What is this intriguing quality we call leadership? Many people claim to have it but few really attain true leadership qualities. The good news is that few people are "born leaders" and that it can be a learned trait. True leadership is not about "position" but rather developing a vision, instilling trust, having integrity and values, and gaining followers.
Do you consider yourself a leader or a manager? I believe that you manage things and lead people. With this thought in mind we will explore the differences between managing and leading. Managers work IN the system while leaders work ON the system. Managers are given parameters and usually stay within those boundaries. They may try to tweak what is already there but don't really offer any new ideas. Webster defines management as the act, art, or manner of managing, or handling, controlling, directing, etc. It is basically the process of assuring that the program and objective of the organizations are implemented. If we say we manage the safety process, we use what I will call the hard skills of safety. Those include:
Regulations
Knowledge
Policies
Procedures
Systems
Processes
Measurements
Tools
Planning
These are what we are given to manage safety. Yet just about every major company that I am aware of employ all these efforts…but still have injuries and incidents. I am not saying that you don't need these items, I am just saying that there is much more that we can do.
We have to move into the leadership realm of casting a VISION and MOTIVATING our people. Here we explore and employ the introduction of the soft skills of safety. These include:
Attitude
Commitment
Mind-Set
Personal Responsibility
Buy-In
Overcoming Resistance
Creativity
Motivation
Execution
Integrity
Trust
Rapport
People Development
It is when you add these things that your are starting to really focus on becoming a leader and not just a manager. These tools allow the personal touch and can have a major impact on safety performance and development of personnel.
A key item to keep in mind is pure Safety Management will fail without Safety Leadership.
Webster defines leader as a directing, commanding or guiding head of a group or activity.
Leadership is Influence.
Leaders are long term thinkers and see beyond the day's crisis. This helps them see the big picture or vision for the company and position themselves and the people around them with the knowledge to handle the situation. They put a lot of energy into the vision for the company. The cornerstone of a leader is the ability to project a "meaningful" vision and then have everyone focus energy on reaching the vision. At the same time there has to be values stablished and the people must stay motivated. This takes a great deal of people skills to be able to deal with multiple constituents. True leaders will not accept the status quo.
