The Impact of Leader Emotion on Error Management Culture and Software Testers

December 3, 2025

The Impact of Leader Emotion on Error Management Culture and Software Testers

Thomas Richard Ulrich | 2018

Abstract

This research was built on two simple premises: Leadership involves relationships, and relationships are influenced by emotion. Therefore, a leaders’ emotions may influence the people they lead. The purpose of this research was to understand better the influence of a leader’s emotions. The influence of the leaders’ emotions of sadness, happiness, and anger, as well as the affective state of stress, were considered. Furthermore, the influence of leader emotion was assessed regarding (a) followers’ abilities to perform both creative and analytical tasks, and (b) error management culture. However, the relevant literature has indicated that the influence of leader emotions on creative tasks, analytical tasks, and error management culture is complex and even contradictory. For this reason, a qualitative approach was used as a first step. The research sample was bounded to the case of software testers working at a single medical device manufacturer; this sample was used because (a) the literature established that software testing involved both creative and analytical tasks, and (b) the concept of error management culture was relevant to an organization that produced and tested safety critical medical devices. The organization selected for the case had some supervisors in the software test team who were prone to displays of emotion and others who were not. Moreover, a phenomenological framework was used to gather and analyze the data from this bounded case. This research produced a rich description of the lived experiences of these medical device software testers, as they experienced a wide range of leader emotions. The results indicated that no simple correlation existed between any leader emotion and the influence it had on either these testers or the error management culture in which they worked. These findings have practical significance in that these indicated that leaders should be aware that, although their negative affective displays might not influence some employees, they might devastate others. Conversely, these findings might indicate that resilience to leader emotion could be learned by followers.

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