Better business through S.A.F.E.R. leadership : a 'how-to' model and systems approach for transformational safety leadership

Abstract

Leaders create culture with every statement, action, assigned priority, interaction and acknowledgement they make. Leadership shapes and predicts the culture of an organization. This model uses transformational leadership dimensions to define the behaviours of safer leadership to create a safer workplace culture. Effective leaders speak about safety; their actions make safety live and demonstrate their safety commitment to all employees and stakeholders; they focus and connect safety to every part of the business; they engage the workforce in safety leadership; and they recognize people for championing safety. The components of the S.A.F.E.R. Leadership Model include: Speak, Act, Focus, Engage and Recognize. The S.A.F.E.R. Leadership model outlines specific behaviors and practices leaders do to effectively advance safety participation and outcomes within their organizations. The purpose of this paper is to offer a leadership model and a sustainability framework towards the development and propagation of safety leadership capabilities and networks within a system of workplaces and industry stakeholders. To achieve a critical mass of safety leadership by those that lead teams and manage organizations would bring economic advantage and strengthen competitiveness by leveraging the knowledge and existing capacity of the workforce.