Leader trust and employee voice:The moderating role of empowering leader behaviors

This paper explored how employees' trust in their leader interacted with empowering leader behaviors in promoting employee voice. Using data collected from 314 employees in the telecommunication industry in China, we found that the relationship between leader trust and employee voice became more positive when empowering leadership was higher rather than lower. We found this moderating effect of empowering leadership in the relationship between leader trust and employee voice for three different types of empowering leader behaviors, namely, participative decision making, informing, and coaching. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.