Leading and Learning to Change: The Role of Leadership Style and Mindset in Error Learning and Organizational Change

Change and innovation are increasingly critical to organizational survival, as well as sustained success. While it is common to discuss mistakes as critical components of the learning process, how can organizations balance the detrimental costs of workplace mistakes with the beneficial outcomes of increased risk-taking and innovation? This cross-regional comparative research investigates the relationship between employee perceptions of leadership style, mindset (fixed versus growth), and orientation to error learning in a sample of 554 employees recruited in Europe, China, and the US. We examine the relationship between a leader’s perceived style – transformational, transactional, laissez-faire, and aversive leadership – follower mindset, and attitudes toward error learning. Our results suggest that transformational leadership fosters significantly more positive attitudes toward employee error learning, while laissez-faire and aversive leadership styles actively inhibit employee error learning. Somewhat surprisingly, in two of the three samples, laissez-faire leadership showed the strongest and most negative effect on error learning orientation, although followers with fixed mindsets reported being less likely to learn from errors regardless of leadership style. Our findings examine the relationship between leadership style and employee error learning and highlight that inattentive leaders may be particularly destructive in work settings that seek to develop creativity and innovation as part of the organizational change process.