Safety leadership: A longitudinal study of the effects of transformational leadership on safety outcomes

Transformational leadership based interventions were assessed using a pre-test, post-test, and control group design. Leaders (N = 54) from 21 long-term health care organizations were randomly assigned to general transformational leadership training, safety-specific transformational leadership training, or a control group. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed that leadership training resulted in significant effects on manager post-training ratings of safety attitudes, intent to promote safety, and self-efficacy. The effects of leadership training on employee (N = 115) perceptions of leader safety-specific transformational leadership, safety climate, safety participation, safety compliance, safety-related events and, injuries were also assessed. Multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), with the pre-test scores as the covariates, showed that leadership training resulted in significant effects on the safety-specific transformational leadership and safety climate outcomes.