A Day in the Life of an HSE Project Manager: Wednesday

Wednesday is the best day of the week: a leader can dedicate time to themselves and team development.

To start, friends, I suggest we align on what we know and what we mean by Leadership.

First, leadership can be developed and learned. Second, gender, age, nationality, or religion are not obstacles to leadership. Furthermore, a leader always has a specific goal and followers who share that goal, are ready to follow them, and feel a special, POSITIVE attitude toward themselves. A leader always engages, and they are expected to have an understanding of what is happening + how the situation will evolve (vision) + take responsibility for managing the situation. We also understand that there are several qualities incompatible with leadership.

There are several styles ("images") — adaptive, distributed, servant, and emotional. If you like, we can dive deeper into these later. But for now, I will tell you about my project and the Metalloinvest leadership model. We use distributed leadership in its purest form. In other words, it is collaborative leadership — leadership as part of a team, rather than an individual.

Our company is implementing a risk management system at three large enterprises and construction sites as a general contractor. The units are large and remote from each other, with about 20,000 production workers involved in the project. This dictates the leadership model: each unit has a project manager and a senior trainer, with a total team size of just under 50 people.

Specifically:

1. All leaders share one goal: reducing injuries and implementing three standards — Territory Standards, Work Standards, and Teacher Standards.
2. Responsibility within the team is distributed among all members according to roles, not job titles.
3. Each of us knows how not to be the "first" (in our respective fields).
4. The overall climate creates opportunities for developing leadership in others through mentoring and coaching.

What principles have I personally adopted?

• Every team member goes through a competency matrix upon entry. If they don't pass, they aren't on the team. Proper team assessment is the key to success.
• Once I bring someone onto the team, I trust them.
• People don't need to be commanded; they need support and collaboration.
• Everyone on the team, including myself, is neither better nor worse. I am simply different, unique.
• For a leader, the truth is more important than being personally right.
• Where there is a standard, there isn't much room for "personal opinions".

Also, when someone from the team gets a promotion (even outside the project), we all gather in an informal setting to discuss why they received it and go over a "development guide" for the others. It's an excellent practice for motivation and growth.

To be continued in the next article.