Unit 5

Road Safety Program Management

Module 5.2Leadership and Champions

Module 5.2Leadership and Champions

Learning Objective Duration 65 Minutes

At the conclusion of this module, participants will be able to:

Describe the fundamental organizational leadership and support needs for effective and efficient road safety management.

The safety community needs strong leadership and a champion to promote safety integration into all phases of the transportation community. In this lesson, we will discuss the crucial role played by safety leaders.

In this module we will: Define leadership; Identify leadership traits and skills; Discuss how leaders influence the behavior and

decisions of others; Discuss potential barriers to effective leadership;

and Identify key leadership positions in the safety

discipline.

Leadership is essential in any field, but it is particularly important in road safety for three major reasons:

• The safety field is diverse by definition. It draws on the skills of educators, politicians, advocates, bureaucrats, public servants, and others. These groups sometimes work together in harmony, but more often then not, they work in isolation or have difficulty working together. Leaders are necessary for cohesion in a complex, multi-stakeholder environment.

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• A great deal of technical knowledge is available in the safety field regarding the most effective means of solving safety problems. However, state-of-the-art technical knowledge is not sufficient for change to occur. Leadership is necessary to ensure technical knowledge is used.

• Safety competes with other public sector priorities, particularly mobility. Without strong leaders to champion the safety cause, it might not be considered or prioritized by public sector decision makers.

As evidence of the need for leaders in the safety field, the Federal Highway Administration has explicitly stated that safety planning efforts (specifically, development of state Strategic Highway Safety Plans) should be led by a “safety champion” who supports an interdisciplinary approach to safety, helps to break down stovepipes among disciplines, and drives implementation of the safety plan. This directive stems from research that shows having a safety champion is strongly associated with progress.

Because leadership is so important, this module discusses the subject in detail. Emphasis is placed on leadership types relevant to the public sector. Accordingly, the main resource for this module is a text entitled “Dynamics of Leadership in Public Service,” by Montgomery Van Wart.

It is easy to see that leadership is important, but it is more difficult to define. What is leadership exactly? Is it possible to “create” leaders? What skills give leaders the ability to lead? In defining leadership, it is helpful to consider the word itself.

There are two ideas inherent in the term: Leaders are able to attract followers. Inherent in the word “leader” is the idea of followers. A leader is someone capable of motivating others to follow. If someone has ideas but no one responds, that person has not succeeded in leading.

Leaders are going somewhere. The word leader also implies direction. Leaders inspire others to action or to do things differently. A person who is respected by others but has no agenda is not a leader.

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What defines leadership in the context of road safety? Who are the leaders, who are the followers, and in what direction are the leaders headed? Many possible answers to these questions exist. Consider a few examples of safety leaders:

The secretary of a state department of transportation who decides that safety should be the first priority of the department and gets buy-in from the staff to make funding and structural changes to the organization to support the shift in priorities.

A law enforcement officer who develops and successfully sells to his management a new incentive program to encourage officers to identify and arrest more impaired drivers.

A trauma nurse who initiates a “teachable moments” campaign in which nurses teach patients injured in impaired driving crashes about the risks associated with drinking and driving.

In all these examples the leaders recognized a need for change, acted on that need, and inspired others to follow. The examples also illustrate that anyone with drive, dedication, and a good idea can lead.

It’s important to consider the difference between leaders and managers. Leaders may be in management positions, but not all managers are leaders. Managers are typically more focused on making the most efficient use of staff and resources through budgeting, staffing, or procedural decisions. Leaders are more focused on determining what the goal should be and inspiring others to reach it. In simplistic terms, leaders focus more on “doing the right thing” and managers focus more on “doing things right”

Both leadership and management skills are important, and often a single individual must have both skills and be able to transition between them. For example, an agency leader must be able to both initiate a new direction for the organization and to sustain the change over time through day-to-day managerial tasks.

No single characteristic defines a leader. Leaders have combinations of skills, and all are flawed because they lack certain of the traits important for leadership. Nevertheless, observers of leaders have tried to define

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what makes them stand out. The following traits contribute to leader effectiveness:

• Self-confidence and Decisiveness. Leaders are often in the position of doing something difficult or risky. They must have the self-confidence and decisiveness to make others trust their course of action.

• Resilience and Energy. Especially in the public sector, change does not happen quickly. Leaders must have energy and staying power if they are to successfully implement change.

• Need for Achievement / Willingness to Assume Responsibility: Effective leaders are willing to take on the extra responsibility and stress associated with driving change. They may be motivated by their need for achievement, a desire to serve others, or their personal values.

• Flexibility: Effective leaders don’t blindly forge ahead; they are able to flexibly respond to changes in the environment and adjust the course as necessary.

