{"id":3523,"date":"2025-07-08T15:52:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3523"},"modified":"2025-07-08T15:52:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T15:52:06","slug":"the-best-leadersencourage-employees-to-speak-their-minds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/the-best-leadersencourage-employees-to-speak-their-minds\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Leaders Encourage Employees to Speak Their Minds"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

Having an open-door policy isn\u2019t enough. The most effective leaders proactively encourage all employees to speak their minds openly, whether it\u2019s an idea for fostering innovation or streamlining processes, constructive criticism, or a valid complaint.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to Academy of Management Scholar Sean Martin<\/a> of the University of Virginia, who added that there are many traps leaders can fall into. Self-awareness isn\u2019t a given; rather, it must be cultivated, and listening to other perspectives is a crucial tool for achieving that.<\/p>\n

\u201cOftentimes we are not the best at assessing ourselves or being able to see how other people see us,\u201d Martin said. \u201cI do research on employee voice, whether employees are willing to speak truth to power\u2014are they willing to speak up to their boss with their best ideas or to point out problems that leadership could fix?<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd inevitably, people who are at the top of these organizations will tell me, \u2018Well, that\u2019s not really a problem here; that\u2019s not an issue that we have\u2014everybody here feels safe to speak up; I have an open-door policy,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cBut then when I go a little bit farther down the organization and say, \u2018Do you all feel empowered and safe to speak up? \u2019they shake their heads and go \u2018No.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin said much of that disconnect has to do with a gap between how leaders perceive themselves and how rank-and-file employees perceive them. Some may even surround themselves with people who agree with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cBosses might not be doing the leadership behavior of building the kinds of relationships that show people it\u2019s truly safe to speak up and affirm that they welcome employees\u2019 ideas and [won\u2019t be upset by] disagreement,\u201d Martin said. \u201cTrue leaders welcome challenges to the status quo in order to get better, so I do think there\u2019s a trap around [insufficient]communication.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrequently people assume there to be more consensus among their followers than there actually is, and there are senior people not taking the time to clarify for junior people the future direction that they\u2019re going in and explain the purpose behind what they\u2019re doing,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of different reasons that people can fall into little easy-to-stumble-into leadership traps.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher Having an open-door policy isn\u2019t enough. The most effective leaders proactively encourage all employees to speak their minds openly, whether it\u2019s an idea for fostering innovation or streamlining processes, constructive criticism, or a valid complaint. That\u2019s according to Academy of Management Scholar Sean Martin of the University of Virginia, who added that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,29,21,19],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communicating","category-emotions","category-innovation","category-leadership"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Best Leaders Encourage Employees to Speak Their Minds - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/the-best-leadersencourage-employees-to-speak-their-minds\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-best-leadersencourage-employees-to-speak-their-minds\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-best-leadersencourage-employees-to-speak-their-minds\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"The Best Leaders Encourage Employees to Speak Their Minds\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-08T15:52:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-best-leadersencourage-employees-to-speak-their-minds\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":392,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-best-leadersencourage-employees-to-speak-their-minds\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/03\\\/meeting-on-couch.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"COMMUNICATING\",\"EMOTIONS\",\"INNOVATION\",\"LEADERSHIP\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-best-leadersencourage-employees-to-speak-their-minds\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-best-leadersencourage-employees-to-speak-their-minds\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/the-best-leadersencourage-employees-to-speak-their-minds\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Best Leaders Encourage Employees to Speak Their Minds - 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You can reach him at dbutcher@aom.org or via LinkedIn.","sameAs":["https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/danielbutcher\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"daniel-butcher","display_name":"Daniel Butcher","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp","url2x":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/meeting-on-couch.webp",1080,720,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/meeting-on-couch.webp",1080,720,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/meeting-on-couch.webp",1080,720,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/meeting-on-couch-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/meeting-on-couch-300x200.webp",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/meeting-on-couch-1024x683.webp",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/meeting-on-couch.webp",1080,720,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/meeting-on-couch.webp",1080,720,false],"owl_elementor_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/meeting-on-couch-600x400.webp",600,400,true],"owl_elementor_team":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/meeting-on-couch-350x450.webp",350,450,true],"owl_elementor_testimonial":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/meeting-on-couch-100x100.webp",100,100,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Daniel Butcher","author_link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"},"rttpg_comment":2,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/communicating\/\" rel=\"category tag\">COMMUNICATING<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/emotions\/\" rel=\"category tag\">EMOTIONS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/innovation\/\" rel=\"category tag\">INNOVATION<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/leadership\/\" rel=\"category tag\">LEADERSHIP<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"By Daniel Butcher Having an open-door policy isn\u2019t enough. The most effective leaders proactively encourage all employees to speak their minds openly, whether it\u2019s an idea for fostering innovation or streamlining processes, constructive criticism, or a valid complaint. That\u2019s according to Academy of Management Scholar Sean Martin of the University of Virginia, who added that…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3523"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=3523"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=3523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}