Leadership assigned activities

Employee involvement follows closely with the leadership team s commitment. Your task is to provide the means for employees to develop and/or express their commitment to safety for themselves and their fellow employees. Most employees want to do the right thing with regard to their assigned duties and tasks. They know that they must safely complete their specific task however, they must in turn balance what they feel is safe vs. perceived risk that can be accepted to get the job task completed. This may not stem from any perceived pressure from the leadership team but rather the desire or gratification to complete a task and move to the next activity. 

In most organizations, the traditional pyramid of responsibilities is in place where each level of leadership is held accountable for the goals and objectives of its subordinates. The senior leadership team delegates the activities needed to meet its goals and objectives to individuals whose expertise or areas of authority provide the best path to completion. Each level of leadership retains responsibility for completion of the assigned goals. 

Roles and responsibilities will define the types of leadership skills that are necessary to support the safety management system and avoid or reduce the potential for active and latent errors that lead to loss-producing events. The following are examples of some assigned safety roles for each category ... 

Effective implementation of a safety management system is a leadership team s responsibility. As an in-depth system must reach all levels of the organization, the leadership team should actively involve all employees of the organization in the process. To reach the real potential of a system, it is important that roles, responsibility, delegation, and authority for safety-related assignments are clearly defined and coupled with a strong accountability structure. 

The system remained in effect for two years, by which time each team had elected a member to conduct the observations and provide feedback. But then, unfortunately, the safety observations gradually began to slack off. We were no longer active consultants, and because the director of safety retired and was not replaced, a leadership vacuum developed. No one else was assigned to manage the safety improvement effort. Our follow-up assessments revealed that performance began to deteriorate. It was feared that eventually rates of incidents would increase. 

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