Being Left in the Dark: Leader Work-Related Secrecy, Psychological Contract Violation, and Employee Discretionary Behavior

In organizations, leaders often have to keep work-related secrets to protect employees or prevent negative consequences of the information becoming known. Although a growing body of social psychological work examines how keeping secrets can influence one's psychological states, we know relatively little about how leader work-related secrecy can unintentionally affect employees. By integrating research on secrecy in the social psychology literature with psychological contract theory, the current studies examined how employees' perceptions of leader work-related secrecy may reduce their leader-directed discretionary behaviors (i.e., organizational citizenship behaviors and voice) through perceived psychological contract violation. These effects were especially pronounced among employees with a low propensity to trust. Results from two experiments (Study 1: N = 287; Study 2: N = 177) and a multisource multiwave field study (Study 3: N = 364 leader–member dyads) consistently supported our hypothesized model. Implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.