Safety policies, rules, systems, procedures, and training are developed with the best intentions: to enhance overall safety performance and ensure everyone returns home safely each day.

As an executive leader overseeing multiple major hazard facilities in both New Zealand and Canada, I've learned from personal experience how challenging it can be to ensure that my own behaviours align with and enhance the intended safety culture. My key learnings can be summarised as:

• Even the best written rules, policies and procedures are not enough to prevent mistakes.

• How I responded could enhance or limit our ability to learn when mistakes occur.

• Often there are other, unnoticed, environmental and cultural aspects of the workplace that shape behaviours – it is often after an incident that these become known.

• A high level of trust and genuine care in the workplace is critical for genuine progress. Even well-intended leaders can inadvertently communicate or act in ways that conflict with the intended culture. Leaders' behaviour strongly influences the safety culture, determining the daily reality employees experience.

This workshop aims to equip leaders with practical guidance on what to do—and what to avoid—when fostering a desirable safety culture in their organisations.

Participants will gain insights and tools to:

• Foster a high-trust workplace that underpins the desired safety culture.

• Develop behaviours that align with their intended safety culture.

• Avoid behaviours that undermine the desired safety culture.

• Arm themselves with strategies to address behaviours that could derail the desired safety culture.br