Robin Bryden

Influence from the top: senior managers and safety leadership

Interest in the safety leadership skills of supervisors and managers does not seem to have been extended to senior managers, who have been described as a ‘neglected species’ in safety research. There are a few studies emerging from other sectors but very little from the energy sector. The Energy Institute has recently sponsored a new research project on senior managers’ safety leadership in the oil and gas industry. This paper presents early findings from this project based on a literature review of both scientific studies and major accident inquiries and addresses the following questions: Does safety need to be managed in a different way to other aspects of the business, such as productivity? Is there a particular leadership style for senior managers (e.g. transformational) that influences the level of safety in their organizations? Are there particular characteristics of senior managers who achieve good safety performance in their organizations?

Meeting Expectations: A New Model for a Just and Fair Culture

The paper first discusses the problem of non-compliance in high hazard industries, as these constitute the most frequent type of dangerous activities in terms of accident outcomes. Evidence is drawn from aviation and the petrochemical sectors. The causes of non-compliance are found to form a ‘lethal cocktail’ of i) the expectation that rules will have to be bent, ii) the feeling of powerfulness, iii) the existence of opportunity and iv) poor planning of work. Non-compliant behaviour can be seen as a natural response of motivated and competent individuals, often selected for their ability to show initiative, in the face of poor planning and the existence of alternative ways to get the job done. Six distinct types of non-compliance are identified, two unintentional ‐ failures of Understanding and Awareness -, Situational, Exceptional and one for Company Benefit and one type for Personal Benefit. The issue of reckless non-compliance is discussed, together with the difference that must be considered between one-off and routine non-compliances. A previous model for the management of non-compliance, the Just Culture, is analysed and found to have a number of shortcomings, including a sensitivity to the manner of implementation, the implicit messages it sends about the importance of punishment as a way of managing non-compliance, and a lack of explicit recognition of managerial accountabilities. A new model, Meeting Expectations, is introduced in which all the distinct types of non-compliance are recognised, as well as non-intentional human error and expected and exemplary behaviours. For each of these types of behaviours there is a set of consequences defined for both the individual and their line managers.