Globally, construction and manufacturing companies, among other industries, continue to register high levels of occupation-related morbidity and mortality rates annually. According to a study done by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 2012, every 15 seconds, 153 workers are faced with occupation-related accidents, and one employee dies (Kahraman, Akay & Kilic, 2019). Additionally, from the same study, workplaces annually experience accidents mounting up to 317 million and 2.3 million mortalities. The U.S Labor of Bureau Statistics recently conducted a study; in 2018, industries in the United States recorded approximately 5145 deaths related to work injuries. The number increased the following year by 2% (2021). With this issue in mind, occupational-related accidents continue to be a major crisis globally that needs to be addressed!
Consequently, the ILO continues to pursue its goal to alleviate work-related illnesses and accidents. Additionally, the Health and Safety executive weighs in on the significance of occupational health and safety in alleviating deaths and injuries (Close, 2009). Improving occupational health and safety will not only decrease accidents and their consequences but will also improve organizational and business efficiency, reduce costs related to accidents, improve employee morale and increase profits (Mutlu & Altuntas, 2021). Therefore, with this matter at stake, researchers continue to explore various options in reducing occupational hazards with recent research on the influence of the organization’s leadership style on safety management. There exist different leadership styles, namely, autocratic, transactional, democratic, laissez-faire, commercial, and flexible leadership styles, with the two latter being highly discussed (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018).
According to Bass (1985), leaders utilizing the commercial leadership style stipulate organizational necessities and suitable strategies to accomplish a particular goal. After that, they sensitize that the achievement of the organization’s needs will, in turn, trickle down to the attainment of individual employee needs followed by awards. Commercial leadership includes four distinct styles: management by exception passive (MBEP), intermediate management (MBEA), laissez-faire, and interdependent. Leaders employing an interdependent reward structure create organizational goals and rewards for their workers. Also, as they stipulate the necessary strategies towards goal attainment, they recompense their workers accordingly. Concerning safety, leaders with a reciprocal pricing style define safety rules accordingly. In terms of the effective MBEA style without management, leaders tend to follow the behavior of their employees and intervene in remedial measures before any major problem arises. Similarly, leaders with an MBEP style of managing differently also try to monitor the behavior of their employees; however, they intervene when the issue arises. Lastly, laissez-faire leaders are characterized by absenteeism or unorganized leadership as they do not participate in their employees’ work.
Transformation leadership was defined by Bass (1985) on three accounts. First, change leaders develop their workers’ appreciation of the importance of work and value. Henceforth, employees may support higher security values. Second, they help their employees put the interests of the group or organization above their own interests. If the organization’s main goal is a secure operation, employees will appreciate this because of their revolutionary leaders. Lastly, they give importance to unlocking the high needs of their followers. In addition, Bass re-established the transformation leadership in areas of positive influence and inspiring inspiration. The direct impact is related to the behavior of leaders and the factors that model employees’ feelings centered around trust, truthfulness, and confidence in themselves. Leaders’ desired behavior serves as an example for employees, which plays a role in employee recognition and leadership. Therefore, employees with revolutionary employers will believe in their leader and connect with the spirit. Therefore, they will be more devoted to the beliefs and attainment of goals of the organization. Secondly, inspirational inspiration is defined as an effort by the leader to establish a positive attitude towards their workers and motivate them to their ambitions. Another part of leadership change is mental rejuvenation. Leaders who motivate employees wisely pose risks and concentrate on using the workers’ ideas. They motivate staff to develop and source new ideas for problem-solving with established strategies. The last part is an individual consideration. Leaders in this field place great emphasis on the needs of their workers and the personal diversity among their employees, giving priority to the professional and personal development of their employees. Therefore, they act as a guide or mentor to assist fans in achieving their maximum potential.
Leaders influence the behavior of their employees by establishing a positive environment in the work team, according to a study by Wang, Gan, and Wu (2015). Next, this justice will enable individuals to participate in correcting their issues. As values on security and safety are crucial aspects for most security companies, workers’ conduct will soon be reported to security as it is the most significant result of leadership in most security companies.
Leadership and trade leadership styles are associated with security consequences because they are mandated to recompense, establish goals or alter the level of staff desire and overall viewpoint towards security, which is the most important outcome for the most vital security organizations. Studies found that changing the leadership style is associated with alleviated injury rates and a heightened safe security environment in organizations based on safety findings. Commercial leaders influence employees to safe occupation-related behavior by tracking and laying down targets and employing reinforcement to heighten safety ethics.
In literature generally, safety compliance and security involvement are vital outcomes linked to leadership style. Compliance with safety is defined as the behavior which pertains to the safety of the personal workplace by compliance with the rules and personal dress code. Alternatively, involvement in security is the fact that one is trying to explore different ways to improve organizations’ safe environment and operational security. Research implies that transformational and commercial leadership styles influence safety compliance and employee safety involvement. Innes, Turner, Barling, and Stride (2010) concluded that the leader of change is linked to involvement in security. Due to the common way of developing revolutionary leaders, workers are more enthusiastic about being part of a safe working environment. Similarly, Hu, Yeo, and Griffin (2013) report that behavioral security tracking behaviors associated with the commercial leadership lead to safety compliance, and encouraging safety actions connected to change leadership lead to security involvement. Therefore, transformation leadership characteristics will encourage employees to play an additional role in security operations such as; participatory security.
