In the era of change and innovation, which have become the core values in the 21st-century management, interest in the issue of empowerment has surged. Existing work has supported the effectiveness of empowerment across different countries, industries, and organizations, and its positive effect has been manifested even in government organizations and public enterprises, where bureaucracy and public interests are pursued. While discussion on empowerment in the military remains scarce, the concept of Mission Command, which has been introduced and reinforced since the end of the 20th century, implies that empowerment carries its weight in the military as well. The aim of this study is to investigate whether empowering behaviors of a commander promote subordinates’ voice behaviors, and the mechanism through which this effect unfolds. Data was collected in November, 2022 from the surveys of commanders and their 169 subordinates across 78 teams of the Marine Corps. Multi-level analysis using Mplus 8.1 revealed that a commander’s empowering behaviors increased the extent to which subordinates engaged in voice behavior, and that their procedural justice perception and intrinsic motivation mediated this effect. In addition, procedural justice showed a partial mediation effect while intrinsic motivation triggered a complete mediation effect. These results make theoretical contributions by expanding the horizons of scholarly efforts on empowerment and voice behavior, and also examining the empowerment issue in the military context. Practical implications regarding the effectiveness of Mission Command, which is yet to be fully settled as a management practice in the military context, are also provided.