10 Myths of Safety Leadership Development

What the research says and why it matters for your organisation.

Myths on Closing the Knowing-Doing Gap

Myth 1: Training is development

The Reality: Training is an event. Development is a process. Single-event training produces short-term knowledge gains that decay rapidly without reinforcement.

FEFO helps organisations discover-design-embed learning and development practices. We do this by enabling reflection, reinforcement and application.

Research:  Pfeffer & Sutton (2000); Kolb (1984); Mezirow (1991)

Myth 2: If they know better, they’ll do better

The Reality: The knowing-doing gap is not a knowledge problem – it is often related to motivation, identification, habit or environment.

FEFO help close the gap by enabling effective learning.

Research:  Kennedy et al. (2004); Pfeffer & Sutton (2000)

Myth 3: Leadership capability is fixed — you either have it or you don’t

The Reality: Leadership is a set of learned behaviours, not a personality trait.

Our Elevated Safety Leadership program is designed to overcome fixed mindsets and enable high performance.

Research:  Dweck (2006); Boyatzis & McKee (2005)

Myth 4: Effective leadership is all about the individual

The Reality: Leadership transformation requires more than passive eLearning, a short quiz, and self-assessment.

Our Elevated Safety Leadership program goes beyond the individuals to include systemic human and organisational factors to enable high performance.

Research:  Clear (2018); Zimmerman (2000); Locke & Latham (1991)

Myth 5: Technical safety expertise makes a good safety leader

The Reality: Technical expertise earns credibility, certainty and control orientation – this can make leaders less open to building relationships, weak signals & dissenting voices that prevents disasters.

Research:  Sutcliffe (2011); Boyatzis & McKee (2005)

Myths Preventing the Right Safety Leadership Program Design

Myth 6: eLearning is the most effective way to develop safety leadership capability

The Reality: eLearning transfers knowledge and tests compliance efficiently.

Elevated Safety Leadership enables “soft skills” – social interaction, real-time feedback and contextual practice enabling high performance.

Research:  COMPASS Model (2024); Specht & Sandlin (1991); Kolb (1984)

Myth 7: Engagement and wellbeing are soft — safety is hard

The Reality: A leader who is disconnected, overwhelmed, or shut down doesn’t just affect their own judgment — leaders shape the attentional bandwidth, psychological safety, risk sensitivity and physical safety of everyone beneath them.

Research:  Boyatzis & McKee (2005); Sutcliffe (2011)

Myth 8: Self-directed learning means unstructured learning

The Reality: Structure and autonomy are not opposites.

Autonomy – is effective with ownership, decision making frameworks, and accountability.

Research:  Garrison (1997); Zimmerman (2000)

Myth 9: Programme design should focus on what to learn – not how people learn

The Reality: Two programmes covering identical content can produce radically different outcomes depending entirely on how content engages.

A ‘what’ focus informs leaders.
A ‘how’ focus transforms.

Research:  Kolb (1984); Mezirow (1991); Specht & Sandlin (1991)

Myth 10: Aggregating self-assessments tells us how our safety leaders are performing

The Reality: Self-assessments are a perception – population of only one! Aggregating individual self-reports produces a portrait of collective self-perceptions, not a valid measure of actual organisation safety leadership performance.

Research:  Zimmerman (2000); Locke & Latham (1991); Dunning-Kruger (1999)

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