corporate citizen and they will have to take measure to prevent impact on the corresponding society and the environment. Safety leadership is thus, very crucial for the organizations as it business sustainability is linked with corporate social responsibility. The workforce of an organization is an essential factor in any organization and protecting them from all sorts of hazardous events is the responsibility of the management in the organization. Thus, the role of safety leader is very important in organizational setting in manufacturing industry, as it is needed to make improvements to quality in working conditions (Cooper 2015).
Transactional Leadership
Thus, the above essay states that the importance of safety leadership in essential in organization setting. The different forms of leadership that has been mentioned in this context shows that effective leadership in the filed of safety is essential for improving the performance of the organization. However, there is no correct form of leadership and the leadership styles change depending upon the situation the organization or the leader is facing. However, the critical analysis of this topic has produced valuable insight, which suggests that companies following effective safety leadership are more successful. Moreover, the team bonding and working on a whole has been one of the major contributors of improving safety procedures and the performance of the organizations. Employee engagement and employee motivation has been key aspect in this context where the management is working together with the employees to improving the working conditions. Thus, employees and management are two essential component of safety management, which go hand in hand. Thus, it can be concluded form the study that safety management is impacted by safety leadership as it is essential for setting an example , vision and the objectives of the organization.
References
Clarke, S., 2013. Safety leadership: A meta?analytic review of transformational and transactional leadership styles as antecedents of safety behaviours. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 86(1), pp.22-49.
Clarke, S., Guediri, S. and Lee, A., 2017. Leadership and Safety. Leading to Occupational Health and Safety: How Leadership Behaviours Impact Organizational Safety and Well-Being, p.9.
Cooper, D., 2015. Effective safety leadership: Understanding types & styles that improve safety performance. Professional Safety, 60(2), p.49.
Delegach, M., Kark, R., Katz-Navon, T. and Van Dijk, D., 2017. A focus on commitment: the roles of transformational and transactional leadership and self-regulatory focus in fostering organizational and safety commitment. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 26(5), pp.724-740.
Fruhen, L., Wang, L., Griffin, M., Finnerty, D., Jorritsma, K. and Boeing, A., 2016, October. Getting Safety Leadership Right. In SPE Asia Pacific Oil & Gas Conference and Exhibition. Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Jiang, L. and Probst, T.M., 2016. Transformational and passive leadership as cross-level moderators of the relationships between safety knowledge, safety motivation, and safety participation. Journal of safety research, 57, pp.27-32.
Kelloway, E.K., Nielsen, K. and Dimoff, J.K. eds., 2017. Leading to Occupational Health and Safety: How Leadership Behaviours Impact Organizational Safety and Well-Being. John Wiley & Sons.
Liden, R.C., Wayne, S.J., Liao, C. and Meuser, J.D., 2014. Servant leadership and serving culture: Influence on individual and unit performance. Academy of Management Journal, 57(5), pp.1434-1452.
McCleskey, J.A., 2014. Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), p.117.
Mullen, J., Kelloway, E.K. and Teed, M., 2017. Employer safety obligations, transformational leadership and their interactive effects on employee safety performance. Safety science, 91, pp.405-412.
Nijstad, B.A., Berger-Selman, F. and De Dreu, C.K., 2014. Innovation in top management teams: Minority dissent, transformational leadership, and radical innovations. European journal of work and organizational psychology, 23(2), pp.310-322.
Pilbeam, C., Doherty, N., Davidson, R. and Denyer, D., 2016. Safety leadership practices for organizational safety compliance: Developing a research agenda from a review of the literature. Safety science, 86, pp.110-121.
Van Dierendonck, D., Stam, D., Boersma, P., De Windt, N. and Alkema, J., 2014. Same difference? Exploring the differential mechanisms linking servant leadership and transformational leadership to follower outcomes. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(3), pp.544-562.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
