(106a) Chronic Unease – the Missing Ingredient in Safety Leadership?

Truly effective safety leaders don't just believe what they see, what they hear, or what the statistics tell them, they continually reset their risk tolerance and question whether they are doing enough. This presentation is going to ask safety leaders if they are as ‘uneasy’ as they should be, and how they should manage the chronic unease that is a very real part of their role as a leader.

Using a background of history repeating itself with large losses to the hydrocarbon industry over time, the presenter will explore organizational culture and how that impacts the values and expectations within a company. The impact of organizational culture on safety culture will then be addressed as the key elements of safety culture are explored. The presenter will then consider the different types of safety culture within different industries, and look at what research has found that successful organizations in high-risk industries do to better manage unexpected events.

Following a discussion on how to measure safety culture, tragic industry incidents will be discussed, looking at how to question safety along with the strain put on safety professionals whose role it is to manage safety. A model will be used to explore how safety leadership’s chronic unease impacts their behaviors and thinking, and where a level of ‘healthy unease’ may lie. The presentation wraps up looking at how to manage the unease, highlighting process safety is a state of mind and requires continuous commitment, and that state of mind requires chronic unease which is uncomfortable and requires an organization’s support to be useful in managing risk.