Building better teams by identifying conservation professionals willing to learn from failure

Despite abundant literature from beyond the conservation sector on learning from failure, few studies examine conservation professionals, their teams, and their organizations. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior to investigate the drivers of conservation professionals' intentions to engage in learning from failure behaviors, we found that conservation professionals who intend to participate in learning from failure activities are influenced by perceptions of social norms. Higher levels of psychological safety were found to strengthen the positive relationship between self-efficacy and intentions to engage in learning from failure behaviors with a higher degree of interpersonal risk, whereas lower levels of psychological safety undermined high levels of self-efficacy. Organizations seeking to empower those who are confident they can learn from failure must recognize the key role that psychological safety plays in supporting such individuals, implement team training to foster psychological safety, and ensure leaders promote, by their own example, learning from failure as an opportunity to more effectively, cost-efficiently, and equitably deliver conservation outcomes. •Reflexive research examines how conservation professionals carry out their work.•Willingness to engage in learning from failure behaviors is a critical mindset.•Social norms influence intentions to engage in these behaviors.•Psychological safety drives the relationship between self-efficacy and intentions.