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Have you, as a leader, established a culture of safety in the workplace?

Leadership is not a position.

It is an attitude – management is the position.

One has nothing to do with the other.

Safety, too, is an attitude.

What is a culture of safety?

A culture of safety is a state of mind and a way of living your life. Safety is the result. Safety is the choice in every moment of every day.

Those with a safety leadership attitude who promote a culture of safety will choose to do the job safely at every moment.

Companies are waking up to the fact that people who blindly follow orders on a job site still get hurt. But safety leaders who choose safety in every moment save themselves from harm by the choices they make.

In the workplace, a culture of safety is quickly becoming a coveted element in any organization.

Developing a culture of safety

Here are the 7 cultural traits an organization with a culture of safety performers will possess:

Honesty

This comes wrapped in accountability and responsibility.

Any attempt to deflect accountability negates honesty. Honesty is the trait that allows leaders to be vulnerable and accept that they don’t know everything. You can fix what you don’t know, but you can’t fix what you cover-up. Honesty is a willingness to be who you are and make no excuses for it. Values and core beliefs are tied to honesty.

One of those core beliefs will be promoting a culture of safety and self-preservation.

Want to talk more about honesty? Please take a look at this post, where I discuss moral courage as a leadership characteristic.

Communication

This is the key to keeping yourself and others safe on a job site.

If no one is talking, then no one is listening. When no one is listening, instructions get missed, and people get hurt. Communication doesn’t happen by scolding or by lectures. People don’t respond well to scolding and being lectured. Communication involves conversation. People engage themselves in conversation.

When they are engaged, they are paying attention.

For more on communicating with your people, take a look at how to Improve Your Conversations By Not Talking – 3 Tips You Can Start Using Today.

Confidence

Anyone working without it is a prime candidate to get hurt. Some work is simply intimidating. And when a worker lacks confidence in performing the job, others are put at risk. When a worker is continuously scolded, they will lose their trust.

Lack of confidence is a distraction.

Setbacks happen on every job site. When a setback occurs, people turn to those who display confidence and an “I’ve got this” attitude–all commitment to a culture of safety.

Commitment

It’s perhaps the most contagious of all traits.

Working alongside those without the commitment to the job is tenuous. Knowing that a co-worker could quit at any moment leaves workers unsure and confidence on the job site wanes.

But when you are surrounded by those who have a deep-seated commitment to the job, it brings a sense of peace and sureness about doing the job safely. Commitment means to focus, and when workers are focused, they will act safely.

Positive Attitude

Regardless of whatever adversity you may face, your attitude is critical.

A positive attitude is what turns someone’s debilitating roadblock into a temporary setback that is easily overcome. People focused on the worst attract the worst. People who can find the silver lining will emerge as victors. They see what needs doing and take action instead of wallowing in fear. A positive, supportive worksite tends to attract those who will contribute to it.

Speaking of positivity, here are three 3-minute articles to discuss with your team to create a lifetime of positive change (for everyone).

Intuition

When you are plugged into your surroundings, you can see what is coming and prepare for it.

There is a quiet confidence in merely “knowing” what is about to happen. You can prepare yourself and those around you. You can address issues before they become issues. The tough decisions are easy to decide when you can depend on your gut instinct for answers.

Learning to trust yourself is as essential as your team learning to trust you.

Sense of Humour

There is no reason safety can’t be fun.

The benefits of being safe are happy and joyful. So why can’t we laugh on the job site?

There is little reason to laugh when you don’t feel confident, lack commitment, or frequently face safety issues. But when you and your workmates have a sense of self, have confidence, excellent communication, and a great attitude, there’s no reason that you can’t have fun at work.

Humour allows people to settle into their work comfortably.

Establishing a culture of safety is the new Leadership.

Start by looking for these seven traits in yourself and your teammates.

And if you want to talk about Leadership and a culture of safety at your next safety meeting, I can help.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check these out, too:

5 Steps You Can Use To Build a “First Team” Mindset
80% Of Projects Fail Because Of ‘People’ Issues … Here Are 6 Things You Can Do To Reduce That Risk
People Pleasing Leaders & Soup Sandwiches – 5 Messes You Make When You Try to Make Everyone Happy

This article was originally published in February 2019 and has been updated.

You would have thought I would have been smarter!

I was hired as the Chief Administrative Offer for a small town in Canada’s arctic.

During the hiring process, I specifically asked about labour relations and organizational health & culture. “Don’t worry,” I was assured, “we have a great team.”

Read about a new boss as an organizational change

I should have recognized the lie and I later found out I was hired to solve problems.

