Gendered Effects of Voice Solicitation: Do Leaders Get What They (Really) Want from Who They Want?

Leader voice solicitation—a leader’s individually-directed requests for opinions, suggestions, concerns—has been portrayed as a solution to the issue of withheld employee voice (i.e., silence). However, extant literature has only considered how much leader voice solicitation increases voice quantity, without any examination of the nature of the actual content of the resulting voice. This work contends that the true measure of leader voice solicitation efficacy lies in the quality of the resulting voice and examine the psychological effects that may inform this relationship. Drawing from the relational theory of procedural justice, I argue that leader voice solicitation has a positive indirect effect on voice quality via felt social worth. However, I also propose that this positive indirect effect is weaker for women, in comparison to men, by drawing from social identity and tokenism theory. By unraveling new, nuanced dimensions of leader voice solicitation, this research contributes to the broader understanding of leader voice solicitation, shedding light on the interplay of gender, leadership, and employee voice within organizational contexts.r, leadership, and employee voice within organizational contexts.