Inhibiting Employee Voice

May 26th, 2010 - 11 Comments

Employees fears of losing their job in this economic environment and supervisors who, either knowingly or unknowingly, discourage their employees from speaking up are just two examples of the many reasons why employees may feel uncomfortable voicing their opinions in the workplace.

Harvard Business Review’s research blog recently posted the second of a series of four posts addressing why employees don’t speak up within organizations. Guest commentators include Smeal Professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources Management David Harrison, James Detert, assistant professor of management at Cornell’s Johnson School, and Ethan R. Burris, assistant professor of management at the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business.

Smeal’s Linda Treviño, Distinguished Professor of Organizational Behavior and Ethics, worked on a study with Detert, recently published in Organization Science, addressing this very issue. Detert and Treviño discussed “skip-level leaders,” which is any leader above one’s immediate supervisor, and how these leaders can inhibit employee voice within an organization.

Below are excerpts from an article discussing their study on Smeal’s “Research with Impact” site.

“These skip-level leaders need to get outside their offices and other formal venues,” says Treviño. “They need to go to these distal subordinates and break down barriers, perhaps by sitting down one-on-one in the cafeteria, playing down authority differences, and sincerely expressing their desire for the truth. They must listen carefully and then respond, letting the employee know that action was taken to address the concern.”

In order to increase voice within the organizations, managers need to be aware of the effect of their authority role and pay close attention to the opportunities they have to directly impact voice. “There’s a real lack of understanding on the part of many leaders about the fear they may provoke just by virtue of being an authority figure,” says Treviño.

The researchers indicate that their findings have implications for leadership evaluation and training programs as well. “Leadership evaluations for anyone with skip-level subordinates should require input from employees at all levels,” write Detert and Treviño, “because leaders may find that whereas direct reports find them open or accessible, distal subordinates do not.”

“If leaders truly want to hear all employees’ concerns and improvement ideas, they must proactively and consciously create opportunities for direct, informal interaction with employees at multiple levels, build trust by consistently welcoming feedback, following up on it, and reporting back about action taken,” the researchers write.

To read the entire article, visit this link.

Tags: D. Harrison, Inhibit employee voice, Organizational leadership, Skip-level leaders, Trevino

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 at 2:33 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

11 Responses to “Inhibiting Employee Voice”

1. John Myers says:

   May 28, 2010 at 10:00 am

   .
   Unfortunately, too many people take Dilbert cartoons too seriously … or have worked for companies like GM, where the top executives had an elevator that was programmed to allow them to descend to their parking area without any possibility of contact with other employees. I had 5 minutes with Jack Smith, soon before he retired as Chairman of GM, and it was instantly clear that though both of us were the CEO’s of our companies, he was living on a different planet than I was. GM’ers have always been afraid of their shadow when it comes to discussing the leadership culture of GM … until after they have been the subject of a “Dilbert-like” downsizing exercise. The best remark that I ever heard was when one of my ex-GM friends was told to “look the other way” … at the grossly dysfunctional organization that they were a part of. This is how companies build products like the Pontiac Aztek (of “Breaking Bad” fame) and descend from monopolistic positions to bankruptcy.
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   I say this because, as a result of my Penn State business education, I have implemented a culture in my companies that mirrors the authors’ desired culture. Even in this nurturing environment, too many employees do not feel comfortable in sharing their concerns or exposing perceived problems. They are not willing to “take ownership” of the environment that they invest one third of their lives in.
   .
   The employees that I view to be most valuable are those who know how to give their leadership bad news. These aren’t the folks who see disaster all around them (we each know a few cynical types like this), but those who take the time to understand each of the perspectives and, in private, make the case that we are making a mistake. These people are the ones who I want to be in charge of my company’s operations!
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   A generation ago, when I turned screws on an assembly line in my Summer jobs, I told myself that if I were ever a corporate officer, I would want to spend at least one afternoon a month in the plant at the line … in order to make sure that I never forgot what my employees faced. I’ve never forgotten that.
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   BTW: Our company lunchroom has been the center of open discussion for the past 27 years. It is a key part of our culture. I try to have lunch there as much as possible.
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