The organization was top-heavy with 7 Directors for a team of 25, and the residents had unmet needs. Stories about missed opportunities and hints of a toxic culture had drifted upward to the Mayor and Town Council.

All those factors had prompted the decision to replace the out-going CAO with someone from the outside, and I seemed to fit the bill. I had a record of accomplishments in leadership, turning around broken teams and implementing wholesale changes in business models.

But in taking on this new role, I faced a common challenge: I didn’t get to handpick the people who would be working with me.

Rather, I inherited the team that had created the situation I was hired to fix.

It was like fixing a plane in midflight.

You can’t just shut down the plane’s engines while you rebuild them—at least not without causing a crash. You need to maintain stability while moving ahead.

I needed a framework for taking over this team to:

• Assess the human capital and group dynamics they have inherited;
• To reshape the team according to the organization’s goals; and
• Accelerate performance.

Read about surviving the first 90-days as a new boss

What Qualities Are You Looking For?

Like most leaders, you may have a “gut” sense of what you look for in people.

But different situations and challenges call for different strengths.

This exercise will help you better understand and articulate your priorities when you take on a new team.

Assign percentages to the qualities below, according to how much emphasis you think each should receive, given your current circumstances and goals. Make sure the numbers in the right column add up to 100.

Those numbers will be rough, of course. For some team members (say, your head of finance), competence may be the top priority; for others (say, your head of marketing), energy or people skills may be equally or more critical. The importance of the role and the state of the business may also affect your estimates.

Your requirements will depend partly on the state of the business. In a turnaround, you will seek people who are already up to speed—you won’t have time to focus on skill-building until things are more stable.

If you are trying to sustain a team’s success, however, it probably makes sense to develop high potentials, and you will have more time to do so.

To conduct this assessment, hold a mix of one-on-one and team meetings, supplemented with input from key stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, and colleagues outside the team.

Also, look at team members’ individual track records and performance evaluations.

Depending on your style, these meetings might be informal discussions, formal reviews, or a combination, regardless you should approach them in a standard way.

Then What?

Prepare.

Review available personnel history, performance data, and appraisals. Familiarize yourself with each person’s skills. Observe how team members interact. Do relations appear cordial and productive? Tense and competitive?

Create an interview template.

Ask people the same questions and see how their insights vary. For example, What are the strengths and weaknesses of our existing strategy? What are our biggest challenges and opportunities in the short term? In the medium term? What resources could we leverage more effectively? How could we improve the way the team works together?

And my favourite question … If you were in my position, what would you do to make things better?

Read about using silence to talk

Look for verbal and nonverbal clues.

Notice what people say and don’t say. Do they volunteer information, or do you have to work for it? Do they take responsibility for problems, make excuses, or point fingers at others? Look for inconsistencies between people’s words and body language, this can signal dishonesty or distrust of management.

Pay attention to topics that elicit strong emotions, this provides clues to what motivates people and what kinds of changes would energize them.

Summarize and share what you learn.

After you’ve interviewed everyone, discuss your findings with the team. This will demonstrate that you are coming up to speed quickly. If your feedback highlights differences of opinion or raises uncomfortable issues, you’ll also have a chance to observe the team under a modest amount of stress. Watching how people respond may lead to valuable insight into team culture and power dynamics.

Reshaping the Team

The next task is to reshape the team within the constraints of the organization’s culture, the leader’s mandate, and the available talent.

You want people to be able to share information freely, identify and deal with conflict swiftly, solve problems creatively, support one another, and present a unified face once decisions are made.

Composition.

The most obvious way to reshape a team is to replace underperformers and anyone whose capabilities are not a good match for the situation.

But this can be difficult culturally and politically, and in many cases, it’s simply not possible.

Spend the first few months observing employees in critical roles who clearly cannot do the work, or for truly toxic personalities that are undermining the enterprise.

Alignment.

Ensure everyone has a clear sense of purpose and direction.

To get everyone aligned, the team must agree on answers to four basic questions:

1. What will we accomplish? You spell this out in your mission, goals, and key metrics.
2. Why should we do it? Here is where your vision statement and incentives come into play.
3. How will we do it? This includes defining the team’s strategy in relation to the organization’s, as well as sorting out the plans and activities needed for execution.
4. Who will do what? People’s roles and responsibilities must support all of the above.

Get your team discussion guide here

Accelerate Development

Energize team members with some early wins.

Start by setting challenging goals for the next three months. Specify the work involved and who was accountable for it, and develop messages to share your team’s successes.

