SPEAKER：Prof. Natalie Bin Zhao, Simon Fraser University

TIME/DATE：2026.7.2   14:00

CLASSROOM：A502

ABSTRACT

Leaders inevitably make mistakes at work, yet little is known about how followers perceive leaders who acknowledge their own errors. Drawing on the sensitive self-disclosure framework, we conceptualize leader error sharing as a behavioral tendency and propose that it is positively related to followers’ evaluations of leader ability, with the relationship mediated by increased perceptions of leader responsibility. We further suggest that these positive relationships are weakened when followers hold perfectionistic expectations of their leaders. Across two studies (a field study with 98 leaders and 369 employees and a pre-registered vignette experiment with 491 participants from Prolific), we found that leaders’ error-sharing tendency was positively related to followers’ evaluations of leaders’ ability, and that this relationship was mediated by leaders’ perceptions of responsibility. The moderating role of leader-oriented perfectionism was supported in the field study but not in the experiment. We discuss implications for theory and practice, clarifying when and why leaders’ openness about their errors strengthens or undermines their image in the eyes of followers.

Keywords: leader error sharing tendency; leader ability; leader responsibility; leader-oriented perfectionism; sensitive self-disclosure

BIOGRAPHY

赵斌，拥有加拿大西安大略大学毅伟商学院博士学位，现任加拿大西门菲莎大学（Simon Fraser University）Beedie商学院企业管理系终身教授，主讲人力资源管理课程，并荣获TD Canada Trust教学大奖。她的研究聚焦于企业管理（主要包括差错与挫折学习、差错管理及创新）和人力资源管理（员工激励与培训、奖惩制度、绩效考核与提升）。研究成果发表于Academy of Management Review、Journal of Management Studies、Journal of Organizational Behavior、Harvard Business Review等国际学术期刊。目前，她与哈佛商学院合作开展Learning from Errors研究，并与欧洲及国内高校团队合作开展Error Communication and Management研究，是差错管理领域的重要理论开创者之一。出国留学前，她曾在国内企业界工作四年。