This studied the effects of training supervisors in leadership (LX) theory around transformational (TFL) and active transactional behaviours (TSL) on leadership behaviour, safety climate, employee safety behaviours after a 8-week period.
TFL emphasises inspiring and motivating leader behaviours; which in turn, encourages employees to engage in higher levels of safety participation and noted to build consensus among employees’ perceptions of the priority given to safety (pg.315).
TSL emphasises proactive monitoring and correcting leader behaviours, meaning leaders can better anticipate problems and take proactive corrective actions. It’s noted that “this form of leadership promotes learning in how to anticipate and prevent safety incidents and adverse events” (p315).
Some other relevant findings include:
- While there’s increasing calls for leaders to use a combination of both leader behaviours, few studies (when this study was published) had evaluated the combination
- A meta-analysis found that TFL was universally effective, but TSL was found to vary in effectiveness, suggesting the influence of contextual moderators
- TSL may be more appropriate in the context of safety-critical environments, represented by complexity and uncertainty, since it “focuses on providing clear guidance and feedback” (p315)
- Another meta-analysis found that leadership interventions were generally effective in changing leader behaviours and particularly when aimed at the supervisory level, e.g. a half-day workshop on TFL techniques for supervisors led to employees reporting a higher increase in TFL leader behaviours 3 months later
- Other more mixed findings were found in other studies
Results
Both LX types were found to be effective in helping supervisors to apply both techniques to behaviours of safety, although no change in the frequency of the behaviours was found. TFL was found to already be high and already linked to safety pre-intervention, whereas TSL behaviours were only increased & linked to safety after the intervention.
Although the frequency of technique behaviours did not increase (against predictions that leader safety behaviours would change), TSL became better aligned to safety outcomes post-training; suggesting coaching leaders on how to apply context-sensitive LX skills, rather than just the frequency.
As per previous work, TFL was more closely linked employee safety participation & TSL more strongly to employee compliance.
Training led to significant improvements in perceived safety climate, compared to the comparison group (who received no training). Further, re-orientating TSL behaviours towards safety goals can improve employee safety perceptions, including perceptions around management commitment, communication and work pressure.
Interestingly, even though leader behaviour didn’t significantly change post-intervention, they highlight previous research suggesting that “moderate (rather than high) levels of transformational and active transactional behaviors were most associated with safety; thus interventions that focus on increasing the frequency of such behaviors beyond this level may not be optimal” (p319).
Although no change was noted in employee behaviour (only perceptions) – the authors suggest this may take longer to emerge and that “it is likely that employees become more receptive to active transactional behaviors in high-risk contexts, rather than leaders spontaneously adjusting their behaviors to match the situation” (pp318-319).
Finally, the findings suggest that training interventions do not need to focus on any particular LX style, but combinations and general LX theory is effective.
[Note: Although not discussed in this study, other research has countered this view somewhat be suggesting better improvements with domain-specific leadership styles targeting the specific goals of interest; e.g. safety leadership for safety matters, sleep leadership for sleep behaviours etc..]
Finally, these findings “suggest that safety leadership interventions might focus more on the orientation of leader behaviors relative to the situation (e.g., learning how to use active transactional behaviors, such as proactive monitoring, to improve safety compliance), rather than frequency of behaviors” (p319).
Authors: Clarke, S., & Taylor, I. (2018). Accident Analysis & Prevention, 121, 314-320.
Study link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2018.05.010
Link to the LinkedIn summary: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/reducing-workplace-accidents-through-use-leadership-field-hutchinson
SafetyInsights.org 