Once the team had those successes in place, it kept building on them.

The result is a cycle of achievement and confidence.

If you are soon to take over a ‘new-to-you’ department or organization, I expect you are feeling pretty good about yourself.

I know I always did.

Whenever I was taking on a new team, I’d thought about what I wanted to be as a leader, what I wanted my legacy to be, and how we would be successful.

Our experiences define what kind of leader we will be and how we will operate.

I now look back on my leadership growth, and I think about what I got right and wrong.

In hindsight, I have two observations on the role of a front line and middle manager.

1. What got you here won’t get you further.

To get to lead a team, you have had to prove you were successful with those jobs that came before.

But simply applying what you learned in those jobs isn’t enough to make you successful at the next level.

Remember that what you’ve learned so far won’t automatically make you a great boss

2. Beware of doing the job of your subordinates.

At this point in your career, you’d make a great team leader.

You’d undoubtedly be the best front-line supervisor in your company.

But that’s not your job.

If you try and make it your job to be great at your subordinates’ jobs, you’ll fail.

They won’t grow, and you won’t be able to do your actual job.

Three Differences

Don’t throw your experience out of the window but understand that being a senior leader has differences from your previous roles.

Success is about understanding those differences and acting accordingly.

These are the three differences that I observed and have reflected on:

1. Define success

Your new role offers an unprecedented level of freedom to get to define success.

When your people complete a task with a glance of an eye, you can deliver instant and visceral feedback.

So how you define success is critical and powerful. 

Your criteria for success should include a combination of performing your mission, developing your people and building your team.

Even more importantly, it should have medium- and long-term elements.

Measuring success is about how your team performs during your tenure, and whether or not you leave it in a better place than when you found it.

How you will define success will have a significant effect on your organization.

Read about success

2. Set the culture deliberately

Once you know what your ‘success’ looks like, you can set about creating the culture that will deliver it.

This is a deliberate act.

When you are planning those ‘team cohesion’ events, make sure they are underpinning the stories and messages at the heart of the culture you are trying to build.

For me, it was about being an inclusive, learning and improving organization that unlocked people’s potential to better the whole organization and not just your part of it.

Decide what culture you want then set about reinforcing it as a series of deliberate actions.

3. It’s different now, so communicate differently

For everything I’ve said above, the most significant difference between an organizational leader and being a frontline leader is about how you communicate.

You should be able to remember the faces and names of all of your employees.

But you will have a tiny amount of direct influence over your people will be face to face.

Now you will have to project your leadership through you’re the people on your leadership team.

This means that when you interact with your leadership team, you must always think about the effect of that interaction on your front line people.

They won’t hear you.

They will hear someone’s interpretation of what you said and feel the effect of your message, not the words.

Similarly, the face to face interactions you have with those outside the team will be less regular but more significant.

You will touch people’s lives less often, but the fingerprints you leave will be much deeper.

The most junior employees will remember what you did and how you made them feel infinitely more than anything you said.

Read about nail polish & coloured pencils

Enjoy the ride

As a leader, you have no choice but to lead through others.

It’s also where you gain autonomy.

These are what define its difference.

Understanding culture and communication is important to every leader.

Defining where the team is going and then creating the environment in which your people can get there is a significant part of your job.

It is all underpinned by consistent, constant communication that is designed for second-order effects.

There is, of course, much more than this.

Nor did I got everything right.

I missed opportunities.

I  controlled when I should have loosened the reigns.

When things went right, it was because I had given my people the freedom to use their initiative and rectify my mistakes.

When I got angry I always regretted it.

My biggest regrets are from when I didn’t look after my people as well as I should have done.

That said, it was a wonderful experience, and I would recommend you enjoy the ride.

When a new leader begins their role they often get a surprise.

They’re shocked at the time it takes to manage personal and professional relationships at work.

Their success can come down to seeing the warning signs and having the skills to deal with them.

Until you’ve actually been a leader, it’s tricky to develop the specific leadership skills and qualities you need to be effective. To help you get there faster, here are five signs your leadership skills could use some work—and what you can do about it. 

Surprise #1: You really can’t run everything.  

A leader doesn’t need to have a toe dipped in every single pool at work. Sure, you want to know what’s going on and be consulted when necessary. But trying to run everything single-handedly will ultimately lead to burnout, making mistakes, and ineffective leadership.

There are a few instances when micromanaging can be a useful tactic. Learn about them here.

Here are some warning signs you’re trying to run too many things as a leader:

• You are in too many meetings and involved in too many tactical discussions.
• There are too many days when you feel as though you have lost control over your time.

