Where did Transformational Safety® Leadership come from?
In 2002 Professor Julian Barling (Queens University: Canada) published a watershed Paper where he explored the impact of a very specific form of leadership upon a range of outcome measures associated with workplace health and safety. The leadership model Julian Barling applied, within this exceptional piece of applied research, is known as Full-Range Leadership©. He concluded that workplaces who had leaders regularly demonstrating the leadership competencies espoused by the Full-Range Leadership© Model consistently found themselves leading safer workplaces - the conclusions went so far as to find positive relationships right down to the number of injuries occurring in these workplaces (LTIFR). This was unprecedented.
In 2004 David G Broadbent (An Australian Safety Psychologist) presented a major step-forward in understandings around safety and leadership at the XXVIIIth International Psychology Congress (held in Beijing China). Following that presentation many people offered their congratulations on a well structured "song 'n dance" and strongly suggested he take his "thinking" into an applied setting. It was on that long plane ride back to Oz that "Transformational Safety® Leadership" was born.
In 2004 if you conducted a Google search on the phrase "Transformational Safety®" you returned zero hits. You can't imagine the surprise! No-one in the world had published/promoted anything which recognised this very powerful relationship in such a manner. Even Barling had failed to present what he was doing in this way. Upon recognition that David appeared to be the first in the World to come up with the phrase "Transformational Safety®" the decision was made to apply for a registered trademark. This was granted by IP Australia in 2005 - and later globally registered via the Madrid Protocol.
The next significant landmark also occurred in 2005. David developed the worlds first safety specific leadership survey. It is called the Transformational Safety® Leadership Survey. This was done because all of the empirical studies, up to that time, and most since, had used the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire© (the MLQ is the coaching assessment tool associated with the Full-Range Leadership© Model) as the interrogation tool of choice. The MLQ was designed as a 1:1 coaching tool for general leadership competencies. David felt that the critical role that "management commitment" always played in safety analyses, meant that a behaviourally specific safety leadership tool was required. The Transformational Safety® Leadership Survey was specifically designed to fill that gap.
The Transformational Safety® Leadership Survey draws its inspiration from the extensive research base underpinning the Full-Range Leadership© Model. There can be little doubt this is the most well researched and empirically validated leadership approach in the world. It's impacts have also been shown to apply cross culturally as well.
Since 2005 the Transformational Safety® Leadership Survey has continued to maintain it's position as the World's only empirically based safety specific leadership tool based upon the transformational leadership model. It has been applied in the hydro-carbon, chemical, mining, manufacturing, engineering, facilities management, and municipal government sectors.
In 2007 David was invited to present his developments around Transformational Safety® Leadership to the southern tip of Africa. A highlight of that journey was the presentation of Transformational Safety® Leadership to the post-graduate mining program of the University of Pretoria. It was some years earlier that the late Emeritus Professor Bernie Bass had sat in those same rooms and consulted with some of South Africa's foremost business leaders. Out of those conversations was born the thinking behind the Full-Range Leadership© Model. To then be speaking in those same halls, about the further development and evolution of this type of thinking to the safety specific world, was humbling indeed.
It was also around this time that the phrase "Transformational Safety® Leadership" was first used out-loud at an international professional safety event. This was at a Workshop conducted by the internationally renowned E. Scott Geller at the annual American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) conference. During this small presentation to about thirty (30) people, Scott spoke of the interesting work being done by "An Australian guy who has come up with this approach called Transformational Safety® Leadership" - the source of this statement comes from a bod who was in the room that day.
More recently others in the global safety community appear to have "caught up". We are starting to see more and more people use the phrase "Transformational Safety® Leadership". It needs to be said that none of these people are offering Transformational Safety® Leadership as developed by David G Broadbent of TransformationalSafety.Com
In fact one such group is actually in breach of an Intellectual Property and Confidentiality Agreement signed in 2006 with a lfe-span of ten (10) years. Do the sums yourself. This is the same group that David was associated with between the years 2006-2009. It is made more disturbing that this behaviour is being conducted by someone who was once "trusted". Narcissism can take many forms and in our view this is a clear case of taking advantage of the growing popularity of the phrase "Transformational Safety Leadership"; in order to gain a commercial advantage. Currently this group is promoting "advanced safety leadership" workshops to be conducted in Chile, South Africa and Australia later in 2011. It is when they also say their intervention is an application of Transformational Safety Leadership that we see a problem. Do not be fooled.
In 2010 the Transformational Safety Leadership Survey experienced its next stage of evolution. The TSL-360 was born. For quite some time people had been so impressed by the information that the Transformational Safety Leadership Survey was able to give their organisation, they wanted to know if it could be applied as an individual leadership development tool. Made sense. So over a period of approximately twelve (12) months, David developed a structured method for assessing individual Transformational Safety Leadership competencies and map these against a unique safety coaching framework. The TSL360 is delivered via our Sister Website - LionSurveys.Com
These developments further cement David's position as the creator and developer of the Transformational Safety Leadership Framework.