While leader voice solicitation has been found to be a crucial way to encourage subordinates to voice, there is limited research to explore who will become the target for leaders to solicit voice. To help answer this question, drawing on signaling theory, our research investigates the effect of subordinate narcissism on leader’s voice solicitation behavior and its potential spillover effects on subordinates’ work-related outcomes. We conducted a field study by using a sample of 453 subordinates with their 109 leaders to test our theoretical model. Results indicated a positive relationship between subordinate narcissism and leader’s voice solicitation towards them, which was strengthened as the quality of leader-member exchange increased. Leader’s voice solicitation was positively related to the subordinate’s work engagement, and organizational citizenship behavior and negatively related to intention to leave. We also found support for the mediation and moderated mediation models. Our research provides theoretical and practical implications for the voice solicitation literature.
