Gossip in the Workplace: How to Interrupt It, Manage It, and Survive It

Mary Skop (00:00.334)
Welcome to Confessions of a Terrible Leader, where real leaders share the raw truth about the lessons they learned the hard way so you don't have to. Join our host, Layci Nelson, founder of Transcend Leadership Collective and former Terrible Leader. On this podcast, we invite you to step into the confessional and get real with the messy stories and behind the scenes reality of leadership. Let's get to it.

I'm

Mary Skop (00:26.606)
Hello friends and welcome back to Confessions of a Terrible Leader. I'm your friendly neighborhood podcast producer Mary Skop back here today with founder and president of Transcend Leadership Collective, Layci Nelson. Layci, welcome back.

So glad to be here and again, love this format. This is so fun for me. It's to flip the tables.

It is really fun and we keep it fresh. We don't batch record these. We text each other back and forth and talk about what's a hot issue that we want to address. We like to keep these at the very cutting edge of what's going on in the workplace today.

Exactly right. Yeah. What do we see trending? What's coming up? What do we hear from our clients? Often we'll hear the rumblings of things that we're starting to see patterns and themes in the clients that we serve. And so stay tuned and get it here first. We're usually about, not to brag, but about a year ahead, year and a half ahead of when it starts to come out like in HBR articles. We've seen

We try to be.

Layci Nelson (01:27.136)
what they've seen that led them to write the article, right? But we see it and we want to get it to you,

Yes, we do. And speaking of fresh, today we're going to do a rapid fire Q and a well, as rapid fire as you can do of a topic as loaded as this, we're going to do a rapid fire Q and a of workplace gossip. dun. I knew you were going to do that. So I was like, I'm in, I'm going to do it soon. Workplace gossip itself is.

clearly not a new phenomenon. It's as old as the earth. Before we jump into different nuances of workplace gossip, we want to point out that workplace gossip, is no respecter of gender or ideologies or backgrounds. There is no stereotypical aspect to workplace gossip, even though that is not necessarily something that has been communicated over the years. But I've been in many different

workplace situations from universities to virtual work to local arts organizations. And let me just tell you, it's for everybody. it's can have workplace gossip too.

There is not an industry that is above the workplace gossip that happens. It's as rampant in the admin level as it is on the warehouse floor or the field and everywhere in between. Yes. This is not something that only those people that haven't figured it out do. No, this is part of the human condition. We gossip. it can be really harmful, but you can also, once you learn how it works, wield it for the public.

Mary Skop (03:04.878)
of good.

Or evil, but don't do the evil part.

Please don't. So let's get into it, Layci. Kick us off. What's going on? Let's talk about workplace.

First of all, like I said, it's part of the human condition and I have yet to come in to any workplace where if you don't set up a norm for your expectation about gossip and how it works and how you want it to run in your team, you're going to just have this wild thing happening. So you have to address it head on. One of the mantras on our team is we don't talk about people, we talk to people. And that's something that we repeat over and over and over again.

But we also have these cues that we share with each other and that we help other workplaces do. Sometimes it can feel like, wait a minute, I'm not gossiping, I'm just venting. Am I not allowed to talk to anyone? Yeah, because everybody needs a place where they can shut the door and just vent if they need to. That is actually okay within the right parameters. First of all, rule number one for venting.

Mary Skop (03:51.596)
Right, that's tricky.

Layci Nelson (04:08.376)
call it venting. You should not be venting about anyone who reports directly to you, to their co-worker.

yeah, that's a good distinction to make.

Because you are immediately setting up an us and them dynamic and who's favorite, who's on the inside. Whether it's true or not, you are creating a perception of favoritism and who's in and who's out if you are doing that. If you have been doing that, stop. If you are new to leadership, we're telling you now, don't. You're going to save you some pain. There's that distinction. Venting immediately becomes gossip if you are doing it within a power dynamic.

where you are gossiping about people that are each other's coworkers, but you're a higher level of authority. So if you need to vent, go into your lateral space and vent with them. Or you can vent to your boss, right? But your boss shouldn't be venting to you about your coworkers. Yeah, there's that piece.

