Elements that contribute to the development of a strong safety culture; The impact of various leadership styles on organisational behaviour; Strategies to unlock organisation-wide behavioural shifts & change; Behavioural tools & practices that work.

1. Leadership – the key to
unlocking high performance in
safety critical industries
Wendy Anyster
Consulting Occupational Psychologist
The Leadershipvine Ltd

2. The psychology of human performance
Organisational culture: “a set of deeply
embedded behaviours, beliefs, and mind-set that
determine ‘the way we do things around here”.
Cultural drivers influence the way people act and
behave, how they talk and inter-relate, how long it
takes to make decisions and how effective they are
at delivering results” .
Culture manifests
itself through
behaviours or
human performance
Antecedent Behaviour Consequence
Antecedents and
consequences
influences the quality of
human performance
Beliefs are reinforced,
modified or changed
depending upon the
consequences of
behaviours – what is
experienced.
Beliefs Behaviour Results

3. Leadership – the key to unlocking behaviours for
success
 “…A good safety-culture cannot simply
emerge and be self-sustaining. It has to
be encouraged by senior managers,
then sustained with peer discipline and
overt management safety behaviour
leadership. The alternative will be an
organisation liable to pockets of safety
excellence and areas of safety chaos”
(Dr John B, Taylor, 2010).
 “An organisation is strongly influenced
by and is very responsive to perceived
expectations from the top…these
perceived expectations can and often
do have a profound impact on the
behaviour of individuals in the
organisation” (Dr Zack T Pate – Former CEO
of INPO, past Chairman of WANO).
 “Leaders need to wake up to the power
of Culture. Often misunderstood and
discounted as a soft, nice-to-have
component of business, culture is neither
intangible nor fluffy; it is one of the most
important drivers to the creation of long-
term, sustainable success” (Sean Culey,
2012).
Leaders through their
actions, decisions &
interactions create & shape
an organisation's culture.
Culture is shaped by:
 What leaders’ pay
attention to
 How leaders react to
critical incidents
 How leaders’ allocate
resources
 The behaviour leaders
demonstrate (role
model) daily, teach &
coach
 What gets rewarded,
what gets punished
(Edgar Schein, 1992)
An informed culture
A reporting culture
A learning culture
A flexible culture
A just culture
Elements that contribute to
the development of a strong
safety culture
Reason , 1998

4. Leadership styles & the impact on human
performance
Style of leadership
Scale of influence
Level of dependence
Directive
Commanding
Collaborative
Coaching
Compliance
(have to)
Commitment
(want to)
Parent - child Adult-adult
 What does good
leadership look like?
 How do we influence
organisational action
that will deliver the best
results?
 What leadership behaviour
motivates high
performance?

5. Levels of influence (compliance vs commitment)
Rights
Relationships
Results
Reproduction
Respect
Correct
Teach
Ask & learn
Build relationships
Want to
Have to
Positional authority
Trust based relationships &
connection
Track record of performance -
winning team
Coach & develop others –
personal positive impact
Character (personal will,
professional humility)
Power of
voice
Power of
connection
Compliance
•Compliance with policies,
regulations & procedures ensure
safety
•Doing the right thing
•Motive: fear, avoidance of
negative consequences
•“Have to ….”
•Thinking domain
Commitment
•Understand and agree with the
rationale behind the policies,
regulations, rules
•Doing the right thing for the right
reasons
•Motive: passion, caring, positive
consequences
•“Want to…”
•Emotional domain
“It’s possible for people to operate out of compliance while
they have very little commitment. But the opposite is
virtually impossible. If one is truly committed, compliance is
rarely an issue” (Duncan, 2014).

6. Key leadership behaviour: what does good
leadership look like?
Seven key safety
leadership
characteristics and
associated
behaviours that can
influence Safety
Culture
(T.R. Krause, 2005)
•Credibility
•Action orientation
•Vision
•Accountability
•Communication
•Collaboration
•Feedback and recognition
Connect
Clear
Direction
Collaborate
Coach
Co-create
Leadership behaviour that will unlock
behaviours for success
Need transformational leadership skills to generate
employee engagement which in turn generates the
commitment to drive organisational action that will
deliver success.

