Safety Professionals face stigma for the jobs and roles they have the responsibility to perform on and off the worksite. One way to combat this is to show up and gain trust by demonstrating the hard and soft skills of a best-in-class safety leader.
Safety professionals deal with a stigma that often puts them at odds with the rest of the team. They struggle to do their jobs because of pushback from their team.
Safety Professionals have the ability to make meaningful change that has a lasting effect on the people they work with. We are the team that gets workers onboarded and through necessary orientations, we help our companies achieve COR or SECOR which translates to money in the bank and workers going home safely, we mentor, we teach, we care. We make sure company assets are maintained through preventative maintenance programs, and we try to get workers to see how the worksite impacts the bigger picture and their loved ones through behavioral-based safety programs. This list goes on and on. Being a Safety Pro is one of the most challenging jobs out there.
Being a safety leader was challenging at many times in my own safety professional career. Not everyone values safety and pushback is common. Being a leader meant working to change the mindset of some and show others that safety adds value to their day. It also meant entering into difficult conversations with your managers, supervisors, and workers with a clear purpose and strategy to change their minds.
Years ago, I had one of these difficult pressure cooker conversations. This experience was a perfect example of how important these skills are to gaining trust and buy-in to our role as a Safety Pro in a team. When it started I knew that the outcome was to either change his mind or there was a strong possibility that I would be let go.
The conversation lasted for 2 hours and he was one of the toughest people I have ever faced but in the end, I won his grudging respect, and over time turned into a great working relationship. If I had not had the right soft skills, I would not have been able to demonstrate that I had the technical knowledge to do the job or even know what he was looking for reassurance on.
All safety leaders adopt a continuous improvement mindset. With this in mind, there are two major areas that you should focus on.
Hard Skills give you the technical knowledge required to be a strong and trusted resource that your team will count on to give them the technical information about safety requirements.
Soft Skills are what will move you into the leadership category. Without soft skills, you are just a technical resource for the team.
Check out David, co-founder of Safety Evolution dive into this topic in the video below:
Leaders are born, not made....
'I remember in my first leadership course, telling my instructor when he asked if leaders are born or made, that I thought they were born. Boy, what a surprise it has been to learn just how wrong I was.
Great leaders work hard every day to become who they are.
If you want to start your continuous improvement journey - download our free guide on how to perform Personal Safety Involvements on the worksite and elevate BBO's into an experience-sharing exercise.
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