That's a big one. And you can see how destructive that would be for sure.

Layci Nelson (05:10.772)
It unfortunately happens all the time. Yeah. Part of why that happens all the time, what can feed that pattern is that all of sudden people that you were lateral with, when you get a promotion, when somebody gets promoted, their behaviors don't change. They still are like, my God, they walked in late again. Yeah. You should realize the dynamic shifts and you lose the privilege of being able to just say that as a one-off to somebody next to you without it having much different level of impact.

if you now are the boss saying that about somebody who walks through the door late and you're like, must be nice. You know, like you can say that to their lateral, but you don't get to make those little snide comments and eye rolls anymore without understanding there's that negative price tag for that and you're gonna pay. One of the other things that we think about gossip, gossip really thrives when there's uncertainty and people are creating narratives.

That makes sense.

Mary Skop (06:03.988)
Absolutely. Like if you, as a worker, if you don't know what's going on in upper leadership or if there's any type of ambiguity, especially if there is a general sense of instability, like there's some uncertainty about what's going on with the company as a whole, our brains are just going to fill in the blank. And we have a negative bias, even with all of the emotional regulation training skills in the world, we're automatically going to be

prone to thinking, worst case scenario, everything's shutting down, we're getting let go because no communication.

And so it's really important to recognize if you're in a seat of influence or leadership that there's some things you can do to create an environment where you're less likely to have to deal with large amounts of harmful gossip. Part of it is being intentional from the get-go. We talk to people not about people. And the other part is no news isn't good news. That does not exist at work.

No news means you just handed over the story creation to people that have one piece of the puzzle and a whole lot of fear, typically.

Yes, over-communicating is not a bad thing.

Layci Nelson (07:16.686)
So fear is one of the main reasons people gossip, to fill in the unknown. It also can be used to gain influence.

Okay. Tell me more, Okay.

So why are reasons people gossip? Well, they may have their own agenda or their own perspective that they're really trying to push through in something that's going on in the office or in the workplace. And so they're going to use that back channel influence. And they may not even have this language to wrap around it, but it's what's happening.

When you think of diplomacy and one country wants another country to do something, usually there's a whole lot of chatter happening in the background before we ever know because they're trying to influence one another. When you think about people that are in the workplace, then there's that influence gathering. Let's say there's chatter that there's going to be some sort of schedule change. And it usually starts around what seemed like not huge things.

So it's going to be a schedule change. We're going to open an hour earlier and let people go home an hour earlier. And the communication hasn't been especially clear on that, hasn't been communicated well, or they know it's up for debate. So what's going to happen? People are going to start chattering and they're going to be gaining influence. Like, have they even thought about why? That's a good idea. And if we do this, it's going to be so disruptive. And they're presenting their side, right? Their case, because they want the general.

Layci Nelson (08:42.734)
push and sentiment to be in alignment with what they want. That's human nature. Right? Sure. The other can be to maintain status. Gossip thrives in unhealthy environments. So you can see it's going to work better in some environments than not. But let's say there's a lot of this us and them kind of thing happening. It can be a tool that's used to maintain the status and reinforce stereotypes or reinforce assumptions or you know they don't really care. When you start hearing they

Layci Nelson (09:12.216)
them, us, we. That split is in full effect. Yeah. We're going to talk about how to be smart about gossip in an environment that's full of it. How do you be smart about it? Understanding why people use it is part of understanding how to make wise moves yourself and decide when to engage and not engage. Most people listening to this, if you're at the top, you're going to be the least engaged because people don't gossip to you.

Eee, mmm, mm-hmm.