7. Key strategies to unlock organisation wide
behavioural shifts
Current
performance
assessment
(where are we
now)
Targeted future
performance
(where do we
want to be)
Identify priority
behaviours to
accelerate
performance
improvement
Develop &
implement
robust plan to
embed
behaviours
Communicate,
reinforce, follow
through
Develop an integrated, holistic
behavioural strategy
“A positive Safety Culture is a culture in which
safety plays a very important role and is a
core value for those who work for the
organisation”. (IAOGP)
Key questions:
 What is the broader organisational culture that we want
to establish?
 What values should drive organisational behaviour?
 How do these values translate into behaviours (what we
say & do)?
 What does good look like behaviourally?
 What are the strengths of our current culture?
 When we integrate all our performance data, what are
the patterns, themes?
 What behaviours will drive organisational action needed
to deliver the results we want? Behavioural
Technical
Environmental
Organisational

8. Key strategies to unlock organisation wide
behavioural shifts
Move beyond antecedents
Antecedents
Barriers Motivate
& sustain
 How can we trigger/kick - start the right behaviours?
 What barriers may stop prevent the right behaviour?
 How can we remove these barriers?
 How can we embed the behaviours into everyday
activities so that they become business as usual
norms?
 How can we integrate these behaviours into our
existing activities/ practices?
 How can we embed these behaviours so that they
are hardwired into every aspect of our business and
become a “way of life”?
 How can we actively engage all teams/staff in
bringing these behaviours to life?
Trigger/kick-
start
Embed
Stop/prevent

9. Key strategies to unlock organisation wide
behavioural shifts
Strengthen collective leadership
behaviour
Results
Leadership
capability
Culture
So what….? “That won’t make a difference…”
“Not only did many engineers not have leadership skills and
capabilities….but most did not acknowledge these skills as
critical components of their jobs. For NASA engineers to accept
these skills as important they had to be shown as relevant to
their work & to enabling mission success”(Christine Williams,
NASA, 2012).
“A manager’s style of leadership & visible
demonstration (of values) through actions
is important in shaping the organisation’s
culture….long term focus, commitment &
a willingness to “walk the talk” are more
influential than campaigns or posters”.
(IAOPG, 2013)
Practices
that work

10. Key strategies to unlock organisation wide
behavioural shifts
Make it easy for people to do the
right thing – embed into activities Pre-job briefs
Setting to work
Post job debriefs
Behavioural objectives
Performance reviews
Team meetings
On-job coaching
Peer reviews
“A commitment to safety and operational
integrity begins with management. But
management alone cannot drive the entire
culture. For a culture of safety to flourish, it must
be embedded throughout the organisation”
(Tillerson, R. 2010).

11. Lessons learnt & best practices
Focus
•20/80 Behaviours
•Targeted
performance
improvements
Align
•Behavioural
language
•Behavioural
descriptors: what
goods like/sounds
like
Develop
•Lead team
collective
behaviour
•Individual
behaviours
Embed
•Activities
•Practices
•Processes
 Leader-led – role model, reinforce, coach
 One size fits one – fit for purpose (what key will
unlock behaviours in your context?)
 Engaged thinking, co-creation and value-
driven action gets commitment
 Keep it simple – focus on 20% that will deliver
80% of results
 Bring behaviours to life through activities &
practices that will make it easy for people to do
the right thing
 Flywheel effect – start slow to move fast;
consistent, relentless action will create
momentum
 Surface & share positive examples/stories

12. Wendy Anyster – Occupational Psychologist & OD Specialist
Wendy is a registered occupational psychologist with 24 years
experience in the field of organisational development and
behavioural change. During her corporate and industry years,
she held various leadership roles including Head of OD &
Training, Senior OD Advisor & Human Resources Development
Manager.
Her passion and strong interest to work with teams and
individuals to enhance their leadership capability, lead to her
starting a consulting service in 2004. Services to organizations in
various industries (including safety critical, engineering and
export) have included a range of organizational development
interventions, however a strong passion for leadership
development has led to this becoming her core focus.
Wendy is passionate about building capacity in others and has
worked with academic institutions (e.g. University of
Stellenbosch Business School), teaching Organisational
Behaviour & Change Management modules to MBA Students
and has presented at numerous professional & industry
conferences (e.g. Assessment Centre Study Group, Institute for
Personal Management, Future Leaders’ Conference, IAEA
FORATOM Management Systems).
Contact details:
The Leadershipvine Ltd
Gloucestershire, England
E-mail: wendy.anyster@gmail.com