Frontline Management training in Geneva · canton of Genève“My door is open”: why employees still stay silent
“If you have a problem, come and see me.” The statement is sincere, yet warnings arrive late, or not at all. Should we conclude that teams have nothing to say, or that declared availability does not change what makes speaking up costly?
What the literature establishes
Frances Milliken, Elizabeth Morrison and Patricia Hewlin (2003, Journal of Management Studies) interviewed employees about situations in which they had a concern but did not express it: a large majority described at least one. The reasons cited had less to do with having no opinion than with the fear of being perceived as negative and damaging a working relationship. Elizabeth Morrison (2014, Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior) draws a central distinction from this: silence is not simply an absence of speech; it is often a decision made by estimating what speaking up would cost.
The overlooked distinction: availability is not openness
James Detert and Ethan Burris (2007, Academy of Management Journal) compared several managerial behaviours. The strongest predictor of employees raising ideas and problems was not broadly inspirational leadership, but the perception that their manager listens and acts on what they are told — a relationship mediated by the feeling that it is safe to speak up. Being reachable is one condition; showing that speaking up has an impact, and no cost, is another.
What this challenges in common management practices
Detert and Amy Edmondson (2011, Academy of Management Journal) describe “implicit voice theories”: beliefs taken for granted — do not criticise a project in front of your manager’s manager, do not speak up without a ready-made solution — that inhibit speaking up even with a well-intentioned manager. These beliefs are learned elsewhere, over the course of careers, and do not disappear because a manager declares themselves open. An open-door policy assumes that the employee will take the initiative; it is precisely this initiative that these beliefs discourage.
What team research adds
Amy Edmondson (1999, Administrative Science Quarterly) showed that psychological safety — the shared belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for a question, a mistake or a disagreement — is associated with team learning behaviours: asking for help, reporting a problem, discussing a failure. The important point for a line manager is that this climate is built at team level, through everyday interactions, rather than through an individual declaration. (our executive and employee training programmes)
Defensible conclusions and their limits
Most of these studies rely on surveys and interviews, with measures that are often self-reported; they establish robust, replicated associations, not demonstrated causality. We cannot claim that a specific managerial behaviour will automatically produce more warnings. The contexts studied are primarily North American: applying the findings to an organisation in Geneva, multilingual and often international, is a matter of reasonable inference, not proof.
A practical implication to test in Geneva
Replace “Any questions?” with a specific question that legitimises reservations: “What could cause this schedule to fail?” Then, over one month, observe two simple things: how many problems are reported to you before you discover them yourself, and what you did with the first warning you received — did you thank the person who raised it, follow it up, or discuss how it was expressed? No questionnaire is needed. This is the starting point we use with line managers in Geneva. To go further: explore the Frontline Management training in Geneva in the canton of Geneva, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
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