In the world of health and safety it is well known that leaders play a critical role in setting a strong health, safety and wellbeing culture within an organisation. Leaders set the tone for how seriously health, safety and wellbeing are taken, and their attitudes and behaviours directly influence the priorities of the entire workforce.
Sarah Prince, Lead Consultant here at Tribe Culture Change, explains how leaders can make health, safety and wellbeing real.
From Vision to Reality – Observing Authentic Leadership
For me, leadership focus isn’t just about setting the strategy or the vision. When I meet with leaders I’m looking for how they make these values a reality. I want to see the way leaders talk, who they talk to, their body language, the feedback from the workforce.
When I work with senior leaders I’m looking for evidence around:
- how leaders are creating an environment where health and safety concerns can be openly discussed without fear of blame or reprisal;
- how they promote transparency, encourage the reporting of near misses or unsafe conditions;
- how they respond constructively to feedback.
This helps me to identify how they are demonstrating their commitment to health, safety and wellbeing. But it also shows me how they are empowering employees to be proactive about their own safety and that of their colleagues.
One of the methods I endorse to gather this information is to talk directly with the leaders, hold a coaching style conversation but where we just chat and share ideas and opinions. I listen to what they say, may be offer some ideas, push the boundaries of their opinions, and I get them thinking about health, safety and wellbeing from a different perspective.
Engaging with visualisation
Visualisation is a tool I often use. I believe it is crucial for leaders to visualise what great health, safety and wellbeing looks like. A clear and compelling vision provides direction, purpose, and inspiration for both the leadership team and employees.
When leaders visualise the safety vision, they are better equipped to communicate it effectively, align strategic goals, and foster a shared sense of commitment throughout the organisation.
Visualising means more than simply understanding a mission statement—it involves mentally and emotionally connecting with the future state the organisation aspires to reach. The reason for this is visualisation strengthens neural pathways; it enhances memory and aids in achieving goals by harnessing the brain’s ability to stimulate sensory and perceptual experiences.
For some leaders this can be a difficult task as they only understand the health, safety and wellbeing of the current culture. They have never seen a generative culture. One where there is innovation, adaption and engagement by empowered people.
So, to help with this I ask the leaders to view what perfection would look like or what the legacy is they would like to leave behind. Visualisation also serves as a guiding compass in decision making. In times of uncertainty or change, leaders can refer to their beliefs to evaluate choices and maintain consistency. It promotes alignment across departments and helps prevent short-term distractions from derailing long-term progress. I’ve seen many organisations forget their values when they are in a state of flux, but those who visualise are often brought back to set a reminder to other of the company values.
Learning from others
Learning from others can come from a variety of sources, the leader’s peer group, industry leaders, employees. During my conversations with leaders, I seek to understand the various methods of communication, what’s working well and where there are further opportunities. The leaders I speak to are aware they don’t always get to hear about reality, often the message they receive has been ‘sanitised’. To help them re-engage with reality and learn from their workforce I offer some solutions to help them. Some of these are discussed below.
Buddying
One of the best opportunities to learn from others about how employees view health, safety and wellbeing is to buddy with an employee. The buddy will be an employee who has an interest in health, safety and wellbeing and want to be part of the change. These could be members of their team or a health and safety champion.
As mentioned by Tribe’s Scott Hassall in his article ‘Why Building an Ambassador Community is a Game-Changer for Workplace Culture’, Tribe have had success in helping organisations build networks for communication. This has involved buddying senior leaders with champions for health and safety change. It involves spending regular time together to build a relationship to enable a safe space. This can then open opportunities to share concerns or discuss how the workforce has engaged with the latest communication. It’s also an excellent opportunity to share innovation, best practice or to undertake a site visit.
When I meet with leaders who are part of a buddying programme, I listen to what the leaders say when they talk about their buddy. Often, leaders have never been involved in this type of learning and sometimes find it hard to move away from the hierarchy of ‘tell’ style, to that of two individuals just talking about the workplace. I ask what kind of information was shared and any outcomes. For example, I once asked a senior leader what they found difficult in their buddying session, and they felt their buddy was afraid to speak up to them. At the start it can be extremely difficult for some employees to feel safe to speak up, but it is also about how the sessions are initially set out. One leader just went for a walk with a coffee to get to know their buddy, they discussed their hobbies, found a similar point of reference and only on the third meeting did they really start to talk about safety and where the barriers to change were. This partnership worked well from both the leader and the employee perspective.
Where leaders have already had the opportunity to visualise their health and safety values then they are in a better position to articulate what they want to achieve, inspire confidence with their buddy and look for opportunities to motivate employees. One of the wonderful things about buddying is the leader and the buddy are sharing the outcome of actions, it isn’t down to one person to deliver an action, they are both in it together to initiate change.
This helps their buddy to engage with their colleagues when they see how it contributes to a bigger picture. This sense of purpose enhances morale, improves collaboration, and fosters a culture of innovation, as it encourages other team members to work creatively.
It helps the leader; they take the actions and their discussions to their own peers and leadership team. They can then share the good practice and innovative ideas to enable change elsewhere in the organisation.
Buddying is perfect where an organisation is building psychological safety and is aiming to reach the cultural tipping point.
Reverse mentoring
Reverse mentoring is very similar to buddying, but the difference is the mentee (the senior leader) is the one with accountability.
Normally, the mentor (the employee) and the senior leader are paired up, so they are from a different department, generation, gender or background. This means there is more likely a difference of ideas and perspectives. The senior person listens to what’s being said about the employee’s perspective in health and safety and then they look at how they can help to improve the concerns raised or implement new ideas. It shows that the leadership team is listening and actively getting involved with improving company safety practices and culture.
It can be part of the senior person’s performance measures also because the actions are to be completed by the mentee and not the reverse mentor. Accountability stays firmly with the mentee, to ensure meetings took place and actions were completed.
This kind of mentoring is very good for organisations who are in the calculative stages of culture change, because at this stage the employees are not empowered enough to make the changes, but the leaders are looking for improvements.
Sharing their experiences with others
Storytelling is such a wonderful way to inspire others and help communicate. By sharing personal experiences and narratives, leaders can connect with their team on a deeper level, leading by example to communicate their vision, motivate, and overcome resistance to change.
Leaders can become the storytellers of the future, rallying others around a common goal, guiding the employees with confidence, and their peers. I sometimes feel a sense of sadness when I speak with leaders, I feel at times almost their loneliness being at the top of an organisation with very few people to share their thoughts with.
I think we sometimes forget leaders are people too, and by sharing stories whether in the boardroom, or on the factory floor with employees, they become human again.
In summary, bringing health, safety, and wellbeing culture to life means focusing on visibility, shifting perspective, and embracing our shared humanity. Regardless of our role or title, many of us carry valuable insights that too often go unheard. That’s a missed opportunity.
So here’s the call: speak up, listen deeply, and create the kind of environment where real conversations thrive. That’s how we turn values into everyday action.
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