The Field Guide › Article

Types of Silence

Tom Geraghty · Voice & Silence, Power

Draws on Pacheco et al's 2015 literature review to map five types of organisational silence: acquiescent, defensive, prosocial, deviant, and diffident. We add two: “Preparatory” and “Filled”. Each has a different relationship to psychological safety and requires a different response.

Connected concepts (27)

• Calculus of Voice
• Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (paper)
• Language and Symbolic Power (paper)
• An Exploratory Study of Employee Silence: Issues That Employees Don't Communicate Upward and Why (paper)
• Helping and Voice Extra-Role Behaviors: Evidence of Construct and Predictive Validity (paper)
• Independent Review on the Care Given to Mrs Elaine Bromiley (paper)
• Organizational Silence: A Barrier to Change and Development in a Pluralistic World (paper)
• Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk (paper)
• Speaking Up and Speaking Out: The Leadership Dynamics of Voice in Organizations (paper)
• A Stupidity-Based Theory of Organizations (paper)
• Ambiguity & Predictability
• Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascos (paper)
• Implicit Voice Theories: Taken-for-Granted Rules of Self-Censorship at Work (paper)
• Psychological Antecedents of Promotive and Prohibitive Voice: A Two-Wave Examination (paper)
• Quitting Before Leaving: The Mediating Effects of Psychological Attachment and Detachment on Voice (paper)
• Silence in Organizations and Psychological Safety: A Literature Review (paper)
• Silence That May Kill: When Aircrew Members Don't Speak Up and Why (paper)
• The Cost of Silence: Normalization of Deviance and Groupthink (paper)
• Amplifying Weak Signals
• Barriers to PS
• Interpersonal & Existential Threats
• Not Feeling Seen
• Open Secrets & Half-Baked Ideas
• Power of Silence
• Prospect Theory
• PS & Creativity
• Drive, Dissent & Checklists