Effects of leadership style and psychological job demands on situation awareness and the willingness to take a risk: A survey of selected offshore vessels

Abstract

We examined how active and passive leadership styles (i.e., authentic leadership and laissez-faire leadership) and psychological job demands combine and influence safety related outcomes in terms of situation awareness and the willingness to take a risk in day-to-day operations. To this end, a conceptual model was developed, and by means of path-analysis with a maximum likelihood estimation the model was tested using survey data collected on board offshore vessels within a Norwegian controlled shipping company. The model was tested in both the deck department (n=178) and the machine department (n=103). The results indicated that relatively little variations in job demands could be explained by laissez-faire leadership (6.3% and 3.7% in the deck and machine department samples, respectively). With regards to situation awareness, on the other hand, 21.6% of the variations could be explained by the combined influence of authentic leadership, laissez-faire leadership and job demands in the deck department sample, whereas 27.5% of the variations in situation awareness could be explained by the two leadership styles alone in the machine department sample. In the deck department sample, job demands and situation awareness explained 18.9% of the variations in risk-taking, whereas these two variables explained 30.8% of the variations in the machine department sample. The differences between the deck department sample and the machine department sample are explained in the manuscript. The study expands our understanding of how active and passive leadership styles may combine with psychological job demands to influence situation awareness and safety in maritime operations.