Mining Leadership for Safety-Critical Work Teams Training Course

Course overview

Mining supervisors and frontline leaders make decisions in conditions where production pressure, mobile equipment, ground conditions, fatigue, contractor interfaces and changing work plans can combine into serious risk. Technical controls are necessary, but they only work when leaders set clear expectations, verify critical controls in the field, respond constructively to weak signals and stop work when conditions are not safe. This course prepares leaders to lead safety-critical teams without treating safety as a separate activity from operational performance.

Participants learn how to translate mine-site risk controls into practical leadership routines. They practise conducting effective pre-start meetings, planning work around critical controls, leading field interactions, coaching workers after observations, escalating hazards, and running learning-focused reviews after incidents and near misses. The course applies ICMM Critical Control Management principles, ISO 45001 leadership requirements and bow-tie thinking to common mining activities including haulage, drilling, blasting, lifting, confined spaces and ground-control work.

Teaching combines instructor-led models with mine-based scenarios, role plays, control-verification exercises and peer review. Participants work with a realistic shift-plan case and build an individual Safety-Critical Leadership Action Plan containing their team routines, observation questions, escalation pathways, coaching commitments and measures for tracking follow-through. They leave with reusable templates for pre-starts, field leadership conversations, critical-control verification and incident learning discussions.

The programme suits emerging and established leaders responsible for crews, contractors or operational areas at surface or underground mines. It is equally relevant to leaders who need to improve consistency across shifts and managers who must turn site safety expectations into observable leadership practice.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Conduct pre-start meetings that identify changing conditions, critical controls and stop-work triggers
• Apply ICMM Critical Control Management to define verification questions for high-consequence mining tasks
• Use bow-tie analysis to connect threats, preventive controls, recovery controls and escalation actions
• Lead field safety interactions using observation, inquiry and coaching rather than compliance-only checks
• Plan shift work with a task-risk-control briefing that assigns control owners and verification points
• Facilitate a learning review after a near miss using event mapping and contributory-factor questioning
• Escalate control failures through a documented decision pathway and communicate the required response
• Produce a Safety-Critical Leadership Action Plan for a nominated mine-team or operational area

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Mine Supervisors — who direct crews and must verify that critical controls remain effective through the shift
• Shift Bosses and Underground Supervisors — who manage changing ground, ventilation, equipment and personnel conditions
• Open-Pit Supervisors — who coordinate haulage, loading, drilling and contractor activity around high-consequence risks
• Processing Plant Team Leaders — who lead isolation, maintenance and operational teams around hazardous energy controls
• Safety and Health Advisors — who support operational leaders to strengthen field verification and incident learning
• Mining Superintendents and Managers — who need consistent leadership routines across multiple crews, shifts or contractors

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have basic familiarity with their mine’s health and safety management system, routine risk assessments or job hazard analyses, and the operational tasks performed by their team. At least several months of mine-site, processing-plant or mining-contractor experience is helpful because exercises use realistic supervisory decisions and field scenarios. Participants should be able to discuss a current work area and its major hazards. No formal safety qualification, prior leadership course, BowtieXP licence or advanced incident-investigation training is required. Complete beginners to supervisory work can attend, but should expect to prepare by reviewing their site’s critical-risk and reporting procedures.

Training methodology

The programme uses short instructor-led briefings followed by mining-specific application. Participants analyse critical-control failures in haulage, ground-control, isolation and contractor-work scenarios; practise pre-start and field-coaching conversations in role plays; and use bow-tie and control-verification worksheets in small groups. Facilitators give structured feedback on the clarity of decisions, questions and escalation actions. Each day closes with a practical output that feeds into the participant’s final Safety-Critical Leadership Action Plan, which is peer-reviewed against a realistic mine operational context.

Course outline

Day 1: Leading safety-critical work in mining operations

• Safety-critical work versus routine safety administration
• Leadership accountabilities under ISO 45001
• Production pressure and the normalisation of deviance
• High-consequence hazard profiles in surface and underground mining
• Psychological safety and speaking-up behaviour
• Stop-work authority and decision boundaries
• Leadership routines across pre-start, shift and handover

Workshop: Participants diagnose leadership gaps in a mine-shift scenario and produce a map of the decisions, conversations and handovers that require stronger control.

Day 2: Critical controls and operational risk decisions

• ICMM Critical Control Management fundamentals
• Identifying material unwanted events and fatal-risk exposures
• Bow-tie threats, consequences and control barriers
• Preventive controls versus recovery controls
• Control performance standards and ownership
• Critical-control verification questions for supervisors
• Dynamic risk assessment when work conditions change

Workshop: Teams construct a bow-tie and supervisor verification checklist for a haulage, lifting or ground-control work activity.

Day 3: Pre-starts, field presence and coaching

• Task-risk-control briefings for shift planning
• Pre-start meeting design and participation techniques
• Quality questions for checking worker understanding
• Field leadership observation methods
• Coaching using inquiry, evidence and agreed actions
• Distinguishing at-risk behaviour from system weaknesses
• Contractor interface conversations and shared controls

Workshop: Participants run a simulated pre-start and field observation, then produce a documented coaching record with agreed control actions.

Day 4: Responding to failures and learning from events

• Recognising weak signals and degraded controls
• Immediate response priorities after a control failure
• Escalation thresholds and management notification pathways
• Event mapping for near-miss learning reviews
• Contributory-factor questioning without blame
• Corrective actions that improve control reliability
• Communicating lessons across crews and shifts

Workshop: Using a mobile-equipment near miss case, participants facilitate a learning review and produce an event map, action register and escalation message.

Day 5: Embedding leadership routines on site

• Safety-critical leadership scorecards and leading indicators
• Measuring completion versus quality of verification
• Shift-handover standards for unresolved risk
• Coaching supervisors and reinforcing accountability
• Integrating critical-control checks into production planning
• Personal triggers for intervention and escalation
• Ninety-day implementation planning and review cadence

Workshop: Participants present and refine a 90-day Safety-Critical Leadership Action Plan for their own team, including routines, measures, owners and review dates.

Tools & standards covered

ICMM Critical Control Management, ISO 45001:2018, BowtieXP, Microsoft Excel

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions