The Impact of Leadership Responses to Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination Reports on Emotional Distress and Retention Intentions in Military Members

ABSTRACT

Reporting instances of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the workplace is an integral part of the prevention and response efforts of the United States Department of Defense (DoD). Any military member who comes forward to report their experience should be provided appropriate intervention, support, and restorative care. While much research has focused on prevention efforts and encouraging reporting, few researchers have systematically examined what happens when military members come forward. In the military, leaders (the chain of command) are primarily responsible for receiving and investigating reports of potential sex-based military equal opportunity violations (SBMEO) involving sexual harassment or gender discrimination. This study used results from the congressionally-mandated 2016 Workplace and Gender Relations Survey of Active Duty Members (2016 WGRA) to identify military members who indicated experiencing a potential SBMEO violation and reported to their chain of command (n = 3,982) in order to examine the relationships among the actions as a result of reporting, reporting satisfaction, emotional distress, and retention intentions. Findings revealed experiencing positive actions as a result of reporting was associated with increased satisfaction with reporting, which in turn, was associated with decreased emotional distress and increased retention intentions. Conversely, experiencing negative actions as a result of reporting was associated with decreased satisfaction with reporting, increased emotional distress, and decreased retention intentions. These findings highlight the crucial role military leaders serve in supporting those who come forward in mitigating potential negative outcomes associated with SBMEO violations that could impact military readiness.

KEYWORDS:

• Sexual harassment
• gender discrimination
• military
• reporting

Acknowledgments

We have no financial conflicts-of-interest pertaining to this manuscript. The opinions and assertions contained herein are the private opinions of the authors and are not to be construed as official or reflecting the views of the Department of Defense or the Office of People Analytics (OPA). We would like to acknowledge Ms. Kristin Williams and Dr. Ashlea Klahr from OPA, Ms. Shirely Raguindin from ODEI, and Dr. Nathan Galbreath and Dr. Aubrey Hilbert from the DoD Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office (SAPRO) for their editorial and policy assistance.

Notes

¹ Formerly the Office of Diversity Management and Equal Opportunity (ODMEO).

² A thorough review of military structure and terms is beyond the scope of this manuscript. Please see Atuel and Castro (2018) for a review of common military terms to assist practitioners and researchers in building military cultural competence.

³ Before 2016, the Center for Health and Resilience Research (H&R) resided within the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC). In 2016, the Defense Human Resources Activity (DHRA) reorganized and moved H&R under the newly established Office of People Analytics (OPA).

⁴ Flag rank refers to general officers in the military entitled to denote their senior command positions (e.g., typically ranks O-7 and higher).

⁵ It is standard practice within OPA to only use participants with complete data for analyses rather than imputation.

⁶ For simplicity, only standardized coefficients are shown. Unstandardized coefficients and standard errors are available upon request.