Leading to Safety

November/December 2015

The leadership abilities of front-line supervisors might matter more than those of executives when it comes to inspiring work teams and improving safety outcomes.

By Ryan Nolte

What does leadership have to do with safety? Imagine this scenario at a metal recycling yard: Joe is cutting up a pile of copper tubing, using the new alligator shear that came equipped with a sturdy safety guard. But he has trouble seeing what he’s doing. Ignoring the stickers on the shear and nearby safety warning posters, Joe carefully removes the guard cage and proceeds with his work.

Two people witness this clear safety violation and stop Joe before he has a chance to chop his fingers off along with the copper he’s cutting. One is his direct supervisor, Kurt, who immediately suspends Joe for the day and writes up a disciplinary report for his permanent file. He eyes the other workers who have gathered to see what is going on and says in an authoritative tone, “Let this be a lesson to all of you.” The workers nod and go back to their duties.

The other person saving Joe from likely injury is Tommy, a supervisor in training. Tommy is a good worker whom others in the yard trust and even look up to. After Kurt’s stern warnings, Tommy offers to cheer Joe up by buying him a cold drink before he heads home. The two sit in the break room for a few minutes so Joe can explain what the problem was with the guard on the shear.

Kurt and Tommy are demonstrating two different types of leadership in reaction to a worker’s safety violation. Kurt, a “transactional leader,” gets results by identifying and punishing mistakes quickly. Of course, some discipline may be warranted for the worker who knowingly violates a rule or bypasses a safeguard. Because the rule and the violation are clear, Kurt gives no consideration as to why Joe removed the guard. As the other workers witness this result—immediate disciplinary action for the safety violation—they grow quiet and may feel intimidated by Kurt. He has created an environment of transactional punishment that could ultimately result in employees not providing input on how to make the workplace safer or not reporting unsafe conditions or situations.

Tommy, on the other hand, sees an opportunity to learn from Joe’s action. When they talk, he asks why Joe removed the guard on the shear. It turns out that the guard cage obstructed Joe’s view near the blade while he was cutting the scrap, and that made him fearful of having a finger pinched or amputated or of bringing the blade down on a piece that would ricochet and strike him or another worker. They brainstorm possible solutions, and Tommy suggests that Joe put his ideas in writing so they can bring them to the safety manager’s attention. Joe says it might be easier to see what he’s doing if they’d just paint the guard cage a contrasting color—an idea, it turns out, the safety manager already has been considering.

As a “transformational leader,” Tommy is more inclined to find out why this safety violation occurred from someone doing the work. Rather than focusing solely on whether or not a worker complied with the safety procedure, Tommy wants to identify solutions that will make the whole plant safer—solutions that take into account the point of view of the person doing the job. This instills trust and promotes the atmosphere needed to improve the relationships between leaders and workers that lead to safer work environments.

Learning to Lead
When ReMA asked me to speak about transformational leadership—the topic of my doctoral dissertation research—at the spring 2015 meeting of the ReMA Safety and Environmental Council, I was excited to have the opportunity to share the results with my colleagues. It appears not only that transformational leadership can lead to safer environments, but also that the degree to which managers exhibit transformational leadership characteristics correlates to a lower likelihood of future accidents.

My interest in the relationship between good leadership and safety began when I started pursuing my doctorate in organizational leadership from Indiana Wesleyan University. The program required me to conduct research that would contribute to the field of organizational leadership and that fell within one of the leading leadership theories. Transformational leadership was the most prominent and widely studied theory. Recent research had shown a relationship between transformational leadership and positive safety outcomes in a variety of fields, such as restaurant work, construction, and nursing. I had spent 15 years as a safety professional in the scrap recycling industry at the time, so it made sense for me to explore transformational leadership and safety in this industry for my dissertation study.

So what is transformational leadership? In his book Leadership, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and political scientist James MacGregor Burns describes it as leadership that inspires people to perform better than would normally be expected, benefiting the group. The transformational leader displays caring and concern toward the individual follower, which builds a trusting and beneficial relationship; this leads to the follower accepting the leader’s legitimacy. This acceptance motivates the worker to pursue goals that benefit both the individual and the organization.

Management professor Bernard Bass, in his book Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations, evolves this concept even further, describing transformational leadership as a form of leadership that inspires people to perform at a high level. This happens when leaders demonstrate themselves as role models with a high level of honesty and integrity, making other people’s needs and concerns a high priority and developing individual abilities rather than focusing on the group as a whole. To advance the organization and encourage achievement, transformational leaders stimulate people intellectually by promoting creative thinking and involving them in decisions, which in turn improves problem-solving. Transformational leaders create meaning for work beyond production and embrace the contributions of all people, recognizing these contributions as ends in themselves and not just means to achieve organizational objectives.

