SafetyInsights.org

How do senior leaders in high-risk industries define safety leadership? And what qualities characterise them?

This interview study of 25 leaders unpack these questions.

Note. Those cynics which moan about why safety needs to take concepts like leadership or culture and whack ‘safety’ on the front should read this. Once again, another study highlighting domain-specificity.

For context:

·     “Leadership influences virtually every aspect of safety manage-ment, from the communication of safety priorities to the enforcement of procedures and the modeling of desired behaviors. Given this central role, interventions targeting leaders tend to be particularly effective, sometimes even more so than those aimed directly at workers”

·     “As a result, transforming frontline and senior leaders into safety leaders has become a priority that many organizations are actively pursuing” and reflects safety, moral, psychological and economic reasons

·    They defined safety leadership as “A leadership style where authentic care is demonstrated through leaders who embody and drive safety as a core value by strategically prioritizing it in their communications, decisions and actions to improve safety and business performance”

Findings:

·    “Despite having parallels with other leadership styles, safety leadership was found to be conceptually unique from other leadership constructs, especially from trans-formational leadership”

·    “while safety leadership has traditionally been discussed in relation to safety performance, the present study unveils its additional positive impact on business performance”

·    The emphasis on safety leadership was highlighted by “not just on care, but authentic care”

·    “Although they didn’t use the word “care” explicitly, Zohar (2002) found that leadership practices, which operationalize concern for safety, serve as the basis for perceptions of safety climate”

·    “This underscores the foundational role care plays in the overall conceptualization of safety leadership, positioning it as a central element of the definition”

·    “How to demonstrate this care in high-risk industries, participants shared, is by embracing safety as a core value”

·    “The organizations employing many of the interview participants had provided their leaders with the training, coaching, and supporting organizational culture to put safety at the forefront of everything they do. This was not by chance but rather by design”

·  “The impact of leaders prioritizing safety against competing demands cascades down the hierarchal chain, ultimately influencing safety perceptions and climate”

·    “this study’s interviews strongly suggests a positive relationship between safety leadership and non-safety outcomes”

·        “Rather than relying on authority or force, safety-specific transformational leadership emphasizes inspiring and uplifting employees to achieve safety goals”

·        “High psychological safety describes an environment where employees feel safe speaking up and reporting incidents (Newman et al., 2017). Unlike trust, which focuses on dyadic relationships, such as that between a worker and their leader, psychological safety is a group-level construct describing the shared belief that a team holds”

·        “There is a limited body of research specifically examining the relationship between safety leadership and psychological safety (Quansah et al., 2023). Trustworthiness on the other hand, is a well-established quality of safety leaders that has been extensively examined and shown to influence employee safety behaviors”

·        ”Some participants viewed safety leadership as a component of overall leadership, arguing that effective leaders inherently prioritize safety. Others, however, identified three key distinctions that set it apart as a unique style. Those linking safety leadership to general leadership often cited qualities like care and authenticity as common denominators”

Study link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2026.107159
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