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

ABSTRACT 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.