As 2020 draws to a close we look at the top leader, manager and supervisor themes that are of most interest to our readership. This article provides a brief summary of each article and a link back to the original.
This set of leader, manager and supervisor themes is useful in providing a well-rounded discussion to help you to manage the soft skills of your people. Never before have leadership skills and communication, listening and motivation been more important.
What is Your Preferred Safety Leadership Style?
Leaders relationships influence the behaviour and actions of others to help them to achieve their personal goals and those of the organisation. They promote appropriate interpersonal relationships through suitable communication to motivate others to voluntarily achieve these goals. Also, others see them as an effective leader.
Great leaders have a higher level of emotional and empathetic involvement in the tasks personally assigned to them, as well as their employees, and give attention to what events and actions mean. Also, an effective safety leader has a high level of emotional intelligence and the confidence to take calculated risks. This topic is one of our critical leader, manager and supervisor themes where daily demonstrated leadership is essential in today’s workforce.
This article discusses the attributes of good leaders and determines the differences between operational and participative safety leadership styles. We look at when it is appropriate to use the two styles.
See our article, Critical Safety Thinking During The Pandemic.
See the Tap into Safety short online training course on Leadership Skills. This course has a robust assessment, certificate and report.
Which Leadership Style Impacts Workplace Bullying?
Have you ever wondered if your leadership style impacts bullying in your workplace?
Recent research indicates that the day-to-day leadership practices of managers and leaders who are stressed and under pressure lead to increased bullying behaviour. Also, their style of leadership has a bearing. On days when managers and leaders use transformational or participative styles of leadership even when they are under pressure, bullying is low. However, when managers and leaders take a laissez-faire leadership style, bullying-related negative acts increase.
This article discusses the research and offers some strategies and resources to empower leaders and managers to develop their leadership style. Workplace bullying is one of the most searched leader, manager and supervisor themes due to the link with declining mental health.
For more information, see our articles,
Why Do People Use Bullying Behaviour at Work?
Does Workplace Bullying Affect Your Staff Mental Health?
Does Workplace Bullying Have Long Term Effects?
Or hear a summary on the Tap into Safety Podcast.
The Critical Role of a Supervisor
The main role of the Supervisor is to ensure that your workgroup achieves the results that you expect. Supervisors are responsible for the results of the people they supervise and they can be judged by their organisation for the success of their team.
Supervising means getting involved and understanding the day-to-day operation firsthand. It also means knowing your people as individuals and being known by them. However, what the role requires is one of the most-asked about supervisor themes with many in the role after receiving only minimal (if any) skills training or support.
In this article, we look at the role of a Supervisor in light of organisation, management, communication, and collaboration skills to provide tips to improve your effectiveness.
See the Tap into Safety short online training course on The Role of a Supervisor. This course has a robust assessment, certificate and report and coming soon we will have available the Role of a Construction Supervisor that has been informed by a leading Australian builder and has a focus on safety obligations.
See our article, Do Supervisor’s Leadership Behaviours Impact Safety?
Effective Safety Communication Do’s and Don’ts
Effective safety communication relies on well-developed skills and is one of the key leader, manager and supervisor themes. As a Supervisor, Manager or Leader, you must be able to balance time constraints and a heavy workload while managing other employees and projects, all the while keeping the communication channels open. We also note that good communicators use listening techniques and nonverbal strategies to improve their conversations.
What you are doing in face-to-face communicating is taking what you want to say as it exists in your mind, converting or coding it into words and possibly gestures and sending the message in speech and perhaps signs. The receiver hears your words, and sees your gestures, and decodes them into what they mean to them.
Unfortunately, communication breakdown occurs more often than not and the sender’s message may be completely distorted by the time it is decoded by the receiver.
In this article, we look at the different types of safety communication commonly used across organisations, the barriers to effective communication, and five areas that you can work on to improve your verbal communication skills.
See the Tap into Safety short online training courses on Effective Communication, Active Listening and Resolving Conflict. These courses have a robust assessment, certificate and report.
Best Tips to Motivate Your Employees
The final popular leader, manager and supervisor themes are motivating your employees to increase productivity and developing a great workplace culture.
For this article, we discuss how to tap into the three areas of motivation: purpose, social recognition and the work environment. We explain extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and provide the best tips to motivate your employees. The article concludes with a discussion on employee mental health and strategies for Managers and Leaders.
See our article, 3 Factors That Impact Employee Engagement.
See the Tap into Safety short online training course on Motivating Your Team. This course also has a robust assessment, certificate and report.
Take a look at our other courses for Leaders and Managers and for General Training topics such as Health and Safety Fundamentals, Writing a JSA, the Hierarchy of Controls and Home Office Ergonomics.