It is noteworthy in Table 1 that descriptive statistics indicate that 30% of employees experienced at least one accident per year, and 49.5% did not miss out. Of the remaining 50.5 percent, 29.7% almost missed at least once annually, 10.9% every bi-annually, 3% missed once every quarterly, and finally, 7.3% missed higher than five times a year. The close miss was a significant low to a medium variable of research but not a safety and job leadership climate. Reliance on leadership and safety compliance was associated with moderation and risk in the workplace.
It has been discovered that workers in companies often adhere to their safety by adhering to the organization’s rules on safety when their employers are at the top in terms of trading style. Employees with greatly flexible leaders are heavily involved in safety-related activities. In a recent study, commercial leadership is also discovered to be more closely linked to security outcomes. This may be due to the high indulgence of commercial leadership. Moreover, it has been discovered that the compliance link is more powerful than the transformation factor. Therefore, it can be said that a flexible leadership technique is closely allied to security involvement while commercial leadership is close to security conformance.
It has also been discovered in the current study that safety-affiliated effects are impacted by safe weather. A high rate of recognized safety climate will create a high rate of positive safety-affiliated consequences, particularly safety conformance and involvement. The article found that a safe environment is essential to safe behavior, accidents, and injuries. However, the climate conformance safety association is stronger than the safety and climate involvement association. Therefore, it can be said that the alleged safety climate foretells security participation and safety conformance.
In the article, trust in the leading individual is demonstrated through the positive aftermath of individuals and companies. However, there is insufficient research on employees’ trust in leaders as described in this article and its duty in mediation. First, a great extent of reliability is strongly associated with a great extent of safety-affiliated aftermath. It has also been discovered that workers who rely heavily on the commitment of their security leaders are more indented to be committed to safety guidelines and to be involved in safety-affiliated activities. Thus, this is in line with letters that depend on the head for work delivery and ethics enforcement. In the current study, reliance on the head was simultaneously affiliated with adherence to safety and safety mannerisms. Despite participation in security being a form of citizen conduct in the current study, the same level of association and compliance may be because trust is affiliated with safety. Therefore, it can be concluded will have significant reliability effects on safety outcomes.
Also, it was discovered that flexible leadership is more closely associated with trusting than business leadership. This is in line with the scriptures, as workers tend to trust heads who take part in more than engaging in the daily running of employees as they are aware of the skills of their leader and feel secure with such heads. Commercial leadership also had important but low connections and leadership. As stated above, it is comprehendible that the association is lower than the transformation technique and the association of trust. Despite not being consistent with preceding findings, there has been a notable association between the technique of practice and trust in current research. This may relate to measuring trust in terms of safety. An effective business leadership style is likely to make people feel good about their leader in terms of security as they are aware everything will be okay even with their absence in involvement due to a specific leadership technique. Therefore, it can be said that revolutionary leadership is greatly linked with trust leaders’ security conformance than commercial leadership.
Also, it has been discovered that leaders with a high degree of business leadership have a significant influence on the security situation of companies. Although the revolutionary leadership has shown a good association with the security situation, their relations were weak. These findings elaborate that it is vital to first establish a foundation with a highly dependent salary and MBEA type of trading technique and by continuously maintaining a good environment; thus, it is necessary to add to the transformational leadership technique. Thus, it is crucial to present leadership, as Bass, Avolio, Jung fully, and Berson (2003) highlighted. To increase the security situation in companies, it may be advisable to select a technique of business leadership and other forms of transformation style.
In a climate of safety, a strong relationship between the leadership technique and successive safety mannerisms obscured the association between safety ethical relationships and climate. Direct repercussions were strongly experienced than indirect ones. Intrust, because of the strong association between trust and dependent and independent variables it has demonstrated the meditative duty of trust. The description may be that if there is proper leadership, workers portray conformance or involvement as per the current leadership technique.
Conclusion
While leaders or managers are being taught to portray proper leadership mannerisms, they are equipped with values, preferences & stable personality traits that will default help them face certain issues. The thing that primarily matters is that leaders should be aware of their capacities & potential and how it will impact the safety of their crew and members of staff. Until then, are you in a position to alternatively substitute their leadership mannerisms that will consequently alleviate vulnerability to the risk of their work environment and their employees.
References
Kahraman, E., Akay, Ö., & Kılıç, A. M. (2019). Investigation into the relationship between fatal work accidents, national income, and employment rate in developed and developing countries. Journal of occupational health, 61(3), 213-218.
(2021). Retrieved 8 December 2021, from https://www.bls.gov/iif/
Close, H. (2009). Health & Safety Executive.
Mutlu, N. G., & Altuntas, S. (2021). The technique of precise order preference for multiple risk assessment in occupational health and safety is an industrial case study. Journal of Engineering Research.
Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), 261-269.
Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership: Good, better, best. Organizational Dynamics, 13(3), 26-40.
Inness, M., Turner, N., Barling, J., & Stride, C. B. (2010). Transformational leadership and employee safety performance: A within-person, between-jobs design. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 15(3), 279.
Hu, X., Yeo, G., & Griffin, M. (2020). More to safety compliance than meets the eye: Differentiating deep compliance from surface compliance. Safety Science, 130, 104852.
Bass, B. M., Avolio, B. J., Jung, D. I., & Berson, Y. (2003). Predicting unit performance by assessing transformational and transactional leadership. Journal of applied psychology, 88(2), 207.
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