Is it ok to make mistakes at work? Perceptions of differential treatment of mistakes by men and women in the workplace

Abstract

The authors examine whether women and men working in financial services have different perceptions of a hypothetical mistake at work. Using a survey of 1,485 U.K. financial-sector professionals, we analyze three self-reported measures: comfort in admitting a mistake, expected penalization for the mistake, and whether the mistake would be seen as a learning opportunity. Regression analysis relates these perceptions to the respondent's gender and the gender composition of their workplace. The results suggest that women's perceptions of mistakes are significantly more negative than men's, and this gap is amplified in male-dominated environments. In heavily-male teams (e.g., those with ≥75% men), women report feeling markedly less comfortable about mistakes and less likely to view mistakes as learning opportunities compared to men. By contrast, women report the most positive attitudes toward mistakes in environments with low shares of men, where mistakes are also most likely to be viewed as learning opportunities; men's perceptions vary comparatively little with workplace composition. In other words, male-dominated workplaces are associated with more negative perceptions of errors, especially for women.