Safety Intelligence: Senior Leadership and Safety

1. Safety Intelligence: Senior Leadership and Safety Laura Fruhen University of Aberdeen

2. Outline • What is leadership? • Leadership and safety • Full range Leadership • Leader-Member-Exchange • Top Level Leadership and Safety • Leadership activities • Safety Intelligence

3. What is leadership?

4. Fleishman et al (1991)

5. What is leadership? • Leadership = “[…] constituting a process of social influence that is enacted by designated individuals who hold formal leadership roles in organizations” (Kelloway & Barling, 2010; p. 261) • Leadership = “…the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives” (Yukl, 2002 ; p. 7)

6. Trait Definition of Leadership • Leadership is determined by • Height • Intelligence • Extraversion • Masculinity • Dominance • Etc • (e.g. Lord et al. 1986) Process Definition of Leadership Leader Followers Interaction

7. Theoretical approaches to leadership • The Trait Approach (1920-1930) • Leaders’ characteristics are different from non-leaders • The Behavioural Approach (1950s) • Behaviour leaders engage in • The Contingency Approach (1970s) • Takes the situation into account • New Leadership Approaches

8. Leadership style has an impact on safety (e.g. Kelloway, Mullen & Francis, 2006; Clarke & Ward, 2006) Two examples The full range leadership model (Bass, 1985) Leader-member exchange (Dansereau, Cashman, & Graen, 1973) Leadership and Safety: What do we know?

9. Transformational Leadership Transactional leadership Laissez Faire Leadership Leadership and Safety: The full range of Leadership Model (Bass, 1985)

10. Transformational Leadership Transactional leadership Laissez Faire Leadership Leadership and Safety: The full range of Leadership Model (Bass, 1985) • Lowest level of leadership • Absence of leadership

11. Transformational Leadership Transactional leadership Laissez Faire Leadership Leadership and Safety: The full range of Leadership Model (Bass, 1985) • Contingent reward • Management by exception

12. Transformational Leadership Transactional leadership Laissez Faire Leadership Leadership and Safety: The full range of Leadership Model (Bass, 1985) • Idealised influence • Inspirational motivation • Intellectual stimulation • Individualised consideration

13. The full range of Leadership Model and Safety • Transformational Leadership Safety • (e.g. Zohar, 2002) • Laissez faire leadership Safety • (e.g. Zohar, 2002) • The effects of transformational leadership style on performance are stronger in maximum contexts (Lim & Ployhart, 2004). + -

14. Leadership and Safety: Leader-Member Exchange (LMX)(Danserau, Graen & Haga, 1975) • LMX focuses on the relation of the leader to each of their followers • Followers are divided into in-group and out-group members • Task of the leader: • drive the relationship from a tentative first stage to a deeper more meaningful one

15. L L L L L L F1 F4 F5 F6 F3 F2 Leader Member Exchange Out Group In Group

16. Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) and Safety • LMX safety citizenship behaviour • LMX safety citizenship role definitions • These relations are moderated by safety climate (Hofmann, Morgeson & Gerras, 2003) + +

17. So far, • Leadership has been established as related to safety at lower organisational levels • What about Senior level leadership?

18. Are Senior managers positions different?

19. Senior Managers: change and improve existing corporate culture (German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation, 2004) One of the most frequent employed safety climate factors (Guldenmund, 2000) Commitment is one of the main drivers of employees safety performance (Michael, Evans, Jansen & Haight, 2005) Only 5% of leadership literature focuses on senior management (Horn & Zaccaro, 2003) Senior Managers and Safety

20. Can interpersonal theories also be applied to senior leadership? Interpersonal theories of leadership do not readily apply to executive forms of influence Horn & Zaccaro (2003) Strategic Leadership research should focus on the “substance in relation to leadership“ Day &Lord (1988) Executive leaders operate at a system wide and indirect level and in some cases never meet all their followers Zaccaro (2001)

21. Senior leadership and safety programs Harper et al. (1996) Can you guess what patterns were described in the questionnaire?

22. Personable communication Priority given to safe production • The quality of face-to-face contact between managers and employees • Perceived friendly communication • being interested in the employee as an individual • inquiring the employee’s health and general welfare or that of their family • The attitude that the cost of safety detracts from productivity • being explicit that they are in the business of safe production • showing that production without safety is unacceptable

23. Skills and traits of senior executive managers in relation to safety Abilities and Understanding regarding Information Safety risks to the organization Decision making (Kirwan, 2008) Another way of looking at senior managers and safety: Safety Intelligence

24. What are the characteristics of the people at the top of an organisation who achieve high quality safety performance? What we don’t know so far!

25. The Skill Based Leadership Modeladapted from Mumford et al. (2000)

26. Aim: Whatconstructs identified from the literature review are really relevant? Sample: Subject matter experts (n=38) senior managers other managers that frequently interact with CEOs Measures Questionnaire with two open questions Investigation of Safety IntelligenceQuestionnaire study

27. ‘What kind of person would you like an ideal CEO to be regarding his or her effect on safety?’ ‘What behaviour would you like an ideal CEO to demonstrate regarding his or her effect on safety?’. How would you answer these two questions?

28. Qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2000) Carried out by two independent coders Interrater Agreements: Behaviours: Krippα = .664 Characteristics: Krippα = .776 How did we analyse the data?

29. Results of Questionnaire Analysis

30. Results of Content Analysis (Percentage)

31. Sample: CEOs and Board members (N =9) Measures Exploratory Semi Structured Interview Open questions & Probing questions Scenarios Analysis Qualitative content analysis Carried out by two coders Krippendorf’s α = 0.725 For further Exploration: Interview Study

32. How do you show your commitment to safety? engagement in terms of ‘talking about safety and publishing material about safety’ being ‘clear about one’s safety goals and safety itself’ having safety on the top of the agenda being proactive be safe give positive feedback and rewards Results interview study

33. The next step… Aim: How do the identified constructs affect safety outcomes? Sample: • CEOs and Board members (n = 12-15 ANSPs) Measures • Semi Structured Interviews • Open questions • Scenarios • Questionnaires • Outcome Variables • Management commitment

34. From your point of view • How would you transfer findings regarding senior managers and safety into the organisation?

35. Thank you for your attention!