The unintended consequences of temporal leadership: a multilevel investigation of the effects of temporal leadership on employee silence

Abstract

Purpose

Existing research has generally viewed that temporal leadership has positive impacts on employees but ignores its potential drawbacks. This study aims to develop a model to explore its possible negative impacts on employees, drawing upon social information processing theory.

Design/methodology/approach

This study conducts a multi-wave and multisource survey to test the model, and the authors test the hypotheses with multi-level analysis using Mplus 7.4 and R package for Monte Carlo.

Findings

Results suggest that temporal leadership induces employee work alienation, thus leading to employee silence. Furthermore, shared temporal cognitions moderate both the relationship between temporal leadership and work alienation and the indirect effect of temporal leadership on employee silence via work alienation.

Originality/value

Taken together, this study reveals the potential dark side of temporal leadership and provides a more comprehensive and dialectical research perspective for temporal leadership literature.

Citation

Zhu, Y., Mei, W., Nong, M. and Wang, Y. (2025), "The unintended consequences of temporal leadership: a multilevel investigation of the effects of temporal leadership on employee silence", Chinese Management Studies, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 153-171. https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-04-2023-0159