Speaking up at work is generally seen as a good thing, and the likes of Harvard’s Amy Edmondson have spoken and written at great length about the value of psychological safety at work. Speaking up could help to expose bias or prejudice, it could promote innovations that go against the status quo, or simply suggest strategies that differ from one’s line manager.
New research from the University of Pennsylvania explores why employees tend to be uncomfortable with speaking up, and what managers can do about it. Interestingly, the study suggests that the link between speaking up and staying silent is not as clear-cut as we might think.
“We find that the extent to which or how often a person speaks up with constructive ideas or issues at work (voice) is almost completely independent from the extent to which or how often they intentionally withhold ideas or issues (silence),” the researchers explain. “We saw that people quite often volunteer ideas in order to help their teams even as they silenced other fears.”
Staying silent
The topic of employee silence was also touched on in new research from BI Norwegian Business School. The study, which took place across 33 countries, found that there are usually four distinct reasons for staying silent at work:
- We fear the consequences of speaking up
- We don’t think that speaking up will make a difference
- We want to protect or avoid embarrassing superiors or colleagues
- We want to maintain a knowledge advantage and/or avoid gaining any additional workload
“Securing effective communication and dealing with challenges to the status quo are central issues for the sustainable development of societal and organizational cultures,” the researchers explain. “Despite frequent reports of detrimental silence in organizational practice across the globe, there is little common ground, empirically or from a measurement standpoint, on which to build a coherent body of knowledge on employee silence in different cultures.”
Culture matters
The study reminds us of the crucial role culture plays in the decision of employees to stay silent, with these cultural aspects often a reflection of one’s socio-economic group, region, and subculture within a country. For instance, the researchers highlight how in patriarchal societies where age is associated with status, it can be extremely hard for young women to speak up.
There are parallels here with Geert Hofstede’s work on power distance, with countries with a high power distance more likely to have such hierarchical barriers to speaking up as they support and accept strict status differences. These cultures have a strong desire for conformity and passive acceptance, which results in conflict avoidance.
If managers want to encourage employees to speak up, these cultural factors will need to be addressed so that employees can feel confident that speaking up with be advantageous for them.
