The Role of Leadership in Safety Performance and Results

Employee safety is a requirement and responsibility of employers and great focus is placed on various engineering and protective activities. However, leadership has been found in numerous research investigations to importantly influence the level of safety in the workplace and the resulting employee injury level. This publication is a scientific exploration of the types of leadership traits that are most effective in producing good safety results or the lack of occupational injuries. A qualitative study was conducted using the views of employees and first line supervisors to describe the types of leadership traits and activities that would improve safety results in land based operations of the energy industry in the United States. Employees and supervisors agreed that elements of transformational leadership are most effective in driving good safety performance and results.