Exemplary behavior
“Model Behavior forms principle 4 in the series of management principles. This theme is at the heart of social control. Simply through their behavior, a manager sets an example for others. Model behavior is thus a form of unconscious communication and guidance. It can be a grateful helper but also an invisible disruptor. Self-awareness is therefore a crucial element in utilizing model behavior.
The Leader as an Example
For an employee, the image of the leader serves as an example or model for their own behavior. The leader likes to recognize their own reflection in their employees. Those who resemble him in their behavior tend to gain more favor. This awareness serves as an unconscious drive for employees to mimic the behaviors and, importantly, the intentions of their immediate supervisor. This applies to many areas, including safety.
How Does the Safety Image Form?
Subordinates continually assess their manager. They keep track of how much attention the manager pays to safety. They assess to what extent a manager incorporates safety into their planning and considerations. They observe whether a project allows for safe execution or if the focus is exclusively on results. They monitor the speed and effectiveness with which safety improvement plans are implemented and also how safely the manager behaves. These observations do not stop at the workplace gate. A director’s speed on the road is a popular topic of gossip.
Who Is Sensitive to the Safety Image?
The sensitivity to the image depends on the position in the organization. A manager has the strongest role model function with their direct subordinates. This has to do with the possibilities of identifying with the manager’s task execution. The influence is still visible among employees two levels deeper in the organization, but it is less strong. In a study by Zohar and Luria, it was found that the power of the example among direct subordinates is twice as strong as the influence on employees two layers deeper in the organization.
What Is the Impact of the Safety Image?
Zohar and Luria establish a relationship between, on one hand, employees’ perceptions of the safety image of their immediate boss and the manager above, and, on the other hand, the actual safety of the organization. They conclude that organizations operate more safely when employees believe that their leaders and managers consider safety at least as important as production. A safe image encourages employees to engage in safer behavior, which in turn has an impact on the actual safety of the organization.
Self-Awareness
If model behavior is so important, then the manager with the best self-awareness has the greatest potential to leverage their image. This can strengthen the power of their actions. It should be clear that someone who has a self-image that strongly deviates from the image others have of them will often be surprised about why their assumed behavior is not followed. They won’t realize the actual message they are conveying and won’t understand that employees’ unsafe behavior is partly a direct result of their own unsafe image. Self-awareness is one of the keys to management effectiveness, also in safety.
Feedback
The best way to increase self-awareness is to seek feedback. Some of it is readily available, but some must also be obtained from other sources. A coach who can translate workplace experiences into images for executives and managers is invaluable to the organization. This feedback can help examine the image and bring it closer to the self-image. This undoubtedly increases management effectiveness.
Priority for Safety
That concludes this blog. Next time, we will address one of the core problems with safety behavior, namely the fact that the intention for safety sometimes loses out to other intentions such as production goals or efficiency. Those who consistently prioritize safety in setting these priorities influence employee behavior and, thus, the safety of the organization on an unconscious level. The next blog will delve into how this prioritization works and what actions management can take to elevate safety high on the intention list.”
- Juni Daalmans, April 2017
