Health & Safety Leadership: What Senior Leaders Need to Get Right (and Why It Matters)

Senior leaders don’t manage health and safety day-to-day, but they are ultimately responsible for it. 

That was the focus of our recent webinar, “Health & Safety Leadership: What Every Senior Leader Needs to Know.” 

Bringing together insight from Ligtas’ training expertise and real-world experience from former HSE Enforcement Officer, Tony Bruce, the session explored a simple but often misunderstood truth: 

"Health and safety performance is shaped by leadership behaviour, not just documentation."

“More than 90% of accidents stem from leadership failure”

One of the most striking insights from the session was this: More than 90% of accidents are triggered by a lack of management control due to ineffective health and safety leadership.

This isn’t about blame; it’s about influence. 

When incidents are investigated, the root cause is rarely a missing policy or procedure. More often, it’s a failure of: 

• Oversight  
• Decision-making 
• Follow-through 
• Leadership visibility 

In other words, the issue sits upstream. 

What leaders do has more impact than what they say

Policies matter. Communication matters. 

But neither carries as much weight as behaviour. 

Employees take their cues from what leaders actually do, not what they say. 

That shows up in: 

• What gets prioritised 
• What gets funded 
• What gets challenged 
• What gets tolerated 
• Who takes responsibility when something goes wrong 

If there’s a disconnect between messaging and action, people notice and culture follows behaviour, not intention. 

Culture is how people behave when leadership isn’t in the room

Safety culture is often described in abstract terms; incidents, near misses, audits. Training courses delivered. 

But the most practical definition shared in the session was: Culture is how people behave when leadership isn’t in the room.

That’s when leadership impact becomes really visible. 

Because culture isn’t built through policies and campaigns, it’s built through: 

• Consistency 
• Visibility 
• Reinforcement 

When leadership behaviour is aligned, culture strengthens. When it isn’t, people default to shortcuts. 

A reality check: Health & Safety is not the top priority

One of the more debated points during the Q&A was this: Health and safety should not be the top priority of a business.

That might sound controversial - but it reflects how organisations actually operate. 

Businesses exist to deliver services, manufacture products, and must be commercially viable to survive. 

Health and safety should be part of how a business operates, not a stand-alone system. 

The warning signs leaders often miss

Before serious incidents occur, there are usually early indicators that something isn’t right.  

And they aren’t the things which are likely to be discussed in a safety meeting or documented in an audit.  

They can be: 

• Safety being treated as a basic compliance exercise or ‘tick-box’ 
• Limited engagement with frontline workers who are exposed to the real risks 
• Blame culture 
• A lack of accountability for safety performance 

These aren’t technical failures; they’re leadership gaps. 

And they’re usually visible early, if leaders are actively looking. 

The simplest way to improve safety culture (and it costs nothing)

One of the most practical takeaways from the session was also one of the simplest: Leaders need to be visible.

Planned, senior leadership tours are good, but unplanned, informal safety walks through all parts of the workplace are more effective. Meeting the people who face the organisation’s biggest risks every day, asking them about health and safety, whether their PPE is comfortable, do they have ideas for improvement - are one of the most effective ways to influence culture. 

They: 

• Demonstrate genuine commitment and care 
• Build trust with individuals on the front line 
• Show how things are actually done in real life 
• Reinforce expectations without relying on reports 
• Build a culture where safety procedures should be followed all of the time, not just when there is a planned visit  

Safety walks can be documented as evidence of how you are actively influencing behaviour, and importantly: They cost nothing except your time, but can transform how safety is perceived across the organisation.

The one thing senior leaders can do immediately

If there’s one thing leaders can do straight away to improve safety culture, it’s this: Show that health and safety matters through your own behaviour.

That means: 

• Understanding your responsibilities 
• Being visible and engaged 
• Asking the right questions 
• Following through on what you see 

Because leadership commitment is something people experience, not just read about in the quarterly newsletter. 

Why safety culture affects more than compliance

Getting this right isn’t just about avoiding enforcement action. 

Poor safety culture has wider consequences: 

• Increased staff turnover 
• Reduced trust in leadership 
• Higher stress and lower morale 
• Operational inefficiencies 
• Long-term financial impact 

People want to work in environments where they feel safe and valued. 

When they don’t, performance suffers… and so does the business. 

Watch the webinar replay

If you’d like to explore these insights in more detail, you can watch the full session via the link below.