Transformational leadership and acceptance of mistakes as a source of learning - Poland-USA cross-country study

Abstract

This study aims to explore the influence of transformational leadership on internal innovativeness mediated by mistakes acceptance, including country and industry as factors to be considered and gender and risk-taking attitude as moderators. General findings, primarily based on the US samples (healthcare, construction, and IT industry), confirmed that transformational leadership and internal innovativeness are mediated by mistakes acceptance and strengthened by employees' risk-taking attitude. It is reflected in Polish healthcare sample. On the other hand, IT and construction industry samples revealed that a low mistakes acceptance level among risk-taking managers under transformational leadership might be their hidden form of change resistance. Regarding gender issue, this study showed that male employees driven by transformational leaders accept mistakes as a source of learning better than women, but the exceptions are healthcare and IT industries in Poland. The developed empirical model is based on a sample composed of 2,160 Polish and American knowledge workers applying OLS regression, using SPSS PROCESS macro software.