​In the ongoing search for effective SL coaches (please do drop me a line ASAP if you are one) I've been pondering on just what it takes to do this job well. And it's, well, complex. Firstly, I've learnt over the years not to expect or constrict what great looks like to what works for me personally. There are many winding trails up the same craggy mountain.
You don't need to be an extrovert, you just need to have empathy and curiosity. Finding everyone interesting definitely helps. You can't be a wallflower but you don't need to be gushy. I'm by nature fairly spontaneous and animated but we have successful coaches in CTS who are reserved and deliberate and it seems to work for them. You don't need to be a Tradie (I'm not) but you need to have spent enough time in a related industry to be able to convincingly empathise with the coachee's day-to-day life.
One thing that you can't be is arrogant. A know-it-all will never, ever get behind the curtain, will never, ever succeed. If you even sniff of having all the answers you are guaranteed to fail, full stop. It's more about listening and genuinely, humbly connecting than bringing 'off-the-shelf' solutions. The work that needs to done arises from building sufficient rapport to gently open the leader up and the rest follows. The journey is different for everyone.
However, what's the biggest, most critical attribute of all? Non-judgement. People pick up whether we are judging them or not in a second and if we are, it just won't work. You can come in with all of your fancy, new, shiny toys, all of your intellectual 'insights', and they will be of no avail. If you in any way judge people for where they are at right here, right now, you are wasting both your coachee's time and your client. Nothing will stick, it will all just be vain words, a dis-genuine dance of no lasting transformational effect whatsoever.
For me personally, I had a Chairman of the Board, working-class background dad who would come home to enthusiastically share stories about the fella who ran the company car-park. And my mum's a living saint. And what also helped was my life plan from mid-teens i.e. to both travel the world and to have as many jobs as possible and they all be as different from each other as possible. This journey, along with a perennial exploration of spirituality and hagiographies can't help but inspire a fascination with what makes people tick.
But, as I've said, that's just me. Whatever it takes, however you get there, this unusual calling to gently guide leaders in creative ways to infect their team with safety-from-the-inside-out has to have an open, respectful, centred, strong, optimistic, caring curiosity.
P.S. Guess what's just dawned on me? The attributes I've just described for an effective Safety Leadership coach are actually scarily similar to what I'd say makes a great Safety Leader! Go figure. Funny old world.

​Tired of seeing rules being bent through a lack of buy-in?
Don't forget the emotional power of having people share their close encounters. Even if, as recently experienced, it's 'just' an injured finger.
When there's someone from our workplace whose brave and vulnerable enough to share what happened and what they learnt from the experience, bring it on.
Real-life stories leave dry, procedural reminders for dead.
It doesn’t have to be a work event; it’s all just Life and about looking after ourselves and each other.
You'll hear a pin drop and floods of genuine questions afterwards.
It also humanizes the workplace and breeds connection and compassion.
P.S. as a Safety Leader, we could even perhaps start the ball rolling ourselves. We’ve all had close calls or been close to one (God knows I've had a few:).

​'Shane', a Haul Truck operator - early 30’s with a wife and young child.
The night before coming back for his next swing his partner said “no more Shane, it’s all over, but best if you go to work, we’ll figure out the details when you get back.”
His Supervisor saw him in the crib room, sitting off to the side of everyone by himself, which was really unusual for Shane, by nature he was a very social guy.
He asked Shane’s workmates if something was wrong : “ Dunno, he’s definitely not himself today so we thought we’d just leave him alone”.
The Supervisor did likewise and got on with organising the Pre Start.
45 minutes later, Shane, clearly with other things on his mind, flattened a Light vehicle, like a foot on a coke can - two workers inside, dead.

I’m currently delivering Fatigue Management Training and one of the things we discuss is the critical role of a Safety Leader in getting to know the physical, mental and emotional norms of our team members and always acting on any subtle cues to have a quiet, one-on-one chat.

Let’s all recommit today to this (and strongly encourage our teams to do likewise).

Caring alone is not enough. We need to ACTIVELY care