Surprise #2: You learn there’s a price to giving orders.

New leaders are often surprised to find they pay a price for being the one to give orders. Often, this is shown in how their relationships can change with coworkers. 

Here are some warning signs to look out for:

• You have become the bottleneck.
• Employees are overly inclined to consult you before they act.
• People start using your name to endorse things, as in, “Stephanie says…”

Surprise #3: You don’t know what’s going on.

Remember how we talked about being too involved in every project, decision, or discussion? There’s another side to that, and it involves being too distant from all of these things and missing important details and information.

Here are some warning signs you don’t know what’s going on at work:

• You keep hearing things that surprise you.
• You learn about events after the fact.
• You hear concerns and dissenting views through the grapevine rather than directly.

Surprise #4: You’re always on display.

As a leader, you’re bound to face the spotlight more often than you did in your previous roles. This feeling of “always being on display” is often a surprise to new leaders. 

Warning signs:

• Employees circulate stories about your behavior that magnify or distort reality.
• People around you act as if they’re trying to anticipate your likes and dislikes.

Surprise #5: You feel like you’re on shifting ground.

New leaders don’t always feel the stability and security they expected to in their new role. 

Be on the lookout for these warning signs:

• You don’t know where you stand with your boss or board.
• Roles and responsibilities between your boss or board are not clear.
• The discussions in board or executive meetings are limited mostly to reporting on results and decisions.

Implications on your leadership.

These ‘five surprises’ have tremendous implications on how a new leader should perform their role.

First: Learn to manage strategically rather than focusing on daily operations. Strategic, effective leadership, not diving into the details, can be a jarring transition.

One client, a CEO, said that he initially felt like the company’s “most useless executive,” despite holding all the power.

He needed to learn how to act in indirect ways by:

• setting and communicating strategy,
• putting sound processes in place,
• selecting and mentoring key people who create conditions to help others make the right choices.

At the same time, he needed to learn how to set the tone and define the organization’s culture and values through his words and actions—in other words, demonstrate how employees should behave. To do this, he needed to learn the right leadership skills.

Second: Leaders must recognize that a position does not automatically give the right to lead, nor does it guarantee loyalty.

Leaders must perpetually earn and maintain the moral authority to lead. CEOs can quickly lose their legitimacy if:

• their vision is unconvincing,
• if their actions are inconsistent with the values they espouse, or
• if their self-interest appears to trump the welfare of the organization.

They must realize that success ultimately depends on the ability to enlist voluntary commitment rather than forced obedience—and yes, it takes certain leadership skills and leadership qualities to do so.

By the way, you won’t want to miss these 3 important things to remember on your first day as a new leader. 

Mastering the conventional tools of effective leadership and management may lead to the promotion or appointment of a leader, but these tools alone will not keep you there.

Before you commence your leadership role, ask yourself WHY you want to be a leader in the first place. 

Finally, it’s essential that the leader maintains humility, and must not get absorbed in the role.

Even if others think you are omnipotent, you are only human.

Failing to recognize this will lead to arrogance, exhaustion, and a shortened tenure.

By maintaining a personal balance and staying grounded, an effective leader can achieve the perspective required to make decisions in the interest of the organization and its long-term prosperity.

If you’re interested in going deeper or moving your career to the next level, you’ll also want to have a look at my 1-on-1 coaching services.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check these out, too:

How One Word Can Damage Workplace Culture

9 Stupid Management Practices (and what to do instead)

The 6T’s To Know What To Delegate

This article was originally published on November 25, 2018, and has been updated.

If you Google the term ‘first day as a manager,’ you’ll get almost three billion results.

What does that tell us? 

That a lot of people are looking for ways to succeed as a new leader, boss, or manager. 

It also tells us there are a lot of people offering advice on how to do so. 

But what if I told you there are only three things you need to remember to succeed on your first day as a manager? 

I’ve been the new boss many times. 

Each time, I found myself with more responsibility and in charge of more people. 

And each time, there was a nagging voice in my head telling me the same thing: I was in over my head.

When self-doubt creeps in, it doesn’t just affect the impression our employees, peers, and bosses have of us—or how we see ourselves. It can also have lasting negative effects on our performance and success at work. 

Here are three things you should know to quiet self-doubt and be the best boss possible:

1. Your boss has confidence in you.

You’re in a leadership position for a reason.

I once told my boss that I didn’t think I was ready for my pending promotion. 

It didn’t take long to get sent out of his office with the words, “I’ll be the judge of when you’re ready,” still ringing in my ears. 

