By Peter Krammer
In the construction and utilities industries, safety compliance is paramount to the success of the operation and the lives of the people working within it. Unfortunately, there’s a vast difference between basic compliance and a true commitment to safety. While basic compliance often looks like simply meeting safety standards, a true commitment to safety arises when authentic leaders inspire engaged workers.
It’s easy for companies to do the minimum toward compliance and call it good enough—after all, OSHA guidelines are geared toward just such minimums of action—but in construction and utilities, where the equipment is big and heavy, the voltage is live, the gas is voluminous and explosive, where things are tall and can fall, mere compliance isn’t good enough. Commitment is necessary, and it’s a lot more than simply checking items off a list; it’s a second, third and fourth look that starts at the top of the leadership hierarchy.
The difference between compliance and commitment comes down to authentic leadership.
What is authentic leadership?
Leaders who create a climate of committed safety lead from the inside out. That is, they embody a set of values, often referred to as “essence,” the leader’s purpose, beliefs and vision. Leadership expert and author John C. Maxwell sums up our jobs as leaders well, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.” That does not mean that we have all the answers all the time but it does mean we do not put others in harm’s way without a plan and the knowledge needed to know, go and show how to do the job right and safely.
Leaders with strong essence emphasize depth over appearance. They respond to values—their own and others’—rather than just taking cues from external sources and signals. They measure success by their effectiveness and contribution to others rather than by position, title or success. They lead with purpose rather than seeking approval or power.
This is in contrast to leadership from the outside in, where leaders believe if they have enough—authority, position, title, etc.—then people will follow their lead. These leaders often lack the ability to inspire and motivate employees because they can’t create the essential elements that Steve Bucholz and Tom Roth describe in their book, Unplugged, which are absolutely crucial to creating engaged employees.
These are:
● Perceived opportunity: Employees become engaged when they feel they belong to something important and there is a values-driven culture of leadership they can believe in.
● Personal accountability: Employees function best when they have clear expectations and feel motivated to deliver their best. This creates personal accountability.
● Connectedness: When employees feel a shared sense of mutual interest, respect and collaboration, they feel connected and more likely to engage.
● Inclusion: Employees don’t like to be blindsided by information or changes. They work better when they’re informed and involved and can express thoughts and feelings.
● Validation: When employees receive positive feedback, support, recognition and reward for their work, and feel they have a valued role in the workplace, they are more engaged.
A strong leader can’t expect to simply create these conditions out of nothing; they must first embody them.
Perhaps the best way to illustrate what an inside out, essence-based leader looks like is to share a story from a company we’ll call Williams Construction. They build large infrastructure such as highways, airports and dams. One day, a beloved project manager, cherished by all, died by falling off a highway overpass they were building. Despite having an award-winning safety program and decades of safety training, they were only in compliance, but not committed. A single mother of three was taken from her family.
The president of the company attended her funeral, and later stated that he was responsible for her death. He took ownership of the event and committed to changing the entire safety culture of his company from the top down. He decided that until it was clear to everyone in the company that the only acceptable injury rate was zero, he would be relentless in his commitment to safety. He didn’t do this through investing more money on safety training or protocols. He focused on leadership development so that other leaders would make the commitment and not the same mistakes. In four years they brought their injury rates down by 95% twice.
How do you change your mindset?
Leading from the inside out requires connecting with your own values and leading from an authentic place. Remember that you, the leader, set the example to everyone who works for you, and you must teach or inspire other leaders to do the same. In order to create engagement in employees, leaders need to show resilience, courage, practice mutual influence, and most importantly, engage themselves.
As Bucholz writes, in a leadership journal he wrote for Motorola, Leading from Within, “Leadership is the ability to take others to a place they would not go by themselves, not by the power of the leader’s position, but by the strength of the leader’s example.”
Just as compliance isn’t good enough to keep workers safe within an industry, it’s also not enough to keep workers engaged. Only an authentic leader can create committed employees and an organization committed to safety.
