‘Leadership in Compliance’
Plenary session 3: ‘Leadership in Compliance’ featured panellists from the University of Utah, Safe Kids Worldwide, Hasbro and the European Commission.
The panel explored what leadership means in product safety and compliance. It highlighted the importance of individual responsibility and building trust and partnerships with your internal and external networks. Key points included:
- Leadership in product safety goes beyond strictly following regulations: Compliance with the law should be the baseline. Leadership in the product safety space entails a commitment to a culture of quality and shared values, which ultimately results in better consumer products.
- Each person can be a leader: A culture of compliance and quality thrives if each person – whatever their role – takes responsibility for product safety and compliance.
- It is important to strive to do better and improve step by step: Good leadership does not necessarily strive to be the best. It is important to acknowledge that mistakes happen, and the key to handling them is to take them as a learning experience in order to minimise risk in the longer term. It is important not to get lost in striving for the ultimate ‘best’, but instead to take a step-by-step approach to improving product safety.
- Building trust through communication and transparency fosters a culture of compliance: Product safety needs to involve all stakeholders, from the manufacturer to consumers, and foster trust through continuous education and transparency. Educating stakeholders about why compliance efforts are made is important to ensure everyone is onboard, along with making continuous improvements.
- Communication and transparency needs to be met with an openness for continuous learning: Professionals who are leaders in product safety and compliance are those who are prepared to learn from others, including their peers and other stakeholders from across different product sectors.
- Leaders in product safety and compliance need to be compassionate to others, as well as to themselves: Leaders need to take care of themselves to be able to bring their best selves to work and lead by example. Leaders should learn from their own mistakes, support others when they make mistakes and also provide space for upcoming leaders to shine.
The panel acknowledged that, in practice, a balance needs to be struck between compliance and other factors, such as costs and different business priorities. At the same time, the panelists called for each person to have the courage to be a leader in product safety and compliance in their own way, for the mutual benefit of all.
The Cooley products team will be posting highlights from other plenary panel sessions on our blog throughout the event.
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