The Mirror Test: Are You Truly Leading a High Reliability Organization?

In high-consequence industries, “leadership” is not a title; it is a discipline. We often talk about safety culture as something we build for the workforce, but the reality is that the culture of a High Reliability Organization (HRO) flows strictly from the behaviors of its executives.

If we want to eliminate catastrophic events, we cannot simply manage systems. We must manage ourselves.

Below are five critical dimensions of HRO leadership. Read them not as a checklist for your subordinates, but as a mirror for your own daily conduct.

Integrity: Do You Walk Past the Standard?

Integrity in an HRO is defined by what happens when no one is watching. It is the refusal to accept “good enough” when “perfect” is the requirement for safety.

• The “Why” vs. The “What”: Do you settle for knowing what happened, or do you relentlessly pursue the root cause? A true HRO leader distinguishes symptoms from causes.

• Simplicity as Safety: Complexity is the enemy of reliability. Are you adding burdens to your teams, or are you actively overhauling processes to remove barriers? If your procedures are too complex to follow, non-compliance is a leadership failure, not an operator error.

• The Learning Leader: Do you own your gaps? The most effective leaders conduct self-audits and declare their own non-compliance. They model the behavior that mistakes are opportunities to learn, not opportunities to blame.

Knowledge: The Obsession with Competence

You cannot manage risks you do not understand. In an HRO, ignorance is not an excuse; it is a vulnerability.

• Be Present (Go-See): You cannot lead from a spreadsheet. Leaders must be visible, engaging in “Go-See” visits that result in actual improvement actions. If you aren’t walking the floor, you don’t know the reality of your risk.

• Coach, Don’t Just Command: Are you developing your team’s capability to think critically? High-reliability leaders use questioning to coach team members, ensuring they understand not just the how, but the why behind the risk.

• Respect the Data: Opinions don’t stop explosions; facts do. Decisions must be anchored in the primacy of engineering and data. Do you constantly ask, “Are we measuring the right things?” or do you settle for comfortable, lagging indicators?

Formality: The End of “Industrial Tourism”

There is a profound difference between visiting a site and verifying a standard.

• Trust but Verify: Are you an “industrial tourist” (taking a polite tour of the facility) or are you engaging in rigorous verification? Leaders must ensure that safeguards are functioning and that the reality on the ground matches the dashboard in the boardroom.

• Resource Reality: It is easy to demand safety; it is harder to fund it. Do your teams actually have the resources, authority, and competency to stop work when it’s unsafe? If you demand HRO results without providing HRO resources, you are setting the trap for failure.

• Championing the Standard: When you walk past a minor violation without stopping, you have just set a new, lower standard. HRO leaders know that every interaction is an opportunity to either raise or lower the bar.

A Questioning Attitude: Cultivating Chronic Unease

Complacency is the silent killer in high-risk industries. Successful leaders maintain a state of “chronic unease” (a healthy skepticism that things are as good as they seem).

• Beware the Green Dashboard: Do you accept a dashboard of “all green” KPIs, or do you dig for the friction points? A leader with a questioning attitude filters out the noise to focus on barrier health.

• The Power of “What If?”: Do you challenge assumptions? HRO leaders constantly ask, “What if we are wrong?” They encourage diversity of thought and dissenting opinions to prevent groupthink.

Team Backup: Radical Collaboration

Safety does not happen in a silo. It requires a “One Team, One Goal” mentality where rank does not supersede reliability.

• Intervene: Do you have the moral courage to intervene when you see unsafe behaviors, even among peers? More importantly, do you thank those who intervene with you?

• Collaborate Across Lines: Risks do not respect organizational charts. Effective leaders break down functional silos to solve safety challenges, leveraging diverse perspectives to ensure that the entire enterprise is learning.

The Blind Spot

Reading this list, most leaders will instinctively feel they are meeting these standards. It is human nature to judge ourselves by our intentions, while judging others by their actions.

However, in high-risk operations, intentions do not prevent incidents.

We are often our own worst critics, yet we simultaneously suffer from inevitable blind spots. We believe we are communicating “safety first,” while the workforce hears “schedule first.” We believe we are knowledgeable, while the workforce sees us as out of touch.

Sometimes, the most courageous act a leader can take is to ask for a reality check. Consider engaging a third-party assessment to hold that mirror up for you. An objective, outside perspective can help you determine if your leadership behaviors are truly driving High Reliability, or if you are simply managing luck.

High Reliability Group is here to help you with that!

High Reliability Group | Operational Excellence. Built for Execution.
We help leaders in safety-critical industries design cultures of accountability, resilience, and continuous learning.

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