Turn Over a New Leaf: The Impact of Leader Succession on Subordinate Silence and the Moderating Roles of New and Former Leader Secure‐Base Support

ABSTRACT How employee silence—the act of withholding thoughts, suggestions, and ideas about important work issues—is impacted by a major organizational change such as a change in leadership (i.e., leader succession) has been severely underexplored. In this study, we conducted a quasi‐experimental field study with a total of 107 bank branches across four survey time points (with approximately half of the branches experiencing a leader succession) to investigate how silence is impacted before and after a leadership change. We also examine how new and former leaders' secure‐base support (support that provides a secure and safe base for subordinates to explore new changes and opportunities) can make a key difference in breaking subordinate silence during leader succession. We found that leader succession reduced subordinate silence, such that subordinates were less likely to withhold important ideas/thoughts/information from their new leader compared to their former leader. This effect was strongest when the new leader showed high leader secure‐base support, and the former leader exhibited low leader secure‐base support. Our insights extend knowledge of followership theory in the context of leadership succession and subordinate silence behaviors and the important role of new and former leaders' secure‐base support in reshaping patterns of silence.