Creating a healthy organizational culture: transformational leadership, organizational silence, and small business

Business consultation industries have focused on organizational strategies, management style, funding, and organizational culture, in addition to a host of other areas (American Society for Training and Development, 2013). Despite all of these efforts, there remain numerous underdeveloped areas of research. One such area has been leadership styles that lead to a silent organizational culture. This study examines the communication approaches used by small business leaders by extending Bisel and Arterburn’s (2012) sense-making resource model of employee silence which draws upon expectation and identity; specifically, the five reasons given for remaining silent: (a) predicting harm to self, (b) constructing the supervisor as responsible, (c) questioning their own expertise, (d) predicting supervisor’s deafness, and (e) constructing timing as being inopportune (Bisel & Arterburn, 2012). Findings suggest that transformational leadership approaches minimize Bisel and Arterburn’s five justifications for silence which are based on expectation and identity. Additional findings propose that any organization which seeks to improve its culture and minimize organizational silence should strongly consider establishing a transformational leadership foundation prior to making any major policy or systemic changes.