Leadership Assessment
Measuring Critical Areas of Leadership Capability
In working with hundreds of companies over the years, BST has found that certain management and leadership practices recur across those organizations that have outstanding safety performance. Our Leadership Assessment is designed to measure these critical areas of leadership capability.
The Leadership Assessment gives normed, percentile feedback to leaders on how others perceive their execution of seven safety leadership best practices and four dimensions of transformational leadership.
There is a proven correlation between leaders who focus on these safety practices and use a transformational style of leadership, and an organizational culture that is capable of sustaining safety performance excellence (see BST's Organizational Culture Assessment). BST's Leadership Assessment is designed to enable client organizations to leverage that correlation to achieve performance breakthroughs for safety-and often for other critical business goals as well.
More on BST's Assessments of Leadership Practices and Style
The following leadership practices, which are assessed in BST's Leadership Assessment, have been demonstrated to have a direct impact on the factors measured by BST's Organizational Culture Assessment. Focusing on these leadership best practices has a direct impact on organizational functioning, and that translates to predictable outcome success.
Safety Leadership Best Practices | |
| Visionary | Painting a compelling picture of the desired future; challenging and inspiring people around the vision; promoting the organization's vision through word and action; and being creative and innovative in pursuing the vision |
| Credibility | Being perceived as honest and reliable, characterized by behaviors such as admitting mistakes, treating others with respect and dignity, giving honest information about performance even when it is constructive or unwelcome, following through on commitments, demonstrating actions consistent with words, and being willing to make difficult or unpopular decisions |
| Action Oriented | Being performance oriented; having a personal sense of urgency; focusing on the most important priorities; doing what it takes to make initiatives successful; and being proactive rather than reactive in dealing with issues |
| Communication | Actively keeping all people informed about relevant background information and the big picture as well as the detail. Creating an atmosphere in which communication is constructive and encouraged |
| Collaboration | Promoting cooperation and collaboration within the organization; asking for and encouraging input from people on issues that will affect them; gaining commitment from others before implementing changes; and supporting decisions that others make on their own |
| Feedback & Recognition | Giving positive feedback for good performance and publicly recognizing contributions of others; finding ways to celebrate accomplishments. |
| Accountability | Requiring people to meet their commitments; setting clear responsibilities; regularly reviewing performance indicators with reports; and fostering a sense that people are responsible for the performance of their groups |
In addition, the Leadership Assessment measures the four dimensions of transformational leadership style. This style results in growth of new leaders and easier and more effective organizational change and development. It has been shown to predict safety performance.
Dimensions of Transformational Leadership Style | |
| Challenging | Providing subordinates with a flow of challenging new ideas aimed at rethinking old ways of doing things; challenging dysfunctional paradigms; and promoting rationality and careful problem solving |
| Engaging | Helping others to commit to the desired direction, including the ability to coach, mentor, provide feedback and personal attention and link the individual's needs to the organization's mission |
| Inspiring | Setting high standards; using symbols to focus effort; modeling new standards, and communicating a vision and translating it into language that resonates with individuals at all levels of the organization |
| Influencing | Building a sense of mission and commitment to the vision, gaining respect and trust, increasing optimism and instilling pride |