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.