Trust: The Essential Currency for Leadership in Workplace Safety

This chapter explores the importance of trust as a key component in effective leadership, especially regarding workplace safety. It advocates for a shift from rule-based compliance to a trust-oriented approach, highlighting the benefits of investing in trust for improved safety and organizational performance.

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In this episode, Mary Conquest speaks with Clive Lloyd, a psychologist specialising in safety leadership and culture development and founder of GYST Consulting. He was recently named among the top five global thought leaders and influencers on health and safety and is the author of Next Generation Safety Leadership: from compliance to care.

Clive believes that trust is the most important factor in workplace safety and explains the three core skills HSE professionals must demonstrate to create trust and sustain trust.

Should trust and similar relationship-building attributes be described as “soft skills”? Clive argues they are essential leadership qualities and actually rather hard to master.

Clive shares his revised model of safety culture maturity. EHS professionals will learn the 5 different levels and how organizations can move from compliance to care by increasing trust, psychological safety and the flow of authentic information.

He explains how safety is shifting away from traditional command and control approaches and demonstrates how Behavioral Based Safety and goals such as Zero harm have damaging unintended consequences.

The central problem with these strategies is they lack trust. Clive shares practical guidance on building this quality, highlighting the power of asking questions and actively listening. This interview is well worth a listen!

Clive’s consultancy that's dedicated to creating trust and psychological safety:

Welcome to GYST Consulting

Clive’s best-selling book:

Next Generation Safety Leadership: From Compliance to Care: Lloyd, Clive: 9780367509538: Amazon.com: Books

Other books recommended by Clive:

Sam Goodman’s 10 Ideas to Make Safety Suck Less

https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Make-Safety-Suck-Less/dp/B0BM55LMSF

Todd Conklin’s The 5 Principles of Human Performance
https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Human-Performance-contemporary-updateof/dp/1794639144

And Pre-Accident Investigations

https://www.amazon.com/Pre-Accident-Investigations-Todd-Conklin/dp/1409447820

Paper Safe by Greg Smith

https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Safe-triumph-bureaucracy-management-ebook/dp/B07HVRZY8C