Does Leader Feedback-Seeking Behavior Fuel Employee Voice? The Roles of Organization-Based Self-Esteem, Workplace Anxiety and Apparent Sincerity of Leader

Leader feedback-seeking behavior demonstrates leaders' openness to employee voice, but growing evidence suggests it may also be a source of stress, undermining employee initiative and performance. However, direct empirical investigations into the complex, dual-faceted relationship between leader feedback-seeking behavior and employee voice remain limited. Integrating social information processing theory and workplace anxiety theory, we develop a framework explaining how leader feedback-seeking behavior promotes and inhibits employee voice through two distinct pathways (organization-based self-esteem and workplace anxiety). Results from a multiwave, multisource field study (Study 1) and a multimethod design incorporating a US employee survey and a scenario-based experiment (Study 2) reveal that leader feedback-seeking behavior enhances employee voice through organization-based self-esteem, while exerting an inverted U-shaped indirect effect via workplace anxiety. Additionally, apparent sincerity of leader enhances both the positive and inverted U-shaped indirect effects of leader feedback-seeking behavior on employee voice. Our findings indicate that leaders can promote employee voice by sincerely seeking feedback from employees, but should be mindful that excessive feedback-seeking may elevate employees' workplace anxiety and ultimately undermine voice.