In contrast, transactional leadership involves motivating a follower to do something for the leader in exchange for some reward based on performance. A transactional leader directs and dictates expectations of performance in exchange for the rewards, such as pay. Such a leader might look for or wait for workers to make mistakes and then correct them.

Transformational leaders create a positive environment of relationships and sharing for organizational pursuits and individual development, which produces more positive organizational change than we see from transactional leaders, with their stagnant and less-caring interactions. Transformational Leadership by Bernard Bass and Ron Riggio offers an easy guide to this leadership phenomenon, explaining in more detail how transformational leadership works.

Measuring Transformational Leadership
Transformational leaders teach, develop others, show integrity, and consider the individual an important part of the process. Transformational leaders typically display little egotism and, rather than talking about their personal accomplishments, tend to praise others. They are good listeners who allow people to finish their thoughts and react to those thoughts with inquiries or honest feedback. Transformational leaders often talk about how to achieve organizational objectives through improvements and professional development.

The previous studies evaluating transformational leadership and safety outcomes showed a strong correlation between high scores in transformational leadership behavior and better safety outcomes. The studies that showed the strongest correlations were those involving front-line supervisors. This suggested the possibility that strong leadership at levels other than upper management or executive could have the greatest impact on certain organizational dynamics, despite this industry’s firm belief that safety must start with the owner or CEO. This was the foundation for my research: I studied the impact that transformational leadership behaviors in front-line supervisors have on accident rates in scrap recycling facilities.

My study evaluated whether transformational leadership was a potential factor in the lower accident rates within the work groups of some supervisors and whether those leadership behaviors are leading indicators of safety performance in different work groups. I investigated the theory that front-line supervisors who exhibit higher levels of transformational leadership behaviors, measured by the appropriate survey, would have lower recordable accident rates (as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration defines them) and lower lost workday rates in their work groups.

Six scrap recycling companies agreed to participate in my research with front-line supervisors and their direct reports; the workers rated the supervisors and the supervisors rated themselves for transformational leadership using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire from Mind Garden, an independent publisher of psychological assessments. Participants rated (or self-rated) a supervisor’s specific behaviors on a scale of 0 to 4. To calculate an aggregate transformational leadership score of 0 to 4 for each individual supervisor, I took the average from the front-line supervisors’ self-rated scores and the ratings from their employees. I also received accident rates and lost workday rates for the set of employees reporting to each supervisor from the year prior to when participants submitted the surveys so I could statistically compare them with the transformational leadership scores.

With the leadership scores and data on accidents and lost workdays, I was able to evaluate whether accidents are related to transformational leadership and, if so, how statistically significant the relationship is. My study demonstrated these four findings:

--There is a significant and predictable relationship between higher transformational leadership scores and lower recordable accident rates.
--There is a significant and predictable relationship between higher transformational leadership scores and lower lost workday rates.
--There is a predictable probability of decreasing the occurrence of recordable accidents with higher transformational leadership scores.
--There is a predictable probability of decreasing the occurrence of lost workdays due to accidents with higher transformational leadership scores.

These results might seem like common sense—of course better leadership produces better and safer work environments—but because we can quantify these factors and illustrate the strength of the correlation, our discussions about the impacts of transformational leadership on organizations gain substance.

I originally assumed that accident rates would go down as transformational leadership scores went up and vice versa. Indeed, the statistical calculations of transformational leadership scores and both recordable accident rates and lost workday accident rates show a fairly strong correlation. The results also indicate that there is a predictability factor (called a linear regression) for transformational leadership scores and recordable accident rates of 26 percent. In other words, 26 percent of one variable is caused by the other. In this case, 26 percent of the reason for a certain recordable accident rate is the transformational leadership score; because of the correlation, as one number goes up, the other predictably goes down. This result means transformational leadership behaviors arguably have the most significant impact on accident rates, given the fairly high number of variables that can result in accidents.

The results of the predictability factor for lost workday rates are even stronger, at 32 percent, indicating that 32 percent of the reason for a particular lost workday rate is the transformational leadership score of the front-line supervisor. Another interesting result is that no supervisor who had a transformational leadership score of greater than 2.89 (out of a possible 4.0) experienced a lost workday injury during the time period evaluated.

The statistical model shows that OSHA recordable accident and lost-workday rates will go down predictably and measurably in the work groups of supervisors who demonstrate higher levels of transformational leadership behaviors. In the model for OSHA recordable rates and transformational leadership scores, for example, we would expect the accident rate to be about 8.5 accidents a year where the transformational leadership score is 2.75. The rate would improve to 5.0 with just a quarter-point increase in transformational leadership score, to 3.0. We see the same results with lost workday rates, expecting a rate of 2.25 lost workdays a year with a transformational leadership score of 2.75, which improves to about 0.8 with a higher transformational leadership score of 3.0.

