How Leadership Style Might Affect Safety Management

Document Type:Essay

Subject Area:Management

Document 1

Different leaders have different leadership style which they apply to help their organizations design and improve people working conditions which may positively impact the safety of workers. Leaders plan, coordinate and lead various activities including general working demand as well as social demands that strongly influence workers health. This helps to ensure a conducive working environment which plays a vital role in determining the safety of a worker. Thus, this essay explains the way leadership style might affect safety management by looking at research directions from the past ten years. Leadership style can be put into two different categories. Moreover, they like setting clear expectations which may cause havoc if subordinates fail to achieve. They can also be demanding at times.

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This may hamper their ability to engage and build relationships with subordinates. Thus, transactional leaders impact safety by ensuring that they set a clear expectation for safety behaviors in and within the organization. They also approach employees particularly in the case of at-risk behavior and other vital safety violations by the workers. They are warm and interactive making their employees respond positively in supporting their aspirations. Although relater leadership may have many benefits, they may also struggle to set clear goals and objectives for employees since some employees might take advantage of such leaders knowing that there is no repercussion for their behaviors (Mandy and Louw, 2011, 101). Relater leaders use their relationship to ensure that employee engagement in the safety culture of the organization.

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Moreover, workers often find it easy to approach this kind of leaders to engage them of further concerns about safety. However, they might also negatively impact safety management because they might struggle to set a clear expectation that may help workers ensure safety behaviors. The worst part of this leadership style is that they only assume matters of employee’s safety which may result in a lack of vivid expectation on employee’s safety. Democratic leadership style Democratic leadership style is whereby a leader gives members an opportunity to take part in decision making (Greenstein, 2012). Every employee is given equal opportunity to voice their opinions freely. However, even though every member is provided a chance to share ideas freely, the leader of the group remains with the ultimate power to guide and control (Greenstein, 2012).

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Democratic leadership style is one of the best leadership styles since it seeks an opinion from the members to come up with a joint solution to a common problem. Every leadership style has its particular principle that guides it as far as the health, safety, and well-being of a worker is concerned (Yang et al. However, it is unfortunate that despite the positivity, all the leadership style has some negative impacts which can enhance the rate of exposure to risks and other health hazards. Thus, it is important to note that every leadership style has its special place and time to be affected depending on the situations at hand. Despite leaders being enlightened on how to execute some leadership behaviors. The truth is that there some leadership skills that are natural and have formed personal traits, values as well as other essential preferences that will guide a person to use a specific leadership style.

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However, leadership should always play a vital role in the prevention of significant risk factors because their contribution and influence are still immense. Safety management entails the creation of safety and healthy environment free from all forms of risks and health hazards. Depending on leadership style leaders can develop and set workplace safety policies which will help to curb the problem. Leadership impact on safety, health, and wellbeing Leadership is highly essential particularly concerning occupational health and safety aspects (Vinod and Bhasi, 2010). It is crucial that leaders ensure there is an effective management system put in place to integrate all aspects of occupational health and safety. Therefore, it is highly recommended that leaders adopt an implement the use of strong leadership styles that have health and safety outcomes References Clarke, S.

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Safety leadership: A meta‐analytic review of transformational and transactional leadership styles as antecedents of safety behaviors.  Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 86(1), pp. Nam Nguyen, H. and Mohamed, S. Garcia-Morales, V. J. , Jiménez-Barrio Nuevo, M. M. and Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, L. and Bhasi, M. Safety management practices and safety behavior: Assessing the mediating role of safety knowledge and motivation.  Accident Analysis & Prevention, 42(6), pp. Legg, S. , Laird, I. The association among project manager's leadership style, teamwork and project success.  International journal of project management, 29(3), pp. Uhl-Bien, M. Relational leadership theory: Exploring the social processes of leadership and organizing. In Leadership, gender, and organization (pp. and Deal, T. Leadership and management.  Christian Youth Work in Theory and Practice: A Handbook, p.

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