ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the concept of leadership and the behaviour of team leaders in the workplace and discusses leader characteristics, behaviours, competencies and styles, as well as leadership theories. The term ‘safety leadership’ is being used in industry and this refers to managers’ and supervisors’ leadership behaviours in relation to safety outcomes. The leader must also know when to apply his or her authority to achieve safe task completion. The chapter describes how leaders apply appropriate methods of planning and prioritising for organised task management and delegation to achieve the best performance. Leaders must manage not only their own workload and resources but also that of the team. Many different theories have been proposed to explain leadership performance, including trait theories, style theories, contingency theories and, charisma and transformational theories. Under stressful conditions, characterised by time pressure, risk, dynamic conditions, high information load and uncertainty, team performance has been linked to the team leader’s effectiveness.