Fear of leadership failure is a real thing. Remember, your boss believes you’re ready to lead or you wouldn’t be there. So run with it!

If you want to explore this topic further, don’t miss this post. 

2. Don’t rush.

I remember seeing a brash young captain standing in front of his new command. 

The first words out of his mouth were: “there’s a new sheriff in town and there’s going to be changes…” He looked like an idiot.

In that moment, he completely lost all credibility. 

What could he have done differently?

He should have entered calmly and slowly, asking people for their names and stories, instead of assuming everything needed fixing and stomping on toes. 

On your first day as a new manager, come in with the knowledge that it’s going to take time to get to know the staff and the way things work. From there, you can determine which adjustments need to be made. 

It might feel like there are a million things you want to hurry to get done on your first day, each more important than the last. That’s why I’ve written this post for dealing with competing priorities. 

3. Spend time with your boss and your peers.

This is advice not only for your first day as a manager, but on every day after that: Spend as much time with your boss as you can. 

Ask them what their performance objectives are and how you can contribute to their success. This demonstrates your value and establishes your place as a great asset to the company. 

Want to learn more about partnering with your boss? Be sure to visit this post. 

You should also invest in getting to know your team whenever you can. 

These people can help you navigate your new environment. And quite frankly, if you’re offside with them, they can contribute to your failure.

Almost all advice to a new leader is to invest in their employees during the early days of their new position. Your employees are important. But if you don’t understand what your boss wants or your peer team needs, you’re in for a rough ride.

Your first day as a new leader is just that—one day. Don’t expect to overhaul a company or predict your own failure before you’ve even had a chance to start. Remember: you were chosen to lead for a reason. 

Come in with a good attitude, an open mind, and a willingness to connect with your boss, peers, and employees. It will go a long way. 

Keeping these things in mind will help you succeed not only on your first day as a new manager, but throughout the rest of your career. 

If you’re interested in going deeper or moving your career to the next level, you’ll also want to have a look at my 1-on-1 coaching services.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check these out, too:

Micromanaging is a Good Thing
9 Stupid Management Practices (and what to do instead)
The 6T’s To Know What To Delegate

This article was originally published on March 14, 2016, and has been updated.

As a young leader in the Army, I used to ask my soldiers: ‘How are you doing?’

Guess what the answers were. Fine. Good. Okay.

What did I gain from those conversations? Nothing useful.

A mentor suggested that I start asking:

• What are you doing?
• Do you understand why you are doing this?
• When did you eat last?
• What do you need to help you do your job?

Read more about how to use silence to ask questions

I started getting information that was much more valuable in helping to understand what was going on.

Great questions can reveal tremendous information.

The questions you ask as a leader can reveal the values you hold, your priorities, and reinforce behaviours which you may or may not like. 

But too often, leaders reveal the gaps that exist between what they say and what they want and do.

Here are four questions leaders should be asking themselves.

1. What would a great leader do at this moment?

Imagine framing your perspective with the lens of what great leaders would do in the situation in which you find yourself.

The standard is raised immediately for the options available, the best actions to pursue, and the right words to use.

Great leaders ask this question to push themselves beyond their limitations, biases and planning assumptions.

2. What did I do today to enable my team to be better, or did I do something that held my team back?

Leaders touch everyone with their actions and in their conversations.  Often, there are unintended consequences from what they do and say.

Read about the 6 Essential Questions You Can Ask Children & Employees

Great leaders constantly review, assess and learn from what they do and say making adjustments along the way, revealing their value of continual learning.

3. If I could do one thing in the next 10 minutes, what would be the best thing to do?

Time management is critical as a leader.

When a meeting ends early, great leaders seize upon the found sliver of time to invest in getting things done, which usually involves building a relationship with an employee.

Your behaviour during these slivers of found time reveals your priorities.

4. Who’s hiding from me?  Who haven’t I met with recently?

While it’s easy to rationalize that an employee is working well on their own, is independent and self-motivated, great leaders know that relationships with all employees need tending.

Sustaining and growing inter-personal relationships with employees earn the leader the right to lead.

Growing your leadership impact requires you to reach beyond the limits of your personality and style.  And it’s in those moments of stretch that you begin to build your leadership muscles.

Read about the 3 questions that would have stopped me from wasting $20,000

Coaching Thoughts

1. Think back over the last several conversations you’ve had with employees and consider what values do you think you revealed?
2. In each meeting you have over the next 48 hours, write/type ‘What Would a Great Leader Do’ at the top of your notes. Then grab a coffee and reflect on the experiment.