Thought Leadership

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Accountability in its truest sense refers to one’s responsibility for one’s obligations. You are responsible for some result or you are obligated to someone. These are the things you are accountable for. In practice, we would say a person is accountable when he chooses a job that best provides for his family, or that a doctor is accountable when she looks out for the best interests of her patients.

You may or may not be old enough to remember, but eight-track tapes were a technological wonder back in the ‘70s, and anyone who was cool had one.  At the time, it was hard to imagine this state-of-the-art audio technology could ever be replaced or improved upon. That was then, this is now.

I am familiar with the “delivering bad news” pointers that are already here on your website. But I was wondering about “bad news” when it is not about hazard – for example when a decision is made to not implement the community’s desires for a local building to be in a certain spot (for various reasons, some of which are very good, others of which aren’t!).

I have often used a safety perception survey originally developed by Dr. Dan Petersen as a safety culture diagnostic to help focus an organization’s efforts on areas that the employees believe need improvement. One of the questions in this safety perception survey reads something like “Would a safety incentive/recognition program cause you to work more safely?

Online training is ineffective by definition. Why? Because only education can occur online. I have told my audiences for years there are critical differences between training and education. It’s disappointing to see how organizations and leaders misuse the term training versus education.

Americans work longer hours, take fewer vacations, and retire later than employees in most other industrialized countries, so it figures that many of us are prime candidates for job burnout -- the physical and cognitive exhaustion that comes from too much stress at work over a long period of time.

Recently, I have noticed an increase in statements that some particular safety program or another is required because of the OSHA General Duty Clause. Often, this statement is tied to a pitch for consulting services or to promote a fill-in-the-blank template for whatever safety program is being discussed.

Disasters aren’t scheduled. After the two unfortunate events in Boston and West, Texas shook the nation in one week, emphasis is being highly placed on having family and workplace emergency plans in place in the event of a disaster.

After a presentation on effective recognition as a means of improving safety performance I received an intriguing question:  Can you advise how to measure if managers are providing feedback … and how effective it is?

You don't have to be Superman to be a great safety leader.  But let's face it, some leaders bring out the best in people and others bring out the very worst.  We need to make choices every day regarding the kind of leader we are going to be, especially for those who are following.