(Benetti, Patrick J; Kanse, Lisette; Fruhen, Laura S; Parkes, Katharine R; Stepheson, Emma K).

Safety communication is a crucial tool for leaders to achieve safety objectives. Recent research indicates that safety storytelling may be a particularly effective communication tool for enhancing workers’ safety knowledge and behaviours. However, despite the recognised influence of leaders’ safety storytelling, it remains unclear how leaders effectively design and deliver safety stories. To address this issue, this research develops an understanding of the attributes relevant to the effectiveness of safety storytelling and creates a valid and reliable measure for describing and assessing these attributes. To that end, we report on an interview study and a measure development study.
To explore the attributes important to leader safety storytelling we conducted interviews (N=41) with leaders and workers from safety-critical industries. Interviews were analysed via deductive content analysis, indicating nine attributes associated with effective leader safety storytelling (i.e., relatability, factuality, descriptiveness, consequence severity, structure, explicit appeals, delivery style, use of questions, and visual aids).
Next, based on these findings, we followed a multi-step approach to develop a measure of these leader safety storytelling attributes. In Step 1, items were developed (N=96), and content-related validity was established using a Q-sorting task and rating task. In Step 2, exploratory factor analyses indicated a 10-factor structure (e.g., the nine initial attributes, plus a new attribute referred to as story length) based on 31 items as offering a valid representation of the leader safety storytelling attributes. In Step 3 confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the factor structure and identified that the ten factors could be grouped into two second-order factors reflecting story attributes and presentation attributes. Finally, Step 4 used correlation analyses to demonstrate support for both the convergent and discriminant validity of the final measure. Additionally, regression analyses were used in this step to establish the measure's strong criterion validity in relation to several safety outcomes (e.g., safety compliance and participation behaviours).
This research contributes to theory and practice in several ways. First, we offer a comprehensive framework for future research to understand the attributes of leader safety storytelling. Second, organisations may use our measure to assess the current status of safety storytelling, allowing them to implement targeted training to help heighten their leaders’ capabilities in this area. Finally, on an individual level, leaders can leverage this research to reflect on their safety storytelling, helping them in maintaining a consistent level of effectiveness.

At the conclusion of this event, attendees will be able to:
- Identify and describe the attributes of high-quality safety storytelling
- Understand the likely safety-relevant outcomes of safety storytelling.