Closing the Gap: How to Transform Safety Culture into Safety Performance


For many organizations operating in high-risk environments, safety is mission-critical. However, because of scarce resources, our dynamic business environment, and strong competitive pressures, there will be inevitable tension points among competing priorities. The realities of our own psychology can play a role in how we navigate these tension points and the degree to which safety stays top of mind.

On a recent episode of The Safety Guru podcast, host Eric Michrowski interviewed UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School professor and Senior Associate Dean of UNC Executive Development Dave Hofmann about leadership strategies for improving safety culture within organizations. We have selected and edited a few highlights from their conversation below. 

Dave Hofmann: The way I think about culture is that organizations have the “espoused culture” that is comprised of that organization’s core values, key assumptions, metrics, etc. These things all come from the top of the organization.

On the other hand, you have “enacted culture,” which comes from what the organization values, expects, rewards, and supports in practice day in and day out.

So, you have espoused culture, which comes from the top of the organization, and enacted culture, which comes from below. And the end result is that gaps appear in the middle of the organization where espoused culture and enacted culture meet.

My colleague Dov Zohar and I have written about the micro decisions and competing priorities that frontline and middle managers face every day. These managers have some degree of discretion in terms of how they resolve these competing priorities. Over time, employees watch how these micro decisions get made and how strongly safety is prioritized over others concerns.

  • “Research…[shows] that if you construe a work context as a psychologically distant, you view safety as less of an ethical and moral obligation.”

    Dave Hofmann, UNC Executive Development

It is the absence of an outcome that gets recognized, as opposed to the presence of proactive behaviors. There is a notion that the absence of something means the organization must have done something well. However, it might be that the absence of a negative outcome just means that the organization got lucky. I don’t think people make that distinction very often.

In social psychology, there is a whole body of research on “construal level theory.” This theory addresses how psychologically distant something is. For example, if I’m in a command center in Houston monitoring drilling operations 400 miles away, that drilling is a very psychologically distant event. On the other hand, If I am working directly on the rig, it would be very psychologically close.

The research shows that when things are psychologically close, we conceptualize them in concrete terms. However, when events are off in the distance, we construe them much more abstractly. To that end, we have a research paper where we show that if individuals construe a work context as psychologically distant, then they view safety as less of an ethical and moral obligation.

First, managers need to continually remind themselves of what the work being performed really looks like on the front lines. And I don’t mean that they need to remind themselves what it was like when they performed that type of work 15 years ago. Instead, they need to get exposure to how it is done right now in today’s much more dynamic and competitive-cost-pressure environment.

The notion is to constantly remind yourself that the decisions that you make have downstream consequences. Anything you can do to make sure that abstract notions always become salient, particularly around the potential for harm, will be beneficial.

Unfortunately, I think that’s a common story, because the likelihood that something bad is going to happen seems abstract and therefore easy to discount versus the more concrete metrics, like budgets or delivering a product, that middle managers are held accountable for every quarter.

Research by my friend Dov Zohar and one of his colleagues shows that if you have a really strong safety culture at the top of an organization, this reduces the amount of discretion that middle managers can enact with respect to safety. So, safety becomes non-negotiable. A manager will then be less likely to, for example, cut funds from the safety budget and allocate that money elsewhere.

To learn more tips for leading as a safety-conscious manager, listen to Eric Michrowski’s full interview with UNC’s Dave Hofmann.

Dave Hofmann

Hugh L. McColl, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior and Senior Associate Dean of UNC Executive Development

Related Content

Discover how our transformational learning experiences deliver results for our corporate sector clients.

  • Innovating Under Pressure: A Fortune 500 Firm’s Learning Transformation

    Learn how a Fortune 500 firm and UNC Executive Development created a virtual learning revolution during COVID-19.

    Learn more
  • How to Choose the Right Executive Education Partner: 4 Key Questions

    Learn how UNC Executive Development's program for the U.S. Navy has provided insights and strategies that have resulted in substantial savings.

    Learn more
  • Cultivating Culture: Leadership Lessons from the Government Sector

    Discover leadership lessons from the government sector with UNC Executive Development's Amy Parker. Learn how leaders can cultivate a positive organizational culture amidst uncertainty.

    Learn more
  • Bridging the AI Skills Gap: Strategies for Leaders

    In today's world of rapid, ongoing technological advancements, artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping industries and redefining the nature of work.

    Learn more
  • Leveling the Playing Field

    Learn how UNC Executive Development's program for the U.S. Navy has provided insights and strategies that have resulted in substantial savings.

    Learn more

Contact Us About Your Organization's Needs