Layci Nelson (09:40.194)
That's why we end up blindsided sometimes or something's been happening for months. We are not the ones that get the scuttlebutt. Every layer where there's less and less communication and awareness of what's happening, there's more and more room for these games to be played where gossip thrives. So gaining influence, maintaining status. If people feel like they need to maintain their status or build alliances, gossip's going to be probably largely at play in those environments and challenging power. So to undermine authority.

It's often used as an informal and effective way to undermine people's authority. That's why we do it, not to mention it feels good.

Yeah, even though it's not a healthy way of communication, it helps us feel connected. We want to find an ally in whatever it is that we're experiencing. And it just so happens to be really easy to do that under negative circumstances.

And the more wariness we have and the more fear and uncertainty we have, the more we want that connection. Right. Here's another fun neuroscience fact. It actually releases dopamine to gossip. Yeah. It literally is like a cycle. I need a dopamine hit. I'm going to get in on some gossip. I feel good for a minute. When all of this is happening, when we're unaware, we don't really know the full impact, the full effects, or we just engage in it because it's fun.

and it feels good, but it's harmful and it's used to try to fill a power vacuum or a lack of information or to further drive wedges into the us-them or a self-protective mode. We've all probably worked with that person that goes around talking about everybody and it's so apparent that they're just trying to make themselves feel okay, but they can't see it. If you're in it and you're listening to this, you're like, yeah, a hundred percent.

Mary Skop (11:22.51)
Right. Right.

Layci Nelson (11:29.378)
But if you're a higher up and you're like, I'm probably shielded. I'm one of the last to know, know, HR tells me we have a problem. What are some things that you can pay attention to besides what we've already addressed, like the gaps in the narrative and all of that. You can pay attention to if you hear the phrase often or even off to the side of people are saying things like, you know, I probably shouldn't say this, but.

uh-huh. Red flag. Yeah, I can see it.

Yeah. Also, if people know more about other people, then they know about work projects happening. If you're cross-functional or even within your department, if people are way more aware of who's got what going on in their life and who's showed up when and who's got beef with who, then they are about what's the status of the project, what's the next step, might have a problem. And then finally, this is a big one.

yeah.

Decisions have to be interpreted because they're not clearly communicated. And later this falls on us.

Mary Skop (12:30.082)
Right?

How many times do I coach executives through when people leave your office or leave an interaction with you, a text, phone, whatever the methodology, there should be a very clear understanding of what you expect their next step to be or what you both agree their next step is going to be. Many of us in leadership positions, our brains are wired to take in a million pieces of stimulus and then we just spit it back out.

but we don't realize that it's really confusing when we're thinking out loud. especially for those of us that are verbal processors, like myself, when we're thinking out loud, our team, unless we are super intentional, our team is often like, I don't know what the directive was. Right.

Okay, so what am I supposed to do? No, no, no, we were just spitballing like a vision. And if you're standing there with your notebook and your pencils, okay, I'm ready. What am I supposed to do? Oh, wait, no, it's not that kind of conversation. Yeah, communicating around those kinds of is this a decision? Or is this like a brain storm?

Yes. And maybe a decision was made, but there's 42 gaps in the plan. Right. Then what happens is we tend to start gossiping instead of just asking, we tend to start trying to interpret. what do think he really meant by that? Well, you know, he changes his mind every 10 minutes. So that kind of stuff starts and people are trying to get their feet under them. And instead it turns into this.

Layci Nelson (14:01.42)
He said, she said, telephone game, it 42 different iterations later, and we wonder why we have a mess. Yes. Some of the things that I get asked, okay, I'm in this environment, I'm gonna do what I can to not feed it, when it is someone that is your lateral, and they're coming to you, and they're dumping over and over. It turns into gossip and just, my God, I don't wanna listen to this anymore if you're in that seat. One of the things that you can do is,

Hey, I've noticed you've been venting about this same situation a lot. Have you thought about how you want to approach the person to get some resolution or make a difference in the situation? That's letting them know, I want you to move this forward. The other thing that can happen is triangulation. You've got one person that's working two people against each other. If you're in the seat of going, this triangulation thing is happening.

