Safety Manager Style Quiz.
How do you manage your safety program?

The educational safety manager style is the most feasible of all positive management styles. This style will:

• Be an expert on general safety knowledge, including concepts and real-world safety situations;
• Focus on having top of the line risk analysis ability;
• Concentrate on having many ways of collecting quality safety data;
• Have understandable and good reasons for safety decisions; and
• Stress safety training and individual ability to meet safeyt situations.

These safety managers gain authority and respect by having a broad understanding of requirements, best practices, and safety philosophy. With the growing body of oversight requirements, this style is a natural one for safety managers to shoot for.

Educational safety managers stress very strong aviation training practices and developing a strong hazard reporting culture.

Pros: easiest and most natural way to gain respect and support for the SMS program. Cons: requires have very strong knowledge of all aspects of safety, and ongoing learning.

The respected safety manager is the kind of safety manager whose aviation SMS program probably won’t receive an audit finding for employees’ not knowing the safety manager's name. Respected safety managers develop safety behavior, trust, and support for the SMS program by having positive personal qualities, such as:

• Interacts and interfaces with all employees equally;
• Genuinely listens to the safety concerns of employees;
• Gives lots of feedback to reporters of safety issues;
• Attempts to involve all employees in change management; and
• Stresses positive safety culture above all else.

Employees with this type of safety manager may follow the SMS program purely out of respect and personal loyalty to the safety manager, but will more likely follow the SMS program due to a high quality safety culture. Such a safety manager tends to have the following traits:

• Charisma;
• Integrity;
• Against corporate culture; and
• Able to connect with many different types of people.

This type of safety manager is the best type of manager for building a positive safety culture and sustainable risk management program. However, achieving a status of “universally well-liked” is extremely difficult, especially as programs get larger.

Pros: highly influential, strong following for safety program. Cons: Very hard to do.

The top down safety manager relies heavily on his/her formal position in the company (i.e., the companies’ org chart), and highly advocates the top-down structure of SMS. This type of safety manager may have:

• Another formal position in the company, such as an upper management role; or
• Been given a wide berth of authority by the accountable executive.

At the very least, this type of management style will wield a lot of formal authority. For organizations that need a strong, archetypical manager figure to keep the safety program in line, having a high-level manager endorse the program can be a very powerful incentive.

This manager values:

• A high degree of accountability by leaders;
• Strong oversight compliance;
• A strong sense of bureaucratic accountability with policies/procedures and duties/responsibilities; and
• A highly organized SMS program.

One idea with this type of manager is that employees can expect rewards/disciplinary action from the safety manager that extends beyond the boundaries of safety (i.e., salary bonuses, promotions, probation). This kind of safety manager will include safety performance on general performance reviews.

Pros: safety program has a lot of authority and resources to be well organized and efficient. Cons: tendency to make safety program feel like a “management thing.”

This type of safety manager is generally frowned upon in the aviation safety community, as it is generally associated with not being in line with non-punitive reporting. However this is not necesserely true.

This type of management style values:

• Tangible positive and negative incentives for behaving within the proscribed boundaries;
• Clear boundaries for disciplinary action in order to keep safety behavior in check; and
• Very clear rules regarding non-conformance.

This style may not sustainable as a long-term management modus operandi. However, some safety programs that are spinning out of control may need some short term tough love from management. In the face of rebellious employees or strong resistance to change, this type of management style can be effective.

Once again however, it can also kill efficient SMS implementation in employees feel that the safety manager is overbearing, excessively rule-oriented, or associated with being a disciplinarian.

Pros: can help in situations of resistance to change, as well as developing many positive incentives for proper behavior. Cons: can backfire and hurt safety culture, and not a sustainable management style.

The corporate safety management style is a safety management style whereby a manager gains support and resources for the safety program by getting strong support and camaraderie among upper management. This camaraderie can lead to:

• More resources for the SMS program;
• Greater responsibility and status for safety manager in company;
• More power for safety manager to make safety decisions; and
• A more sustainable SMS program.

Getting upper management’s open support is a big deal for any safety program. For an SMS program to be implemented in a sustainable way, it needs to be supported by upper management. Case in point, we have seen many “fully implemented” safety programs completely collapse when the responsible safety manager leaves the company; in every situation, that safety manager did not have upper management support.

The downside with this management style is the tendency towards corporate cronyism. Moreover, this style of safety management will probably need to “prove” that they are qualified for their job, such as also trying to be a safety expert.

Pros: demonstrates that upper management has full support of safety program. Cons: will kill safety program if employees don’t feel that this manager is qualified for position.

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For more resources that are valuable to safety managers, please see the checklists below: