In the Eye of the Beholder: Leader Error Orientation, Employee Perception of Leader, and Employee Work-Related Outcomes

Organizations, and the leaders within them, have been slow in adopting error management, an orientation that accepts error occurrence and focuses on correction and learning from errors. Image concerns are a potential barrier, specifically concerning how a leader will be perceived by employees when adopting an error management orientation. Using an experimental study (Study 1; 73 student and nonstudent participants) and a field study (Study 2; 454 employees and 95 leaders), we explore the relationship between leaders’ perceived error orientation and employees’ perceptions of the warmth and competence of those leaders. Moreover, in Study 2, we extend our findings by testing the indirect effects of leader error orientation via perceived leader warmth and competence on indicators of employees’ work-related outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction, turnover intention, work engagement, employee job performance). Our findings provide the first evidence to suggest that leaders should not be reluctant to apply error management in their practice, as it offers benefits both for employees’ perception of leaders and for employees’ work-related outcomes. To inspire future research, we propose an integrative theoretical model of the interindividual effects of leader error orientation on employee-perceived leader warmth, competence, and work-related outcomes at both the individual and team levels.