One of the things that you can do to try to interrupt that and you're not in the seat of the supervisor and you're like, what do I say to my peer? This is really awkward. You can say, you know what? It sounds like there's some information that's being used to make this person look bad. I think we should bring them in. That's either going to shut down the gossip because they're going to be like, no, actually, I think we're okay. No, I don't need to talk about it.

We're fine. Never mind. Never mind.

There's also way without judgment for them to know that you're paying attention. Yeah, right. When you're in a gossipy environment and you're like, I just need to survive this, do not engage. You can listen, you can make these comments, but do not add your own. You can learn so much from listening and from paying attention and looking for patterns that come up. You can learn how to smartly navigate, but don't engage.

Layci Nelson (15:49.292)
Because the minute you engage and you start adding to the device of comments, it isn't serving anyone at that point, not even yourself.

Yes, it's really tricky in that we're talking about getting a hit of dopamine from gossip because it's this connection, this release. But another danger of that is that it gives this illusion of something's being done. So you get this chain of feedback in your brain where you're like, I see so and so I'm going to go dump on that other person again, because I talked to them. They must want the update.

think we're dumping on them. Right. We're like, they must want to know. I got to fill them.

They're like, oh, guess what happened today. Exactly. It's like, well, remember what I told you the other day? You're never going to guess what happened today. We get this very false sense when we do that, that something's actually being done. And that's just not true. It's not true at all. So if you change the path, like you said, through the things you mentioned about diverting, not engaging, putting an to the triangulation and making the suggestion that I'm listening to you, but also this can't go on. If you talk about, let's bring them in.

and then they freak out, that's a clear communication that I hear you and also can't like.

Layci Nelson (17:01.774)
Really, I don't want to spend two hours of my day. I got so many other things to do.

No. my gosh. There is no time.

The other thing that you can say to kind of short circuit it and interrupt that illusion, which is such a beautiful observation, Mary, thank you, interrupt that illusion that something is being done is using a phrase like, you know, it sounds like you really care about this. You brought this issue three times. Clearly you're really frustrated. Yeah. Why don't we find a way that we could surface this or bring this up that's not going to cause collateral damage?

Yeah, I think that is so helpful because it's a very non-threatening way of acknowledging that you're clearly deeply frustrated and affected by this. So let's see if something actually can be done about this. It could diffuse so much if handled in that way.

I had a colleague that used to want to talk about what was happening and frustrations in the office setting or frustrations, what was happening out in the field. And I'm not kidding you, it was like an hour minimum and yeah, and I had to figure out how do I diplomatically say, I don't want to listen to your gossip anymore. Yeah, that's rough. Yeah. And me.

Mary Skop (18:05.271)
man, that's

Mary Skop (18:13.966)
Yeah.

Layci Nelson (18:18.36)
pragmatic and productive. I'm like, this is not efficient. We are not getting anything done with this. Find that way that feels good for you to redirect. Should you bring them in? Should you talk to them about it is one way. It might feel better for you to say, what are some ways that this could be surfaced without collateral damage? I've heard you talk about the same thing like three times in a non-judgmental way saying that to them, but letting them know. I would like to be done talking about this issue.

Right? Yeah. Speaking of workplace gossip, I just wanted to point out that we do have an upcoming webinar.

We do. It's on the 19th. Yes. We have a whole series on transcending the zombie apocalypse. We talked about the conflict zombie already. We're going to be taking on the gossip zombie on the 19th. I'm sure Mary's going to drop all the links in the show notes. Absolutely. And then we also, at least through the summer, we're going to be continuing this series once a month on these common, it's just a quick little bite of actionable things you can do. These common work.

place zombies that if they bite a hole to your team can infect the whole team.

That's right. Yes.

