How often do you hear gossip in the workplace? Gossip is a normal type of human interaction. In fact, employees spend approximately 40 minutes each week gossiping. While not always good, there are some benefits. When you hear gossip, it can help you understand group norms and expectations to help your performance on the job. You may also receive warnings about potentially difficult colleagues so you can be better prepared. However, gossip often comes with a whole host of problems. Today, we dig into new research about the problems associated with gossip about your leader.
Gossip About Your Leader
Gossip is defined as evaluative talk about another person who is not there. Thus, gossip about your leader means your leader is not present to hear what is being said about them. New research shows that hearing gossip about your leader can be fairly harmful to your well-being. Researchers theorized that employees who hear negative gossip about their leader may become concerned about their role. They may worry that they won’t be able to escape potential harm from the leader. They may also begin to wonder if their career and their reputation at the company may be impacted by their leader’s behavior.
Imagine you hear something negative about your boss. For example, let’s say your coworker tells you that your boss stole an idea from one of your peers. Juicy gossip? Yes. Scary to think your boss would do something like that? Also yes! If this was a story about someone on a different team or even a peer, it would seem a little less scary and more like a warning. If it was a team member, you could go to your boss and complain if it ever happened to you. Or, you could avoid sharing ideas in one-on-one conversations with that person. But, the gossip is about your boss. That changes everything. You would likely feel a lot less power in the situation. How can you avoid sharing ideas with your leader? How can you avoid getting your ideas stolen by someone that has more leverage than you? Hearing this type of gossip can feel really stressful.
The Problems
Gossip about your boss can lead to rumination. In the previous example, you can imagine that you might think about the gossip a lot. You might worry about what ideas have already been stolen. On that last project, did your leader take the credit when talking to executives when you weren’t there? What about the big deliverable you have coming up? You put in some innovative ideas in it. You might fixate on what will happen once your leader sees those ideas. Will those ideas be stolen too?
Rumination is problematic for a variety of reasons. Obviously, those feelings of stress in the moment don’t feel great. But, the study also showed it impacted employees’ sleep quality and it makes them feel less energized at work the next day. This actually leads to less engagement at work and it makes employees withdraw a bit from their leader – helping them less and choosing not to go above and beyond. After hearing this type of gossip, employees are more exhausted, less engaged, and working more slowly. Clearly, this isn’t great for long-term career growth or personal well-being.
What To Do
So what do you do? It can be hard to avoid gossip since you aren’t the one spreading it. If you hear someone talking about your leader, try to avoid the situation. If you can’t, work on some coping mechanisms. Take some extra time at the end of the day to focus on recovery. Disconnect from work and do things for yourself that will help you sleep and not lose that precious energy.
Further, you can make a difference in your work environment for others. Don’t share gossip about leaders to their employees. Obviously, there may be extreme cases where an employee needs a warning. But, in general, try to keep that gossip to yourself. You don’t want to harm your colleagues with this type of gossip!
Finally, if you are a leader, create a positive and psychologically safe work environment so your team members feel like they can come to you with concerns. If employees are able to share gossip with you, you can explain situations and help put their minds at ease so they don’t fall into the trap of rumination.
