The impact of transformational leadership and organizational learning on organizational silence reduction (Case of: Sepah Bank branches of Tehran)

The phenomenon of organizational silence, is an unfamiliar subject and less likely to be found in the context of organizational research in Iran. Despite the fact that silence of employees has known to be a common phenomenon in enterprises, it is a concept that is little known and limited scientific research has been carried out around the world to deepen our knowledge on how to deal with the phenomenon. This study examined the influence of transformational leadership style and organizational learning on reducing the organizational silence in branches of Sepal Bank in Tehran in 2014. 251 employees were selected through clustering method using Cochran formula. Data was collected based on Leadership Styles Questionnaire developed by bass and Olive, learning organization by Watkins & Marsick, and organizational silence questionnaire by Vakola & Bouradas. In our study, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to analyze research data and perform hypotheses testing. The results indicate that variables of transformational leadership style and organizational learning had a meaningful impact on organizational silence of the studied sample (%73/5). Also, according to the obtained path coefficients, it is concluded that the organizational learning has more impact on organizational silence than transformational leadership. Moreover, among characteristics of the two main variables, learning at the organizational level, considerations of individual, team learning, intellectual stimulation, personal learning, inspirational motivation, and idealized influence appear to have the greatest impact on reducing the organizational silence.