Leader employee perceptions

A leader creates organizational culture with his every thought, word, and deed. He sets organizational direction explicitly. He establishes priorities for the people who work for him and determines what they regard as important. Treatment team members and employees perceptions about what is important to the leader constitute the safety climate. As the leader maintains his focus and sustains a strong safety climate, the organization s culture gradually absorbs the climate s values and comes to support safety. 

Newly promoted supervisors, typically well-intentioned and capable employees, tend to adopt the pacesetting style. In a short period of time, they attempt to fix every problem they encormtered before the promotion. This can be disconcerting for the staff being supervised because the perception may be that the leader has become power hrmgry. 

Safety climate refers to the prevailing, usually consciously held perception of leadership s priority for a particular area of functioning (patient and employee safety in our case) at a particular time. It reveals to workers with immediacy and urgency how leaders want them to respond in the face of conflicting priorities. 

---