In this module, the question of why command and control style leadership has reached its use by date, along with what type of leadership is needed to make Safety Differently a reality, will be discussed.

Fundamental to improving work and safety is the need to rethink how we approach work and safety and the leadership required to embed the Safety Differently Principles.

1. People are the solution to harness, not the problem to control.

2. Work is about positive outcomes rather than the absence of negative outcomes.

3. Successful work is a shared responsibility rather than a bureaucratic activity.

The Enabling Leadership practices of engagement, enablement and creation of shared responsibility are explained in the context of understanding successful work, difficult work and work that has resulted in an unintended event.

Participants are introduced to the ten core principles of Enabling Leadership.

1. Focusing on Normal Work

2. Difference Between Work-as-Intended and Work-as-Done

3. Understanding what Helps and Hinders Work

4. The Power of Curiosity and Understanding Our Cognitive Biases

5. Freedom within a Framework Decision making

6. Trust Building and Psychological Safety

7. The centrality of Empathy

8. Motivation that sustains ownership and forward-facing accountability

9. Being clear on what is to be Solved.

10. Innovation through Fail to Safe Experiments.

In this module, the question of what type of problem is safety and work, is it simple, complicated or complex, will be discussed. The answer to this question will very much determine what a leader does next.

Leadership effectiveness can significantly improve when we understand what sort of problem or opportunity the leader and team are seeking to resolve. Each type of challenge, whether it be simple, complicated or complex, will require a different approach to be taken.

The leader’s ability to successfully navigate these challenges will also require a deeper appreciation of the cognitive biases we all bring and how we can counter these biases.

In this module, the question of why curiosity is important and what a leader needs to be curious about will be discussed, and how being curious is the one thing that can significantly improve how work is done.

Enabling Leaders look for ways to nurture curiosity, theirs and their team, in a way that fuels genuine discovery and learning. Greater curiosity leads to discovering how things really work or, in many cases, don’t work and what people rely on or need to do the work successfully, builds respect, trust and the open sharing of ideas, contributes to better solutions and leads to stronger ownership.

The practical curiosity skills are unpacked and practised, and at the end of the module, a curiosity challenge is set.

In this module, the question of what a leader can do in practice to build trust and psychological safety will be discussed, along with why this is mission-critical to any team’s success.

Trust is core to how a leader interacts with their team and how the team interacts with the leader and with one another. Core to facilitating successful work is the ability to learn, which is founded on trust and psychological safety, the capacity to speak with openness and actively take accountability for outcomes.

Trust is defined, and the practical skills for building trust are explored and practised, particularly in relation to Psychological Safety. Core to Enabling leadership is the ability to inspire trust, recognising that trust is something that can change everything.

In this module, the question of what truly motivates people to do anything will be discussed, along with how fail-safe experiments can lead to real innovation and sustainable performance improvements.

Enabling leadership focuses on intrinsic motivation and the leader's role in building a sense of shared purpose, providing opportunities for knowledge and skills mastery, and facilitating autonomy, leading to demonstrated ownership. The goal is to support people to turn their ideas into workable solutions and support the changes that emerge.

An essential part of this process is the use of fail-to-safe experiments. The steps for designing, deploying and evaluating these experiments are explained, and the connection to innovation and continuous improvement is considered.