• Emotional Maturity: Effective leaders exhibit self-awareness and self-control. They are able to reflect on and mitigate their shortcomings.

Each individual is born with some of these traits more than others. By reflecting on one’s self, observing one’s behavior, and soliciting feedback from others, it is possible to gain awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses with regard to leadership qualities, and to compensate for areas of weakness.

Individuals may also seek to cultivate leadership skills. Skills are different from traits in that they can more easily be consciously practiced. Six basic skills that contribute to leader effectiveness include:

Communication skills. Leaders are those who inspire others to take a new direction. Such inspiration can only be achieved if the leader is an effective communicator, in both formal and informal situations. Perhaps the most important communication skill is the art of listening. Leaders can derive influence by developing an understanding of the needs, concerns, and ideas of others and demonstrating they are being heard.

Social skills: Leaders must be able to interact effectively in social settings. This skill is difficult to define, but it involves kindness and consideration of others; understanding of other’s

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needs and personalities; and confidence. Social skills help the leader create group cohesiveness around shared goals, allow the leader to gather information effectively, and increase the leader’s ability to diffuse tense situations. In addition, being liked gives leaders more power and influence.

Problem solving skills: Leaders must be able to deal with difficult problems and find solutions to them. This may involve acknowledging that the solution to a problem is not immediately evident and that more information is needed. Leaders are able to be patient and use their creativity when solutions are not obvious.

Technical skills: Leaders must have a solid understanding of technical issues. Leadership in the safety field is of little use if the leader selects an ineffective course of action due to poor understanding of safety issues. Leaders need not be technical experts, but they need to know enough to make good judgments about how to solve problems.

Influence skills: Leaders must be able to influence others. This skill draws on all the skills mentioned above, but includes an awareness of influence tactics, which are described in the next section.

One of the key leadership skills mentioned above is the ability to influence other people. Too often, individuals feel that because they are not in a formal position of power, they cannot influence others. In fact, there are many methods of influencing others and only a few of them rely on direct sources of power.

The two main categories of power are traditional authority and referent power. Traditional authority, also referred to as “position power”, is the power derived from having a formal position within an organization. The ability to hire and fire, increase financial compensation, and make budgetary decisions are all powers associated with status in an organization. Only people in those positions have these powers. Referent power is available to anyone, regardless of their position within the organization. Referent power is the ability to influence those over whom you do not have direct control.

All leaders must use referent power, because no leader has complete control over others just by virtue

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of position, unless she is a dictator! Nine tactics for influencing others are outlined below. Some tactics draw on position power, some draw on referent power, and some draw on a combination of both.

Pressure tactics: individuals can influence others through gentle reminders, threats, and demands. Example: a supervisor threatens to fire his staff.

Exchange tactics: The use of a ‘quid pro quo’ strategy in which one person helps another with an understanding that the favor will be returned in the future. Example: a supervisor says to his staff, “If you work late tonight to finish this for me, you can take tomorrow off.”

Legitimating tactics: individuals can influence others by referring to rules and regulations. Example: As they get in a car, one co-worker might say to another, “Aren’t you aware that tribal policy says all tribal employees must wear safety belts?”

Rational persuasion: The use of facts and numbers to persuade others. Example: an advocacy group uses statistics on teen involvement in traffic crashes to persuade the state legislature to adopt a graduated licensing law.

Consultation: Involving the target in goal-setting so that persuasion is not needed to the same extent. This is often referred to as “achieving buy-in” and is a very frequent tactic used in the safety field.

Emotional appeals: appealing to the emotions or shared values of an individual or group. For example: presenting a slideshow of the faces of those who died in traffic crashes that year at a conference.

Personal appeals: asking for help from friends. Example: a volunteer asks her best friend, “Could I ask you to help me set up a safety education booth at the county fair this weekend?”

Friendliness: using praise or other ingratiating behavior in the hopes of increasing responsiveness to future requests. Example: a supervisor continually praises his employees so they continue to provide high-quality work.

In the road safety field, some of the most highly visible forms of persuasion are emotional appeals, rational persuasion, and consultation. At large conferences of safety groups (frequently called “safety summits”), it

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is typical to have presentations by individuals whose lives have been personally affected by a crash (emotional appeals); presentations that make the argument for safety by using crash statistics (rational persuasion); and breakout sessions in which safety stakeholders discuss their shared goals (consultation).

Just as it is important to be aware of the traits and skills that contribute to leader effectiveness, it is important to be aware of barriers that constrain potential leaders.

Legal and contractual constraints. Safety professionals are bound by laws that proscribe their sphere of activity within the safety field. Public sector professionals, for example, are generally prohibited from advocating for legislation. They are also limited by the fact that agency budgets and activities are in large part set by mandates established by policy makers.

