(47a) Multiple Perspectives on the Role of Safety Leadership in Major Hazard Organisations

There is widespread agreement between industry, regulators, and academics that leadership is a key component of a safe organisation. This view is widely supported by findings from almost all major incident inquiries and investigations, which have demonstrated that managerial failure is at least as important as technical failure and operator error. Managers play an important role because their decisions have a fundamental impact on the resources invested in safety and more broadly on how work is organised and managed. Despite the increased focus on managers’, and particularly senior managers’, roles and responsibilities both in legislation and in major incident enquiries, comparatively little research has been conducted on the types of behaviours and leadership styles that are effective in managing safety.

This paper will bring together different sources of evidence on the role of leadership particularly in major hazard organisations. First, based on a review of academic literature and an analysis of major incidents, the requirements for effective safety leadership will be presented. Specifically, a review of published evidence over the last ten years was carried out in order to capture current knowledge in the area of leadership. This was complemented by an analysis of accident reports and published papers for sixteen major incidents in order to identify any recurrent themes in the causation of these incidents, particularly those that represented leadership failures or have leadership implications for the management of safety. Second, an empirical study was conducted on the perceptions of senior managers regarding the roles and responsibilities of Board members in terms of safety leadership across three different major hazard organisations. The paper will discuss the implications of the findings from these different sources for the roles and responsibilities of managers, and what constitutes effective safety leadership in major hazard organisations.

Please note that this paper will draw on the third author’s publication ‘A review of the literature on effective leadership behaviours for safety’, Research Report 952, Health and Safety Executive: Sudbury Books.

© British Crown copyright (2013)