How Might Leadership Affect Safety Management - Term Paper Example

Contents Introduction 2 Relationship of leadership and safety management 2 Effects on Organisational Development 3 Advantage and disadvantage of leadership 5 Elements of organisational challenges associated with leadership 6 Factors affecting the application or effectiveness of leadership to health and safety 7 Conclusion 8 References 10 Introduction The process of social influence where a person provides support and air to others for achieving a common task is known as leadership. A leader is a person who guides other. The people keep trust on the leader and follow him. He has the ability to lead. Leadership helps in sustaining the corporate culture. Every organisation requires successful leaders who with the help of their leadership skills can drive the growth of the company. To support their leadership skills many leadership theories are introduced. It helps to maintain a perfect balance within the organisational environment. Leadership is a very old concept. In every field leaders are essential for organising people and make them work in a definite path. Proper and systematic leadership contributes a lot in the organisational management. It takes part in the planning and budgeting process of the company. Good leadership skills are about inspiring and motivating the employees by controlling and solving their problems. It helps in establishing clarity in the goals and its directions. Leadership skills also contribute in the safety management process. It assures the employee about the safe and sound environment of the organisation. As a result the employees can work freely and contributes its best in the organisational development. Relationship of leadership and safety management Leadership is a very vital in safety management. Many leadership theories are there to support this. The managers play the role of leaders in an organisation. Their leadership skills creates a positive influence on the safe outcome of the management process by establishing clear vision for the growth, safety and the welfare of the employees. Leadership helps in building a standard rule for safety. It recognises and monitors safety and positive behaviour of all the employees of the organisation. Different levels of management have the responsibility to maintain safety in the company. The contribution of each management levels in the organisational safety outcomes differentiates them from each other. The safety outcomes are mainly influenced by the leadership power of the each management levels. The relationship of trust between the employees and the senior manager is associated with the safety outcomes of the management process. The managerial leadership in the workplace creates an impact on the safety climate of the company. It is the duty of the leaders to provide direction to the management by forming strategies for maintaining healthy and safe organisational culture and environment. It helps in ensuring healthy performance of the employees by engaging themselves effectively. Occupational safety and health are the key drivers for a successful business. Effects on Organisational Development The research on leadership is focused on the organisational outcome like profit, productivity, work satisfaction, maintaining the workplace environment etc. Establishing safety management is an important criterion for measuring effective leadership. Leadership and management in the organisation cause various positive and negative effects on the employees. Strong leadership presence increases the well being of the employees. It motivates the employees and helps in decreasing sick leaves. As a result employees perform their work on the maximum number of days which contributed a lot in the development process of the organisation. Poor leadership can cause financial and reputational damage which causes poor financial and operational performance. Good leadership have many positives effects on safety management. It strengthens the loyalty of its employees and customers. Improves the employee morally which contributes in the safety management process. Leadership influences the safety of the management process in such a way that it increases the capability to of the employees. Organisational productivity and efficiency are improved for the presence of strong leadership which helps in the building healthy and safety working environment. Environment of the organisation depends creates a huge impact on its development. It helps in the sustainable development of the employee. Leadership initiate and innovates new ways of developing organisation. The health and safety of the organisation are established for maintaining minimum risk in the company. These issues provide many opportunists to the organisation for improve the efficiency of the business and also safeguard its workers. A preventive approach of leadership in regards to the safety management establishes a clear idea about different strategies related to the development of the company. The leaders have the clear about the risk profile of the company which helps the organisation to allocate resources according to that. It encourages the supply chain of the company. Leadership helps in the process of communication. This process of active involvement with the employees influences in building safety culture and environment within the organisation. The leaders encourage the employees to work autonomously and responsibly by providing necessary training to them. Leaders also train them to perform a risk assessment before starting a new task. This corporate culture looks after the well being of the employees. The leaders often consult with the works about their requirements which creates impacts on their well being and work satisfaction. If the needs of the staffs are fulfilled by the organisation then they get highly motivated toward their work. It is associated with the development of the organisation. Leadership and organisational development are the core basis of any company. It empowers the organisation in building leadership. The overall health of an organisation depends on its culture and its employee. Organisational development is associated with all the leadership activities which are aimed towards maintaining and building safe and healthy management. The organisational development programs are designed according to the nature of the company, its objectives, the people working in it etc. A successful leadership is achieved when an appropriate balance is maintained between actions & reflection, knowledge exchanged, similarity between the needs and wants of the individuals with that of the organisation. Good leadership results in the fulfilment of all these criteria with establishing a healthy organisational development (Schein, 2010). Advantage and disadvantage of leadership Leadership have many potential advantage and disadvantage in the safety management of the organisation. It is a process where the leaders communicate with the other team members of employees in the motive of benefiting them for the development of the organisation. Leadership