A Management Perspective

This blog is specifically concerned with the destructive effects of gossip on organizational culture and performance. The primary goal of my writing is to provide a thorough understanding of gossip and a path by which to overcome its destructiveness. Informal communication is an essential part of organizational behavior and, in my view; it does not have to have a malicious, corrosive side. Gossip is all too often a beast running free in the workplace inflicting great harm. It must be tamed and controlled to minimize the damage.

Managers must use as much sophistication when dealing with gossip as they would any other aspect of business life; taking employee communication seriously. Thinking about gossip requires work, because when you analyze it you must also think about concerns like the atmosphere of a workplace, whether interactions between employees tend more to the positive than to the negative and about whether positive communication is even encouraged at your workplace. It also makes managers think about a workplace’s corporate culture or style, something often admittedly uncomfortable. But ignore it at your own peril. If the style of your workplace is oppressive, or the overall tone or policies of the workplace is repressive, you’re guaranteed that toxic gossip will flourish.