How leaders differentially motivate safety compliance and safety participation: The role of monitoring, inspiring, and learning Mark A. Griffin a,⇑ , Xiaowen Hu b a School of Psychology, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, Australia b Business school, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, Australia article info Article history: Received 13 January 2013 Received in revised form 4 July 2013 Accepted 14 July 2013 Available online 15 August 2013 Keywords: Safety leadership Safety compliance Safety participation Self-regulation abstract 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 compli- ance. 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 the- ory and practice are discussed. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Leaders play a critical role in supporting safety at work. Based on theories of Leader–Member exchange (LMX) (e.g. Graen and Uhlbien, 1995) and transformational leadership (e.g. Bass, 1985), considerable research has demonstrated the importance of leader- ship on safety (Barling et al., 2002; Clarke and Ward, 2006; Leroy et al., 2012; Hofmann et al., 2003). For example, a number of stud- ies show that LMX and transformational leadership behaviours can affect the degree to which employees voluntarily participate in safety-related activities (Clarke and Ward, 2006; Hofmann et al., 2003; Mullen and Kelloway, 2009). Although the positive role of leadership is well recognised, less is known about the specific lead- ership actions that promote different kinds of safety performance of team members. In this study, we identify specific safety leader- ship behaviours and propose how they might combine to motivate distinct aspects of safety performance. While leadership at each le- vel all plays an important role in supporting organizational safety (Flin and Yule, 2004), research by Zohar (2000, 2002) suggests that team leaders are most influential in shaping employee safety per- formance because they translate values and goals from senior lev- els, and are able to provide direct guidance for team members. We focused our analysis on behaviours of team leaders/line supervisors. Griffin and Neal (2000) distinguished safety compliance and safety participation as two distinct aspects of safety performance determined by different aspects of knowledge, skill, and motiva- tion. Research shows that safety participation (e.g. communicating safety concerns to co-workers) can be motivated through transfor- mational leadership behaviours that build trust and cooperation. However, it is less clear how leaders motivate more compliance oriented behaviours such as close attention to rules and proce- dures. Indeed, it is possible that leader strategies to motivate high levels of safety compliance might have a negative impact on the more social and exploratory requirements of safety participation. Therefore, it is important to gain a more nuanced understanding of the way leaders engage different motivational processes. We draw on the self-regulation framework (e.g. Lord et al., 2010) and the literature on organisational learning to provide a more detailed picture of the way leaders promote both safety par- ticipation and safety compliance. Based on self-regulation theories, we identify leader behaviours likely to be important for motivating employee safety performance. In particular, we propose three lea- der behaviours important for motivating different aspects of safety performance: safety inspiring, safety monitoring, andsafety learning. Safety inspiring refers to the degree to which a leader presents a po- sitive vision of safety that is appealing and inspiring to the employ- ees. Safety monitoring refers to the degree to which a leader monitors and responds to mistakes and errors of team members in relation to safety. Safety learning refers to the degree to which a leader encourages and promotes safety-related learning. We propose that while safety inspiring is specifically related to safety 0925-7535/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2013.07.019 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 401269393. E-mail addresses: mark.griffin@uwa.edu.au (M.A. Griffin), xiaowen.hu@uwa. edu.au (X. Hu). Safety Science 60 (2013) 196–202 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Safety Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ssci