helps to present vital issues of the employee in the managerial level and takes the initiative to solve those issues. The well being of the employees are benefitted by this. Strong leadership of the organisation provides motivation among the employees which helps them to deliver perfect work. It helps to control the behavioural pattern and the mindsets of the employees for maintaining healthy and safe management system. Good leaders are more concerned about the health and the safety issues of the employees rather than just accomplishing tasks. This helps to grow loyalty among the employees towards their leaders and company. The leadership process helps in the coordination of all the management levels for implementing comprehensive management system which is designed to handle and overcome risk in the workplace. It helps to develop policies regarding the safety of the organisation. Accumulation of leadership power in the hand of wrong person can create many disadvantages in leadership. Bad leaders break the trust of the employees and the organisation. It leads to increase immorality among the employees (Reese, 2003). Transparency and clear communication becomes very rare which creates injustice towards the employees. The leaders’ develop the policies according to their own benefit. As a result the organisational policies become very partial. All these lead to the creation on unhealthy and unsafe management system of a company. The employee gets demotivated for their bad leaders which affects their work performance in a very negative way. Disadvantage of leadership also accounts non corporative way leaders are making their employees to work. For gaining more power often the leaders behave in a mean way without concerning the risk issues associated with the job of the employee which often creates the workplace unsafe. Elements of organisational challenges associated with leadership There are various things in an organisation which challenges leadership. The leaders in many cases have to face interpersonal issues within its team or within the organisation which can move him apart from his goals and objectives. Sometimes these issues create distance with the employees which lead to the formation of unsafe management system. As the leaders are powerful persons within the organisation so they have a chance to get involved in dirty politics, scandals etc which results in creating tensions among the staffs (Hughes and Ferrett, 2011). The powerful forces also influence the leaders in diverting from their leadership roles. The financial power of the organisation often challenges leadership. When an organisation collaborates with other organisation them the leaders faces many challenges in establishing a harmonious relationship between the employees by keeping in mind the organisational goals and the well being of the employees. Many employees feel insecure at some point of time. They feel that they are not up to the mark as a result they can deliver the work within the stipulated time. The leaders have to deal with these challenges by motivating them and supporting them constantly. In many instant leaders don’t have the ability to accept criticisms. They become stubborn to change their ideas which have negative impacts on safety management. Sometimes the situations become very hard to make decision by the leader. He has to understand the importance of the decision and the consequences of it impacting of the organisational development and the well being of the employee. Factors affecting the application or effectiveness of leadership to health and safety Health and safety management is an important part of an organisation which involves in process of preventing health problems, accidents etc. and maintain a safe and healthy workplace for the employees. This process is designed for the benefit of the employees. The organisational and human factors affect leadership in maintaining health and safety. Effective and efficient leadership provides motivation to the employs towards their work which results in the organisational development. Moreover the employee motivation creates a healthy environment within the company (Crutchfield and Roughton, 2013). Many organisations are very much concerned about the safety of its workers. They consider the employees as their valuable resources. Therefore it becomes an important duty of the leaders to assign work keeping in mind the risk and the safety issues. For this purpose the leaders often have to do risk analysis for the maintaining safety management process. The organisational factors like productivity and objective also affect leadership. If the organisation is only concerned on high productivity then often the leaders ignore the well being of its employees and focus more on the output. It creates a negative impact on the health and safety of the organisation. The organisational policies regarding occupational safety and occupational accidents affect the effectiveness of leadership. If the company have clear and transparent policies regarding this then it becomes easy for the leaders to execute it and provide satisfaction to the employees. The rules of the company help in measuring the performance of the employees. On the basis of these rules the leaders determine the efforts and the performance of the employs provides growth according to that (Arezes and Carvalho, 2014). Conclusion Leadership creates a social influence on the people of an organisation for achieving a desired goal. It is the duty and responsibility of a leader to guide others and show them the direction of getting success. The most important function of leadership is proving motivation to the employees. An employee who is satisfied with his job and is highly motivated contributes a lot in the organisational development. Effective leadership helps to establish healthy and safe management system. In this type of management system the organisation gives priority to its employee health and safety issues. By this it assures the employee that he is a valuable resource for the company and his well being matters a lot to the organisation. This is the most efficient and effective way to create a healthy working environment in the workplace. The leaders communicate with the employee can focuses on their need and development. The successful leaders develop proper plans for reducing the risk and partiality among the employees. A healthy and safe management is a vital thing for organisational development. References Arezes, P. and Carvalho, P., 2014. Advances in Safety Management and Human Factors. New York: AHFE Conference. Crutchfield, N. and Roughton, J., 2013. Safety Culture: An Innovative Leadership Approach. Waltham: Butterworth-Heinemann. Hughes, P. and Ferrett, E., 2011. Introduction to Health and Safety at Work: The Handbook for the Nebosh National General Certificate. Waltham: Elsevier. Reese, C., 2003. Occupational Health and Safety Management: A Practical Approach. Florida: CRC Press. Schein, E., 2010. . Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons. Western, S., 2007. Leadership: A Critical Text. London: SAGE. Read More