Page 182 - CW E-Magazine (25-3-2025)

Special Report

Process safety and risk management: Visible felt

leadership and operating discipline

If you put good people in bad sys-  Investigations of high potential and JOY M. SHAH
tems, you get bad results. You have serious incidents, as well as review of Founder and Chief Consultant
“to water fl ower, you want to grow” – reports to ensure appropriate action Innov8 ProTech Solutions
Stephen Covey and communication have taken place Former Sr. Vice President – Technical
to prevent recurrence; Reliance Industries Ltd.
We have heard about safety culture  Setting goals and objectives to estab- E-mail: joymshah@gmail.com

with medium and large scale companies. lish expectations for line management;
Still they face major loss accidents. Have and  A visible passion for continuous im-
we thought of why this is happening even  Town hall meetings. provement, Zero injuries, illness and

though they have a good safety culture? Is incidents; and
good safety culture enough? Or should we Providing coaching and feedback are  Celebration and recognition of Goal

target great safety culture? If so what is dif- two aspects of visible felt leadership. Zero success.
ference in good safety culture and great safety
culture? This is the subject of this article. Following are key principles or best It is essential that leaders “walk the
practices of felt leadership: talk” and change their own behaviour,
‘Visible felt leadership’ is a word  Visibility of leaders action on safety infl uence other people’s behaviour such

coined by the chemical company, DuPont, within the organisation; that other people also change their beha-
but it has been explained and elaborated by  Relentlessness of leadership about viour. For great safety culture, mind sets

many other companies in their own way. spending time with employees and and behaviour must be addressed at every
Felt leadership starts from the top and contractors and coach them; level – from leadership to shop fl oor – as
sends a clear message through action that  Not only recognise leadership role as every level will look “up” to see which

leadership is not only about driving reve- teacher/trainer/coach, but recognise behaviours are being role modelled by their
nue and contributing to shareholder value, all employees for their role as teacher/ leaders. Unless behaviour becomes habits,
but about preservation and protection of trainer/coach in town hall events; great safety culture cannot be achieved.
the organisation’s most valuable resource –  Development of own safety function-

employees. ing skills and passing them along to Sum of individual behaviours will
the organisation; become individual performance and sum
Theodore Roosevelt once said:  Behave and lead all the time as others of individual performance becomes organi-

“Nobody cares how much you know, would be expected to do. sational performance. Visible felt leadership
until they know how much you care.”  Maintenance of a self-safety focus leads to operational discipline and make
and continuous emphasis and clarity individual behaviour for safety a habit.
Visible felt leadership is the manage- around safety expectations;
ment’s total actions that lead people at all  Confi rm and reconfi rm “safe” produc- There are three major characteristics of

levels to understand and “feel” their lea- tion as the number 1 value, not only in Operational Discipline.
ders’ high standards, and accept their policy, but action and decision making; 1. Innovation, agility, continuous
strong commitment to safety as being Table 1: 11 characteristics of Operational Discipline
genuine, caring and respectful.
Leadership/cultural Processes Standards
Visible felt leadership can be practiced Leadership by example Suffi cient and capable Excellent housekeeping
in all safety events, meetings and discus- resources
sions as well as decision making, but fol- Common shared values Employee involvement Practice consistent with
lowing are the main aspectsthat will be procedures
noticed by everyone. Strong team work Active line of communica- Absence of short cuts
 Work place observations and coaching; tion
 Participating in every meeting and dis-
cussion related to safety; Pride in organisation Up-to-date documentation

182 Chemical Weekly March 25, 2025

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