If you are aware of a gossip culture within your organisation, it should be considered a symptom of a deeper issue: a lack of trust and the presence of fear.

A lack of trust because: for those who are privy to gossip (at any level), the tacit understanding is that if someone if gossiping to you, they will gossip about you.

And fear, because of a lack of systems and support for honest, open communication; a lack of training in how to handle gossip and nurture a culture of direct, positive communication; the confusion of feedback with criticism; and a fear of reprisal for speaking out, that causes issues to be silenced into whispers.

Can’t gossip be positive too, though?

There is a trend in some media to say that ‘gossip is good for you!’

Naturally, there is such a thing as harmless office chit-chat. Indeed, Elena Martinescu, a research associate at Vrije Universitetit Amsterdam, who’s extensively studied the psychology of gossiping, believes it can be a good thing, in moderation: “According to evolutionary theory, humans have developed gossip in order to facilitate co-operation in a group.” (BBC).

What’s more, research in Taiwan found that gossip related to an element of ‘psychological capital’ for employees, to extend the currency metaphor further. Having said that, the research also found that engaging in Workplace Negative Gossip (WNG) may decrease gossipers' work-related in-role performance and job-related well-being.” (Front Public Health).

So what’s normal?

Every business and organisation of any size must accept a certain level of chatter. They must allow that individual consternation will at times be expressed amongst colleagues and may not always be expressed openly or constructively, equally that ‘positive news gossip’ can help spread messages in a somewhat helpful way. To an extent there is a level of healthiness in an organisation accepting that this will inevitably occur. Some managers may even feel that gossip has a helpful ability to keep ‘their ear to the ground’ of emerging issues, enabling them to check the temperature of goings on without having to do so overtly. Whether that’s a particularly effective approach for a manager to take is for another article.

What goes wrong with gossip?

When we consider what goes wrong with gossip we have to see it for what it is: the representation of a system of distrust, elitism, power and control. It can be read as indications that the opposite is potentially alive: people don’t feel trusted and trusting; people feeling disempowered and not empowered; and people may feel a lack of freedom of self and expression, amongst other things.

Needless to say, when gossip goes unchecked and is allowed to thrive unfettered, it generates a corrosive force that can be highly damaging to organisational engagement, wellbeing and performance. Resulting in attrition, low morale, disengaged workforce, risk to reputation internally and externally, and sickness and absence rates.

In a gossip culture, knowledge is traded as a currency of power:

There are those who know, and those who don’t.
There are those who know more than others, and they make that known: “I can’t tell you.”
There are those who are the subject of gossip and either know or don’t know.

What this generates is an intra-organisational frequency of fear, uncertainty and distrust that is self-regenerative.

It occurs at various levels:

Organisational and individual.
In our outer and inner worlds (what’s seen and felt, respectively).
What’s hidden and concealed both consciously and unconsciously: above and below our awareness.

Regardless of the seen and unseen aspects of gossip, at its core is a quality that is visibly invisible - when a thriving gossip culture is alive, it creates an energy that is detectable, resulting in cliques, whispers, silences, masking, microaggressions, gut instincts being subverted, overt displays of gossip at all levels, the list goes on.

The fertiliser to a gossip culture is often ineffective communications (a sense of nothing happens when someone does speak up, or effective communications being choked off before reaching all employees with parity); lack of systematised feedback and praise; an apparent ‘brushing under the carpet’ or invisibilisation of legitimate concerns; poor behaviours that go unchallenged; weak modelling and encouragement of open, frank, honest communication at all levels of the organisation.

In having this fundamentally ulterior mode, it breeds distrust, and because gossip feeds power imbalances and seeds distrust in a systematic way, it must be systematically dismantled.

Tips for dismantling a gossip culture:

Ensure relevant policies are clear about what is and what is not acceptable behaviour, e.g. email policy, bullying and harassment, whistleblowing policies, any employee handbook and induction process should create an opportunity for discussion of how feedback should and will be provided and how concerns should be raised.
Systems of feedback and praise should be implemented so that regular, consistent, actionable, specific and kind feedback can be provided.
Systems for raising concerns should be clear and accessible to all staff.
Leadership must resist patterns of gossip and be clear and consistent in how it is tackled and what will and will not be tolerated.
Gossip should be challenged and seen to be challenged; this can occur generally in staff comms, as well as directly as necessary, but also specifically through open, honest and direct discussion.
The bystander effect should be considered, and support for recipients of or witnesses of gossip should be provisioned.
Team and individual conflict resolution should be provisioned and encouraged.
Training should be provided to anyone with supervisory or line management responsibility, as well as more widely across teams and the organisation as a whole.
A wellbeing strategy should have psychological safety clearly embedded.
Managers should be equipped with the skills and confidence to effectively and consistently manage performance and behaviours.
Resist projection by encouraging the use of emotional responsibility and ‘I’ statements, for example, rather than tolerating someone saying “They’re so annoying…” - provide effective challenge and invite them to take responsibility for how they’re feeling and describe it accurately, e.g. “I feel annoyed”.
Establish clear routes for people to speak up, be heard and provide feedback, but clearly manage expectations:
- leadership cannot promise to do something with everything staff tell them, but they can promise to listen to and consider 100% of what they hear.

Attuned Leadership Ltd is a strategic learning and organisational development consultancy. We also provide leadership skills development and management training. All of our work is underpinned by emotional intelligence and relational psychodynamics. If you’re concerned about any of the issues raised in this post and would like support, please contact us to discuss.