How empowering leadership reduces employee silence in public organizations
| Date | 01 March 2019 |
| Author | Shahidul Hassan,Zhongnan Jiang,Leisha DeHart‐Davis |
| Published date | 01 March 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12571 |
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
How empowering leadership reduces employee
silence in public organizations
Shahidul Hassan
1
| Leisha DeHart-Davis
2
| Zhongnan Jiang
1
1
John Glenn College of Public Affairs, The
Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
2
School of Government, University of North
Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North
Carolina, USA
Correspondence
Shahidul Hassan, John Glenn College of Public
Affairs, The Ohio State University, 1810
College Road South, Columbus, OH 43210,
USA.
Email: hassan.125@osu.edu
The intentional withholding of critical work-related information can
have serious negative consequences in public organizations. Yet,
few studies have examined why public employees intentionally
remain silent about problems and how to prevent such behaviour.
This article provides insights into how managers may lower
employee silence in government organizations. We develop a
model that suggests that empowering leadership by frontline
supervisors reduces public employee silence, by improving
employee trust in their supervisors, granting employees control
over their jobs, and strengthening identification with the organiza-
tion. We test the model in two cross-sectional studies with data
collected from all employees working in two local governments in
the United States. We find empirical support for the model in both
studies. We discuss the implications of the research results for pub-
lic management scholarship and practice.
1|INTRODUCTION
The reluctance of public employees to speak up about organizational problems can have serious negative conse-
quences (Morrison and Milliken 2000). At the organizational level, silence can diminish organizational performance
by reducing the chance that errors are detected and rectified (Knoll and Redman 2016) and that serious ethical trans-
gressions are prevented (Clapham and Cooper 2005). The inability of public employees to share ideas and provide
inputs may also hinder innovation (Gambarotto and Camazo 2010) and positive organizational change (Argyris and
Schon 1978) and stifle employee development and creativity (Knoll and Redman 2016). At the individual level, silence
can reduce employee job satisfaction, increase cynicism and stress, and cause emotional exhaustion (Cortina and
Magley 2003; Whiteside and Barclay 2013).
Despite the potential damage that silence can inflict on the effectiveness of government organizations, it is sur-
prising that few studies have examined the causes of public employee silence and mechanisms for reducing such
behaviour. The existing research focuses largely on employees of private/business organizations (Morrison 2014).
Only one study has been conducted in a public sector setting, with a theoretical angle related to the effects of silence
on innovation in public services (Gambarotto and Camazo 2010). We contend that silence evokes a different set of
issues for government organizations, and as such, is worthy of study as a public management topic. More specifically,
Received: 20 April 2018 Revised: 23 August 2018 Accepted: 12 November 2018
DOI: 10.1111/padm.12571
116 © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm Public Administration. 2019;97:116–131.
these issues related to the potential for employee silence undercut the public values of transparency and account-
ability (Jørgensen and Bozeman 2007), may facilitate high profile disasters, such as the Space Shuttle Challenger
explosion (Whiteside and Barclay 2013), promote government ‘guerillas’(O’Leary 2013), and contravene constitu-
tional protections for some forms of public employee speech (Norton 2009).
In addition to studying the incidences of employee silence in a government work setting, this article also draws
attention to the role of public managers in mitigating silence. Specifically, we focus on the potential empowering role
of supervisors, who are known to exert considerable influence on the day-to-day activities of frontline employees in
government organizations (Lipsky 2010). The emerging research on empowering leadership in government organiza-
tions suggests that empowering supervisors not only share power with frontline employees, but also provide support
during difficult or stressful periods and motivate them to take initiatives on their own to solve organizational prob-
lems (Miao et al. 2013; Hassan et al. 2018; Park and Hassan 2018). Empowering leadership practices have been
linked empirically to an array of silence-related behaviours—for example, improvement-oriented voice (Park and Has-
san 2018) and greater sense of agency (Kirkman and Rosen 1999; Randolph and Kemery 2011)—but not to silence of
government employees per se.
To address these gaps in the silence literature, that is, the neglect of public sector settings and the dearth of
empirical research on the silence effects of empowering managerial practices, we develop a conceptual model that
elucidates how empowering supervisory practices may reduce the likelihood of public employees withholding infor-
mation about critical organizational issues and problems. Specifically, drawing on the theories of social exchange
(Blau 1964), self-determination (Deci and Ryan 1985), and social identity (Ashforth and Mael 1989), we contend that
the influence of supervisor empowering leadership behaviour on subordinates’silence will be mediated by their inter-
personal trust in their supervisor, perceptions about job control, and identification with their employing organization.
We test this model in two studies with survey data that we collected from employees of two local governments in
the United States.
This article contributes to public administration scholarship in several ways. First, by situating silence in a public
sector context, we address a contemporary social problem: the need to reduce silence among public servants during
a time when some argue that private concerns are overriding the public interest and the legitimacy of government is
being questioned (Frederickson et al. 2015). Accordingly, this research generates evidence and insights that public
managers can use to reduce subordinates’silence in their organizations. Second, along with establishing an empirical
connection between empowering leadership and silence, our research sheds light on the mechanisms by which
empowering supervisory behaviour may lower public employee silence, through increasing interpersonal trust in their
supervisor, perceptions of job control, and organizational identification. Prior studies on employee silence in private
organizations did not empirically assess these three mechanisms together in the same study. Our research provides a
better understanding of the relative efficacy of the mechanisms through which empowering leadership behaviour
may reduce silence of public employees.
The article is organized as follows: first, we review the extant literature on employee silence, then we develop
theoretical arguments that connect empowering managerial practices to silence. Second, we present the procedures,
samples, methods, and results of each study. Finally, we discuss the implications of our results for public management
research and practice and provide some directions for future research on employee silence in public organizations.
2|LITERATURE AND HYPOTHESIS
2.1 |Employee silence
Silence refers to intentional withholding of critical information about organizational problems and practices from
others in the workplace (Morrison and Milliken 2003). Not every case of non-communication denotes silence though.
It is only when one chooses, due to some strategic reasons or concerns, not to disclose relevant information to others
HASSAN ET AL.117
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