A New Approach to Scrapyard Safety
These results show clearly that front-line supervisors who demonstrate stronger transformational leadership behaviors have lower accident rates than those who are not as strong. The correlation and the predictability of the relationship make transformational leadership a leading indicator for safety performance—something we typically can evaluate primarily based on the lagging indicator of having accidents. Leadership as a leading indicator to improve safety is not a novel idea, but we now may be able to develop a specific type of leadership that will produce predictable improvements.

My study demonstrates that transformational leadership behavior in front-line supervisors is a significant reason why scrap recycling organizations have—or don’t have—accidents. This challenges the paradigm that a focus on compliance with standards or a laundry list of rules is the most effective way to reduce injuries. I don’t mean to imply that strong leadership alone will result in safer environments. Compliance with safety standards is an important part of any organizational safety program, but many organizations have achieved a high level of compliance while continuing to have accidents. Focusing on leadership development only at an upper management or executive level may not produce positive safety outcomes that are as strongly predictive as such development at the supervisory level. This research suggests that supervisors are more than just directors of work; they also are leaders who can affect the work environment in a way that those at higher organizational levels may not.

Organizations still must have strong leadership at the top, and high-level organizational leaders need to provide direction, support, and resources to front-line supervisors and workers. But front-line supervisors who demonstrate transformational leadership behaviors also are important and will likely reduce injury rates because the relationship they have with workers is one that emphasizes the workers’ well-being and promotes safety as an organizational value. This is a relationship that will exist regardless of the business conditions; it is not a set of restrictions or disciplinary tools.

I believe that workers who depend on their supervisor for information, direction, development, and structure may not fully embrace or understand organizational objectives without strong leadership at the supervisory level, where those objectives become realities (or not). I also think that selecting and developing supervisors based on their tangible and measureable indicators of leadership can move an organization toward achieving its goals, including the realization of zero accidents.

Selecting supervisors for any organization can be tricky. In my 18 years of experience in scrap recycling organizations, I have seen that the person selected to supervise is often the person with the most experience in an area, or who is the best equipment operator, or the plant manager’s old high-school buddy, or a relative of the owner.

Occasionally, good leadership emerges under these circumstances, but these selection methods are not reliable producers of good supervisors or good leaders. This does not mean there is no hope for scrap recyclers who historically have hired or promoted supervisors in these ways. Transformational leadership behaviors can be developed, and my research suggests that even modest increases in these behaviors can improve safety. Selecting supervisors based to some degree on their transformational leadership characteristics can help initiate the relationship with and connectedness to workers that produce positive results, but developing current supervisors into transformational leaders can have the same impact on safety programs. Leadership development programs, typically created for and used by upper-level and executive management, provide the structure, guidance, and coaching that can help supervisors develop as leaders.

Leadership development also must be focused and sustained if it is to succeed in improving an organization. You can’t expect to develop a transformational leader in a single leadership seminar or a class on leadership at a local college. It takes continuous coaching and regular attention to what matters. Working with an experienced leadership development consultant is a good place to start, but long-term support is essential.

Transforming Safety
So what does this all mean? Develop-ing transformational leadership skills in your front-line supervisors can help your company improve its safety. Transformational leaders treat people as individuals and seek their input when problem-solving, conduct themselves ethically in both action and word, and motivate people without asserting authority or resorting to discipline. These behaviors, whether instinctive or learned, promote cooperation between management and workers to achieve the company’s objectives, including safety objectives. Within this culture of inclusion and collaboration, people feel they are part of the process, not simply subjected to it.
 
I believe transformational leadership has a positive effect on accident rates because it enhances a culture of guidance, common goals, development, communication, and ethical conduct that people will embrace. This is manifested most intimately at the operational level between supervisors and workers. Supervisors are the face of the organization for many workers, who depend on the supervisor for all of the things upper management directs and promotes.

A transformational leader understands the value that people bring to a workplace and helps improve and develop people in order to improve and develop the organization. A safety program based on anything other than such improvement and development—for example, one that focuses on compliance and discipline—misses a fundamental assumption of leadership: People will perform at their highest levels if they can get behind something that has meaning, that is beneficial, and that they understand. Low accident rates don’t always indicate a safe work environment, particularly if workers underreport incidents due to a fear of reprimand or mistrust of organizational objectives. Low accident rates tied to a form of leadership that has demonstrated successful and positive work environments, as my study shows, give a strong indication of how leadership influences the safety and well-being of workers, providing a true measure of safety effectiveness.

Ryan Nolte, an 18-year scrap industry veteran, teaches at Trine University (Angola, Ind.).