How safety leadership styles impact safety performance: A case study

Job-related injuries continue to be a salient problem facing many organizations. Prior research has examined the role of leadership in influencing and improving workplace safety. However, studies of safety leadership have focused on the styles or behaviors of leaders without taking into account the influence of context on leader activities or practices. Therefore, there is a need for examining how leadership styles impact safety performance within a specific context. Specifically, our research setting is an Indonesian manufacturing facility of a large consumer products company with an impeccable safety performance.

In this paper, we conduct a case study with an in-depth analysis on how different leadership styles impact safety performance. We adopt the LEAD model as a theoretical framework that unifies different theories of leadership for safety management.

We find evidence that effective safety leadership entails multiple leadership styles such as transformational, transactional, and leader-member exchange depending on the situation. Our findings support a multi-faceted situational approach for safety leadership and management advocated by the LEAD model.

Because a multi-faceted leadership approach is most effective, leaders should not focus on one fixed leadership approach in managing safety. In addition, multiple leadership styles contribute to safety behaviors in different ways across different work situations. Future workplace safety performance interventions would be more effective if management is aware of the situation in which specific leadership styles or practices should be applied.