Clause 5.1: Leadership and commitment
Top management shows leadership and commitment by: taking overall responsibility, and being accountable, for preventing injury and ill health caused by work and for keeping workplaces and activities safe and healthy; making sure the OH&S policy and objectives are set and fit the organization's strategic direction; building the system into business processes; making resources available; explaining why effective OH&S management, and meeting the system's requirements, matter; making sure the system achieves what it is meant to; guiding and supporting people to contribute; making sure continual improvement happens and encouraging it; backing other relevant managers in their own leadership; building and promoting a culture that supports what the system is meant to achieve; shielding workers from reprisal when they report hazards, incidents, opportunities and risks; and making sure processes exist for consulting workers and for their participation, and for health and safety committees where these exist..
What clause 5.1 asks
Top management shows leadership and commitment by: taking overall responsibility, and being accountable, for preventing injury and ill health caused by work and for keeping workplaces and activities safe and healthy; making sure the OH&S policy and objectives are set and fit the organization's strategic direction; building the system into business processes; making resources available; explaining why effective OH&S management, and meeting the system's requirements, matter; making sure the system achieves what it is meant to; guiding and supporting people to contribute; making sure continual improvement happens and encouraging it; backing other relevant managers in their own leadership; building and promoting a culture that supports what the system is meant to achieve; shielding workers from reprisal when they report hazards, incidents, opportunities and risks; and making sure processes exist for consulting workers and for their participation, and for health and safety committees where these exist.
Leadership is tested by decisions about money, time and consequences. The clause lists what top management must actually do, including protecting workers from reprisal, building a culture and making consultation work.
Draft 5.1 Leadership and commitment, from clause 5.1. The draft's parent clause is titled Leadership, without the 2018 addition about worker participation. The public summaries report work-related well-being added in several places, including 5.1, and a stronger emphasis on a preventive safety culture and on encouraging workers to report.
Evidence for clause 5.1
An auditor will look for a decision where safety won over schedule or cost, and for evidence that a worker who reported something was not punished for it.
- LeadershipExecutive accountability statements and safety leadership visits
- LeadershipBoard or executive minutes with OH&S performance reviewed
- LeadershipResource decisions traceable to OH&S needs
- LeadershipNon-reprisal policy and evidence it is communicated
- LeadershipHealth and safety committee terms of reference
Where clause 5.1 commonly fails
- Leadership demonstrated only by signing the policy
- No protection from reprisal for reporting
- Culture programme absent, safety seen as the safety officer's job
What to do about clause 5.1 before the revision
Collect three decisions from the last year that show leadership in the resource record. Test the non-reprisal route with a worker who used it. Put well-being on the leadership agenda as an outcome to manage, not a welfare extra.
What the record shows for clause 5.1
An auditor working on clause 5.1 will start with Executive accountability statements and safety leadership visits. The failure this record sees most often is Leadership demonstrated only by signing the policy. Both are carried into the kit as row 5, with an owner field and a dated action.
Read across from clause 5.1
Read the next clause in the group, or open the full index. The revision map shows the draft structure.
Source for clause 5.1: ISO 45001:2018, clause 5.1, retrieved 18 October 2026. The draft note rests on the public DIS contents and the two named summaries; the requirement, evidence and gaps are written from the held clause record. Every source.