A study on the leadership behaviour, safety leadership and safety performance in the construction industry in South Africa

Review on recent publications of employee safety to investigate the relationship between leadership behaviour, safety communication and performance in the construction industry. Method: The study is a cross sectional study, over 348 questionnaires were e-mailed to construction companies in Gauteng, with 155 valid responses received and 44.5% valid response rate achieved. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was carried out to test the factor structure and determine if the composite reliability was significant with a factor loading of > 0.5, resulting in an acceptable model fit. Through the analysis of SPSS, the results show that leadership visibility and behaviour affects safety culture and safety performance in the construction industry. Safety performance was affected and improved with contingency leadership and a positive safety organisational culture. The study suggests improving safety performance by providing well-entrenched safety management systems with the foundation being, safety leadership, communication, commitment and employee training. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.