Limits of position power. Individuals are constrained by the limits of their formal position. Lower level staff can use referent power to influence hiring, firing, and budgetary decisions, but those decisions are ultimately made by others. They also are bound by their specific job responsibilities, which are often divided between safety and other duties. Straying too far outside of established job descriptions invites risk. Note: in some states the state safety engineer and/or the 402 coordinator are too low in the food chain to use much, if any position power.

Availability of resources. Leaders are always limited by resources, whether they be financial resources, human resources, or their own time constraints. In the public sector in particular, there may be little flexibility to increase the level of resources to accompany a new initiative. Politicians often institute new safety-related mandates and programs without increasing funds for implementation. Leaders may become exhausted by trying to pursue their safety goals in addition to their regular job responsibilities.

Limitations in leadership abilities. No one has all the skills they need to be an effective leader. Leaders can cope with their own limitations by analyzing the leadership demands put on them; analyzing their own strengths and weakness in relation to those demands; and seeking training,

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feedback, or experiences to build the needed skills.

Leaders deal with these constraints by becoming well informed about the actual constraints, gaining the confidence of superiors which leads to more flexibility, changing policies and organizational structures, and delegating effectively.

In addition to these constraints, leaders face a multitude of other challenges when seeking to implement and sustain change. Change can cause discomfort, especially if it threatens another’s formal power. Leaders have to deal with those who resist change because they believe it will negatively affect them. Effective leaders are able to manage resistance to change; ineffective leaders are thwarted by it.

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Although any road safety professional can become a leader in the field, there are certain key public sector positions that are well suited to safety leadership.

State Governor. The state Governor is the head of the executive branch, which includes state agencies such as the department of transportation, the state police, the department of motor vehicles, etc. The Governor must provide formal support for any major safety initiatives coming from the agencies, such as the state Strategic Highway Safety Plan. The Governor can also issue “executive orders” requiring the agencies to implement directives relating to safety.

Secretaries/Directors/Commissioners of the Departments of Transportation. The secretary is the formal head of the Department of Transportation. Any major safety-related initiative led by the department requires their support. If they have a strong interest in safety, they can develop their own safety initiatives and implement them from the top-down.

Director of Transportation Planning. Planning directors manage the process through which transportation funds are programmed. If they have an interest in safety, they can ensure the safety benefits are considered in the process of ranking transportation projects for implementation.

Chief Engineers. Chief Engineers oversee the engineering and project delivery activities of the State Departments of Transportation. If they have a strong interest in safety, they may place a special priority on projects with safety benefit. If not, they may resist the use of transportation funds for safety improvements.

Governor’s Highway Safety Representatives. The Governor’s Highway Safety Representatives are individuals appointed by the governor and are responsible for developing and implementing highway safety programs, maintaining fiscal oversight of the programs, and evaluating the impact on highway safety problems.

Superintendents/Chiefs/Colonels of the statewide police unit. The state Superintendents of Police heads the state Highway Patrol or State Police. They have the ability to deploy officers in support of strategic safety initiatives, such as targeted enforcement campaigns.

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Leadership is essential in the road safety field. The diversity of the field, the importance of coordination among disciplines, and the need to defend safety among a host of competing public sector priorities all contribute to the need for strong leadership.

Although it is clear that leadership is essential, it is difficult to define exactly what a leader is. Leaders come in many shapes and sizes, some in formal positions of authority and some not. What all leaders have in common is the ability to contribute to the setting of a new direction, and the ability to inspire others to follow them.

Leaders also have many traits and skills in common, though no unique set of traits and skills is sufficient to define a leader. Leaders generally exhibit self-confidence; decisiveness; energy; resilience; flexibility; emotional maturity; a desire for achievement; a service mentality; and a willingness to take on responsibility. Leaders also have strong communication, social, problem solving, technical, and influence skills.

Influence skills include an awareness of the variety of ways in which it is possible for an individual to influence others. These include legitimating tactics, pressure tactics, exchange tactics, rational persuasion, consultation, emotional and personal appeals, and friendliness. In the road safety field, consultation, rational persuasion, and emotional appeals are some of the most frequently used approaches.

Leaders should be aware of barriers and constraints that they face as they attempt to set new directions. Leaders can be limited by legal/contractual constraints; position constraints; lack of resources; and lack of certain leadership abilities.

Although anyone can become a leader in the safety field, certain public sector positions have a particularly strong leadership role to play. These include the Governor; Secretary of Transportation, Director of Transportation Planning, and Chief Engineer, the statewide law enforcement leader, and the Governor’s Highway Safety Representative.

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This lesson described the elements and importance of effective leadership. Practice your knowledge by constructing a persuasive presentation using the data provided in Exercise #9.

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