The Upward Influence of Voice: How and When Employee Voice Behavior Impacts Leader Empowerment

Although voice researchers have proposed a functional approach that considers voice as an influence tactic to achieve desired reactions from others, little research explicitly examines whether employee voice can exert an upward influence that shapes leaders’ perceptions and behaviors. Drawing from social influence theory, this study intends to investigate how and when employees’ voice behavior influences managers’ attitudinal and behavioral responses toward employees. Specifically, we hypothesize that employee voice will promote empowering leader behavior by increasing leader trust in the focal employee, and we further examine leader Machiavellianism as the moderator. Using multi-source and multi-stage data from 949 subordinates working in 224 teams, we found support for our predictions that: employees who voiced received more empowerment from leaders than those who did not, and this effect was mediated by leader trust. Moreover, leader Machiavellianism weakened the positive effects of employee voice on leader trust as well as on leader empowerment via trust. Our findings suggest voice as an effective upward influence tactic that employees can utilize to acquire empowerment in the team.