Safety Leadership Competence and Organizational Safety Performance

Abstract

Safety leadership is a key factor in promoting safety performance in organizations. Managers need safety leadership competencies when motivating employee safety participation and compliance, as well as in improving the related safety outcomes. Based on the current research, certain safety leadership styles are vital with regard to safety performance. By developing these competencies, organizations may improve their effectiveness via better safety performance. Information on a managers’ safety leadership competence is required in order to develop their competencies and to develop safety training for managers. The objective of this study is to suggest efficient safety leadership competencies for managers, and discuss the importance of developing managers’ safety leadership competence. The results are based on a literature review and 18 interviews carried out in a Finnish expert organization. The results were structured according to the transactional and transformational leadership facets based on leadership theory. The results point out the importance of all traditional facets of transactional and transformational leadership with relation to safety performance, and the idealized influence leadership facet was emphasized. Other important facets were inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and management by exception. Both the transactional and transformational safety leadership competencies of the managers should be trained and developed.