Layci Nelson (19:32.02)
So how do we set ourselves up to be ready to face the zombie apocalypse and not get infected? And in high pressure and uncertain times, the zombies are even more infectious and more rampant. And we're definitely living in unprecedented times.

yeah, it's been many years of unprecedented care.

Many years of unprecedented times.

but we are here to help with that.

Yes. And so really inoculating your whole team against these zombie viruses and recognizing what do we do? What do we do when we know it's part of the culture and we want to change that? Yeah. Yeah. Gossip's the next one. And then stay tuned. I'm not sure what might be coming up next is the comfort zone zombie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that might be the one for July.

Mary Skop (20:18.734)
Mary Skop (20:23.438)
Okay, that's a one.

These are guided by what our listeners and webinar engagement people, those that are showing up, they get to dictate what we teach next. Right. And we're not reposting. So this is actually tuned in if you can. Anyways, gossip's a common one. Hopefully you picked up some strategies that could be helpful. One other gossip interrupter line that you can use. I already gave you a couple, but another one is, so we're clear. Is this for problem solving or venting?

Do you just need to vent or do you want solutions? Yes. That can also cue them into like, I just need to vent. Okay. But then if it's the third time of it, that's when you start saying these other lines that sounds like you care. Let's find a way to surface this without causing collateral damage. Or it sounds like this information is being used to make somebody look really bad. Maybe they should be brought into this conversation. Those little interrupters that can cut it off.

It might not solve the problem, but it can at least redirect and bring awareness that you'll listen, but you're not someone that's going to indulge. And that can be helpful for you in many ways.

Yes. I will take a moment to, in the show notes, gather the talking points and, Layci, I'll collaborate with you. Yes. And see how we want to present those talking points because it's a situation that's fraught with a lot of nerves. Yeah. It can be very hard to remember even in the moment, like, shoot, what was I supposed to say? Especially, you know, difficult relationship.

Mary Skop (21:54.22)
Sometimes it's just nice to have little reminder cues. Yeah, that kind of support. Yeah. We'll get all of that organized in the show notes in some format. Yep. This is no small topic.

I just feel like I just barely scratched the surface.

I know. It's so incredibly complex. There's a million different things that can go into that. But for today, we will wrap up. We may revisit workplace gossip later. It's something that everyone has to deal with at some point. So we wanted to shine a light on that. Layci, do you have any closing words for our listeners?

I do. When there's a lot of gossip happening in the office or in the workplace or wherever you're at, when there's a lot of gossip at work, it is a sign, a flag, that you have a culture issue. And the issue isn't just you got a bunch of people that like to talk bad about each other. That's a symptom. It's symptomatic of a deeper issue that likely has to do, in our experience and the research shows, with a lack of clarity and a lack of communication. That is where gossip

thrives and is actually a necessary tool for people to have what their brains need to feel like they can even function in the structure. instead of looking at it as a moral personal failing, it's a symptom of a deeper issue.

Mary Skop (23:09.656)
That's great. It's not necessarily a thing where punitive measures have to be taken. Right. It's deeply symptomatic. Yes. Absolutely. Wow. That is a lot. friends, we're going to leave you with that. We'll be coming back with fresh Q &A's every month on very current topics. But until next time, go manage.

like a leader. for listening to Confessions of a Terrible Leader. If you're feeling brave and have your own Terrible Leader story that you'd like to share, head over to TranscendLeadershipCollective.com slash podcast to fill out a guest application. We'd love to hear from you. Confessions of a Terrible Leader is hosted by Layci Nelson and produced and edited by Fixation Point Productions. Music is by Leif Olsen and Mary Skop from the band The Number of Months. Confessions of a Terrible Leader is a free leadership resource offered by Transcend Leadership Collective.

If you are ready to refuse the limits of average leadership and join the leadership revolution, visit TranscendLeadershipCollective.com to check out our offerings for engaging workshops, strategic planning, and more. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave us a review. And until next time, go manage like a leader.