Establishing a Proactive Safety Culture Through the Leadership Actions of Senior Managers

The focus of safety leadership skills and development have been mainly been centered on supervisors and managers, while the senior managers appears to have been sidelined when safety research materials are reviewed in detail. While there are emerging studies from other sectors, the studies from energy sector or specifically from the oil and gas industry, are currently scarce. The objective of this qualitative-style paper is to present a preliminary overview based on a selected scope literature review from printed and online resources from year 1972 through year 2016 of both scientific studies and major accident inquiries. The questions that formed the content of this paper are as follows: Does safety need to managed any differently to other business aspects such as productivity, reliability and efficiency? Is there a particular style of leadership for senior managers that influences the level of safety in their organization (e.g. transformational leadership)? What are the particular characteristics displayed by senior managers who achieve great safety performance in their organizations? Further research will need to be carried out to identify what are the specific actions required to support and further progress the development of a robust safety culture specifically in major hazard industries.