Across two experiments and a field study of leader-member pairs, employees who perceived their leader as keeping work-related secrets reported lower discretionary behaviour towards that leader, including organisational citizenship behaviour and voice. This pattern operated through a sense that the leader had violated an implicit psychological contract with them. The effect was more pronounced among employees with a low propensity to trust others.
The study, titled ‘Being Left in the Dark: Leader Work-Related Secrecy, Psychological Contract Violation, and Employee Discretionary Behavior’, appeared in the Journal of Organizational Behavior on 5 September 2026. It drew on Study 1 (N = 287), Study 2 (N = 177) and Study 3, a multisource multiwave field survey of 364 leader-member dyads.
Source: Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2026-09-05.