Abstract
This study explores how direct supervisors can hinder or enhance how professionals learn from their errors. Extant research has often focused on psychological safety as the main condition for this kind of learning to take place. We expand prior research by exploring which behaviors of direct supervisors effectively facilitate learning from errors in concert with psychological safety. We conducted semi-structured interviews among 23 professionals to gain detailed insights into their thoughts, needs, and the difficulties they encounter. Through content analysis, we identified four critical supervisor behaviors that participants viewed as facilitating learning from errors next to fostering a psychologically safe work environment: (1) providing timely feedback, (2) guidance and elaborate feedback, (3) being accessible and personally involved, (4) organizing joint evaluations. Based on our findings, recommendations are formulated for supervisors that aim to facilitate professionals’ learning from errors and their professional development.
Highlights
My goal in this interview study is to better understand auditors’ professionalism and which factors contribute to how they manage errors at work
Findings indicated that professionals who perceived their manager to be intolerant of errors were more likely to have strong negative emotional responses to errors and to be reluctant to engage in learning behaviors, such as discussing errors with their supervisor. These studies illustrate that supervisors’ behaviors beyond creating psychological safety can both foster and inhibit professionals’ learning from errors. Building further on this limited extant research and the central role that direct supervisors play for both psychological safety and learning from errors, we explore which specific direct supervisor behaviors hinder engagement in individual and social learning activities of supervisees, leading to our third research question: Research Question 3
The present study explored in detail how and when supervisors in dyadic relationships, enhance or hinder professionals’ engagement in individual and social learning from errors activities
Summary
My goal in this interview study is to better understand auditors’ professionalism and which factors contribute to how they manage errors at work. This interview will last approximately one hour. Do you have any questions before we start with the interview?. Opening question: First, I would like to ask you what makes your daily job challenging? (Since our interviews involve a sensitive topic, we decided to open the interview with a general question to build rapport first.). I would like to ask you to think back to a specific situation (that occurred in the past three months) during the audit process, in which something went wrong during the execution of your work for which you were responsible yourself.
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