I recently discovered Nigel Girling’s SAFETY LEADERSHIP: WHAT WE NEED TO LEARN TO MEET FUTURE CHALLENGES on the NZISM website. It made excellent blog fodder and the following is a summary of ideas that are applicable to all leadership positions.
Who is Nigel Girling?
Nigel is the Director of the National Centre for Strategic Leadership at Babington. He’s spent over 30 years running various businesses and has been a director on multiple boards. He’s the type of guy who works hard to know what’s going on in the world of cutting-edge leadership.
He openly admits that he’s been forever curious about people and has no problems being called a ‘Professional Pain in the A**’ and providing G.O.B. O’s (Glimpses of the Blindingly Obvious) … because leadership isn’t that hard. However; having a mirror held up to your face and being held accountable for your lack of leadership skills is a humbling experience.
What does Nigel Say About Safety Leadership?
1. What is a leader?
‘Anyone who is trying to fix things and make them better is a leader…..it’s not about the job title”
By this definition, anyone who is working in the safety space is a leader. This is a big point to ponder. I can remember times throughout my career where I didn’t feel like a leader because:
- The message wasn’t getting through to the senior leadership,
- I didn’t have the TPIE resources (time, people, information or equipment) to implement the change that had been agreed on;
- People agreed to change, then they didn’t follow through on the promise.
The keyword in Nigel’s definition is ‘trying’. We all need to remember that small steps make a big difference in the end and we need to celebrate the smallest wins. My favourite example of this is in the YouTube video The Hummingbird and the Forest Fire.
2. What is the job of a Leader?
According to Nigel, a leader’s job is all about ‘inspiring, motivating and leading people’
This can be the biggest failing of the safety profession. If we act like dictatorial know it all’s we will NEVER inspire, motivate or lead people. Inevitably, we get stuck in Karpman’s Drama Triangle ‘Victim, Persecutor, Rescuer’ triangle and can’t understand how to step into the ‘Teacher/Learner/ Support’ triangle, where we and our audience get to grow and learn at the same time.
3. Big Changes are Coming: What Does this mean for Safety Leadership?
It’s hard to meaningfully summarise what Nigel had to say, there was so much good stuff. Here are the key points that stuck out for me:
- Purpose beats process and profit
- By having a purpose that everyone understands and buys into an organisation can tap into discretionary effort. (Nigel referenced Dan Pink’s book ‘Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
- Purpose is not enough. Discretionary effort is also tied to people being empowered to make decisions. This requires freedom to act.
Unfortunately, the traditional world of health and safety relies on compliance and regulation, where freedom is not part of the equation.
Also, VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity) are permanent fixtures in today’s working world. And yet, at the same time artificial intelligence is now ‘nudging’ us to make decisions on how we behave, whether it be on social media or in an online shopping cart. It will be interesting to see how much ‘Nudge Theory’ becomes part of our future workplace safety programmes.
Nigel goes on to discuss the importance of equality, diversity and inclusion, the need for everyone at all levels of an organisation to have influence when cultural change is happening and leaders needing to understand how to mentor and coach people, so they can form high performing teams.
I’ve only captured a few of the salient topics in this webinar and if you are a paid-up member of NZISM I’d highly recommend going to the member’s area and listening to WHAT WE NEED TO LEARN TO MEET FUTURE CHALLENGES.
As always, if you have any questions or anything else to add in regards to safety leadership email sarah@employmenow.co.nz or call 0272 007 680.
Have a safe and productive week.
SB