Leadership cannot exist in isolation. Leadership has to be enacted, present and relational. Unless people see leadership and unless the leader envisions what it is to lead, no number of meetings in offices means much to people working at the coalface where high-risk occurs.

Writing documents about risk assessments, procedures and process that sit in filing cabinets or in computers mean little to the realities of risk where the work is being undertaken.

The trouble is, many managers don’t know how to lead and be ‘present’.

The practice of ‘presence’ is an art, skill and consciousness that goes way beyond the idea of physical presence.

Visible leadership in risk has nothing to do with: behaviours, performance, organisational mission, customer feedback, objectives, pooling ideas, situational awareness or any other management agenda that serve the power of the organisation.

The practice of Presence in the Social Psychology of Risk (SPoR) is known as an orientation/disposition towards the other. It involves the relinquishing of power, suspending agenda and listening.

I have conducted many leadership programs with managers and supervisors over the past 20 years and the real test of visible leadership is what happens when we go out and walk in the field. On many occasions I have regretted the excursion.

Despite 3 days of workshops most go out into the field (fall into old habits) and cannot suspend agenda, relinquish power and listen. Indeed, in going out into the field more harm was done than good. The last thing people in the field want is: telling, lectures, political power, telling, arrogance, telling, spying, telling, controls and yes, more telling.

Many of the managers I have worked with don’t know how to be present, don’t know how to ask effective questions and cannot listen. Many don’t have a clue about Humble Enquiry. Most are consumed with the discourse of ‘performance’. Not their own performance in leadership but the safety performance of others.  

One of the foundational workshops we undertake in SPoR is called iCue Engagement™ (https://safetyrisk.net/beginner-intermediate-and-advanced-icue-skills/). It takes weeks, months and years of work before managers begin to get effective and intuitive in this. iCue© is a visual-verbal method/skill that enables the practice of visual leadership (https://safetyrisk.net/understanding-icue-a-visual-verbal-semiotic-method-for-tackling-risk/).

If you are a manager or supervisor and wish to go to go out into the field and practice visible leadership, you need to know what you are doing and how to do it well. Otherwise, don’t go out, you will do more harm than good.

Visible leadership starts within. It starts by having the right motive, right orientation to others and the desire to help, care, listen and support. If you have the right disposition towards others then it doesn’t take much education and learning to become an effective visible leader. However, no amount of training or skill development can help a manager become a good visible leader, if they don’t have the right ethical, moral, political and psychological disposition towards others. Indeed, if you are reading anything on leadership in safety and it makes no mention of such discourse then it has not a clue what safety leadership is. And for heaven’s sake, if you read that culture is ‘what we do around here’ it also knows nothing about culture.

In visible leadership a great deal happens in the leader before any situation of engagement. Visible leadership and the practice of presence is highly ineffective regarding time but the outcomes can be very so rewarding. If managers are too busy, consumed with agenda and distracted by issues, they should not walk out into the field.

The ability to suspend agenda and know how to ask open questions is foundational to visible leadership. Most managers don’t know how to do either. The only way to really learn how to intuitively ask open questions is to know how to relinquish power.

You can’t talk about visible leadership without working on an ethic of power. Visible leadership starts and ends with how well one can relinquish power and orient positively to the other. In psychology we call this Unconditional Positive Regard (UPR) and workers can smell disingenuous ‘acting’ from 200 metres.

Many times, I read the word ‘communication’ used in risk and safety leadership documents and it is always about telling. If you do a Critical Discourse Analysis of any leadership in risk documentation, see if you can find the word ‘listening’. And, if it is there, see if it is defined and if examples are given to what it means. I’ve seen nothing like this anywhere in safety.

Sometimes, I see the word ‘feedback’ used in risk leadership documentation but it too just means ‘telling’.

If managers walk the field looking for ‘safety performance’ then they won’t be present, listeners or helpful. This is the agenda of HOP. Any foundational focus on performance is an agenda that inhibits listening and being present. Such is traditional safety.

In SPoR, we learn how to suspend agenda and how to ask open questions, how to be ethically oriented towards the other so that relationship is genuine and effective.

In iCue, ownership for risk is created in the worker because the visual leader knows how to be a listener.

In SPoR, we have a very clear methodology and methods (https://www.humandymensions.com/product/spor-and-semiotics/) that enable the making of visible leadership. All of this has been documented for a long time and available for free.

All of the education and learning in SPoR is practical, positive and constructive in enabling visible leadership.

If you want to learn how to be a visible leader in risk, just ask: admin@spor.com.au