Towards the end of 2019 we presented at two different workshops on the research links between personality and safety behaviours. An overview on the topic can be found here – https://www.ioshmagazine.com/2019/04/11/safe-traits. We discussed some of the research we had completed on the links between certain personality traits. As an example, below is some of our findings.
The graph above illustrates all the statistically significant correlations between personality facets and risk-taking (n = 139). This means that these relationships were not due to chance – Positive relationships are on the right and negative relationships on the left. When used in combination we would see a moderate to large effect of these facets on risk-taking behaviour. As an example, people with a combination of high excitement-seeking and low cautiousness would take statistically more risks. People with this personality combination may well excel in certain tasks but may be more challenging to influence in terms of following certain methods and behaviours.
As there was considerable interest and discussion at these sessions about how personality assessments could be utilised to improve safety we decided to add a safety leadership report as one of our report options. The Safety Leadership report provides analysis and development tips around 8 Safety Leadership competencies as well as potential role strengths. It can be downloaded from our home page. We believe it will be of significant benefit in helping develop safety leadership behaviours. Please get in touch to discuss.