Leadership Development
The Krause Bell Group Approach To Leadership Development
Empowering Leaders to Drive Safety Excellence
Krause Bell Group has a strong, research-based view that the single most important safety improvement action an organization can take is to improve safety leadership capability. It is important at all levels of the organization, but the more senior the employee is, the more leverage should be given to the effort to develop new capability. We feel it is paramount that leaders of other leaders not only develop their own safety leadership capability but also become effective coaches for their organizations to cascade their knowledge and capabilities throughout the organization.
The 6 Key Leadership Capabilities
Based on our experience, we have identified 6 capabilities leaders need to become strong at for them to have a meaningful impact on safety – and overall business – performance: Vision for Safety, Credibility, Value for Safety, Influencing Others, Listening to Learn, and Accountability.
Learn more about the six key leadership capabilities and the Krause Bell Group Safety Leadership 360 Tool.
The Challenges of Leadership Training
Many Traditional Leadership Training Programs Fall Short
Developing leadership capabilities is not easy, as it requires that leaders not only build understanding on what the leadership capability is, but also on how to incorporate the skill in their daily behaviors and activities. Many leadership trainings fall short because of a variety of reasons:
- Cookie cutter workshops. The same workshop is used for leaders at different levels and doesn’t change for the industry the leader works in. The disadvantage of this approach is that the examples and scenarios used are not customized to the specific challenges and issues the participants are facing.
- Generic skills without context. Traditional leadership training will teach leader skills in areas such as giving feedback or holding direct reports accountable without context. The skill training may be strong, but often leaders don’t know when and how and in what job context to apply these skills.
- Link between learning and application is weak. Often leader skills training is conducted in a vacuum without enough effort given to how to turn the new skills into routine habits on the job.
The Krause Bell Difference
Building Fluency Through Application
Building maturity in safety leadership capability starts with building awareness and understanding of new safety leadership ideas and concepts. The next stage of maturity requires incorporating these new concepts into the leaders’ behavior. Finally, the safety leaders’ behaviors lead to new habits that include explicitly making safer decisions and allowing them to coach other leaders.
Our approach follows this fluency model through very concrete, customized learning and application steps.
- Customized workshops are developed to address company-specific risks and hazards. Each leader workshop is customized to focus specifically on the risks and hazards the organization is trying to control. As a result, leaders immediately understand the context and impact on changing workforce behavior the skills can provide.
- Skill building is tied to safety-specific job activities and coached in the field. Each leader skill is embedded in a safety-specific job activity. For example, leaders are taught how to practice Listening to Learn through a safety task called Meaningful Safety Conversations. The first time they do this activity, they’ll be coached on it by a Krause Bell Group consultant in the field as they observe and have a conversation with a real employee doing a real job. Leaders immediately see the impact this can have on their engagement and worker safe behaviors. Then leaders will often have specific monthly goals for conducting Meaningful Safety Conversations which continues to build habits and routines. Once they become more fluent in applying Listening to Learn during Meaningful Safety Conversations, they will start using the skill also in other environments resulting in the leader becoming a stronger leader overall, not just during the Meaningful Safety Conversation.
- New skills and habits are reinforced through leader of leader on-the-job coaching and feedback. Sustaining these new skills and habits then falls on the leader’s immediate manager to periodically observe and coach the leader on their safety activities and skills. When done consistently, this becomes a force multiplier for leader and manager development and culture change in the organization.
Krause Bell Group Leadership Development Solutions
Helping Organizations Achieve Their Leadership Development Goals
Krause Bell Group has a wide range of tools and solutions available to help organizations meet their Leadership Development goals:
- Our customized Safety Leadership Development trajectories are based on the above mentioned principles.
- Our Safety Leadership 360 tool collects anonymous, structured feedback from supervisors, peers, and direct reports, providing a well-rounded picture of a leader’s safety-related behaviors.
- Our Safe Decision Making® Simulation is an exercise that helps leaders understand how they make decisions, what elements influence decision-making and how those decisions have an impact both on safety and on business performance. It’s a great starting point to enhance effective decision making.
- Our Masterclasses are a great introduction to our safety leadership principles and are designed to help leaders at all levels within an organization prevent serious incidents and fatalities and improve overall safety performance.
Learn more about Krause Bell Group’s approach to effective, sustainable leadership development:
- The Critical Role of Safety Leadership: A Perspective Grounded in Experience (This article is also available in Portuguese)
- 3 Characteristics of Strong Safety Leadership
- The 7 Crucial Things all Leaders Need to Know About Safety
- Prevention of Serious Injuries and Fatalities Must Start with Leadership
- What Does The Practice Of Accountability Mean?
