The differential effects of transformational leadership facets on employee safety

• Construction workers were surveyed to assess how leader behaviors influence safety.
• Idealized attributes and behaviors were important predictors of safety outcomes.
• Active management-by-exception did not uniquely contribute to any safety outcome.
• The importance of the remaining leader behaviors varied depending on the outcome.

Transformational and transactional leadership have been associated with numerous positive safety outcomes, such as improved safety climate, increased safety behaviors, and decreased accidents and injuries. However, leadership is a complex, multidimensional construct, and there is reason to suspect that different facets of leadership may affect safety in different ways and for different reasons. Yet little research to date has considered the relationships between individual facets of transformational and transactional leadership and safety outcomes. The present study addressed this gap by using relative weights analysis to examine the unique influences of leadership facets on five employee safety outcomes. In a survey of 1167 construction pipefitters and plumbers, idealized attributes and behaviors accounted for the most variance in each of the safety outcomes, whereas individualized consideration and active management-by-exception frequently accounted for the least amount of variance. These results suggest that leadership development programs in construction should address multiple individual elements of leadership, such as core values, as well as concrete skills and behaviors.