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The Leader of One!
Safety Leadership Series
Developing: a “Hybrid Behaviour Based Safety Culture”
By Jeffrey G. Chorney
n my office I have a stack of leadership information and books which I covet greatly. I have
learned the hard way that in order to survive as a safety professional I can’t always count on
employees following the rules whether in my department or elsewhere in our organization.
However I am committed to changing the safety culture in our organization one employee at a
time.
Remember Corporal Klinger on the TV series MASH? His philosophy and definition of insanity
was; he could steal an army jeep one piece at a time, even if he had to swallow each individual
part and assemble the jeep outside of the army barracks. Well my philosophy is… an ineffective
safety culture mountain will tumble down one bite at a time if everybody works at it. Mr. Safety
professional… take small bites all around the mountain and the mountain will eventually fall
down!
A few months ago I stumbled upon an article by Dr. Lake entitled the Leader of One! In the
series he talks about servant leadership and… as a colleague of mine Mr. Barry Mitchelson put
it… “It starts with you Jeff.” You can’t lead people until you figure out how to lead yourself. In
order to be an effective safety professional/manager/leader one must look inside first. Figure out
your strengths and weaknesses, accept who you are and how God wired you, and then become a
servant. If you don’t believe me read Dominic Cooper’s article; Effective Safety Leadership -
Understanding Types and Styles That Improve Safety Performance.
Mr. Cooper gets it right when he talks about servant leadership. Servant leadership creates a
supportive environment, increases employee engagement, improves safety behaviour, and finally
it decreases your incident rate. His model Positive Impact of Safety Leadership Styles maps it out
in detail for you. His comprehensive article can be downloaded off of the Internet
at: www.asse.org February 2015 Professional Safety page 49-53.
A pastoral friend of mine said and I quote “You can’t drive a parked car” end quote. If you want
to make a difference you have to get out of your office and talk to people. Sure we’re all busy
however that’s no excuse. Find out who is partially engaged, disengaged, and set out to target
these employees. Figure out who is worth saving and coach them. Start small; get to know them
on a personal level, find out what types of hobbies or interests they have, and what the real issues
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they are facing in their lives? Build a one-on-one relationship with them and; listen, listen, &
listen some more!
Safety can be about rules, enforcement, and compliance however people are human and still
make mistakes. The trick is to come up with a strategy to mitigate the risk so if somebody
messes up the collateral damage will be minimal and containable. In our department we are
working on a hybrid model whereby we take the “Best of the Best” standards and cherry pick
key components in order to build a viable and functional behaviour based hybrid system. I am
talking about Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) and the requirements of ISO 31000, OHSAS
18001, I.S.O. 19011, CSA Z1000-6 and Z1001-13 Occupational Health and Safety training. We
are literally designing a safety management behavioural based cocktail. Please hit the following
link for details: https://www.theirm.org/media/886062/ISO3100_doc.pdf
Once these key components are decided upon we are taking them to the next level. The plan is to
integrate them into a corporate strategy for continuous improvement. Our team is working on a
model that will specifically target safety responsibilities for; the CEO/Board, Executive Team,
Business Unit Directors, Unit Managers, individual employees, and safety professionals in our
organization. It’s not rocket science however if you were brutally honest with yourself ask the
question….how many companies do you know who can claim they get it right and how many are
lying to your face?
No one likes to enter the board room to find out they just had a fatality in their organization.
What is worse … finding out the event could have been avoided and prevented. All of a sudden
the finger pointing begins. Who messed up, who was responsible on-site, were they trained, was
the procedure being followed? The aforementioned questions will be asked by WHS. How would
anyone know if nobody decided to get out of their office that day and walk around? Even worse
the perception could be; there is no trust, people are distracted, listening seems to be an option,
and a huge communication gap may exist at all levels.
A good friend of mine said to me one day, “Jeff… a certificate of recognition is not defensible in
a court of law, however a standard is” end quote. I am a true believer of standards. Whether it’s
ISO, CSA, or any other recognized industry safety standard or best practice they are there for a
reason. It’s time to get on board and act.
Jeffrey G. Chorney CRSP NCSO CHSC