How leaders differentially motivate safety compliance and safety participation: The role of monitoring, inspiring, and learning

•Leaders safety behaviours were examined: monitoring, inspiring and learning.•Leaders’ safety monitoring was positively related to employee safety compliance.•Leaders’ safety inspiring was positively related to employee safety participation.•If leaders’ safety learning was high, monitoring was positive for participation.•If leaders’ safety learning was low, monitoring was negative for participation.

This study examined the impact of specific leader behaviours on employee’s safety performance. Based on self-regulation framework, we examined three safety-specific leader behaviours: safety inspiring, safety monitoring, and safety learning on two distinct employee safety behaviours: safety participation and safety compliance. First, we demonstrated via confirmatory factor analysis that the three different safety-specific leader behaviours and the two employee safety behaviours are five distinct behavioural constructs. Then, using path analysis, we found that while safety inspiring is positively and specifically related to safety participation, safety monitoring is positively and specifically related to safety compliance. Further, we also showed that the relationship between safety monitoring and safety participation can be moderated by the degree to which leaders encourage safety related learning. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.