Workplace gossip

I. Read and translate the text.

The negative effects of gossip are strained relationships, mistrust, discontentment, even anger, and decreased productivity. For example, how much time have you wasted, in long conversations, complaining to others about the colleague who isn’t as helpful as he could be, or your partner who isn't as loving as you'd like, or how you know that that other department has a hidden agenda, that conflicts with your team's goals! Gossip really spoils the work environment.

Every great relationship is built upon a foundation of trust, reliability, honor, and integrity. As a leader you are responsible for developing healthy relationships, both with your direct reports, your colleagues and your senior leaders. Involving yourself in workplace gossip is a surefire way to undermine your credibility as a person and as a leader.

As a leader, it is not your role to be a sounding board for complaining and gossip in the workplace nor to solve people's issues for them. Rather, it is your role to coach

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and guide people to resolve their issues with others, quickly and successfully. When you do this consistently, your people will know that they can trust you.

That you won't talk about them unless they are present. It will be one of the greatest acts of leadership that you can do.

There are two things you want to be aware of when listening to workplace gossip:

- You hear the other person's rule book, their interpretations, prejudices, biases and fears etc. You don't know what other events have passed between Jim and Mary that may have caused Mary to be complaining to you about Jim.

- Once you have listened to Mary's gossip, you may now have been contaminated about Jim - even if you didn't want to be. Some part of you may believe the gossip – and you may very well start to look for those negative traits in Jim and find them!

According to human resource experts, workplace gossip can be identified by factors or " signs":

- animated people become silent (Conversations stop when you enter the room);

- people begin staring at someone;

- workers indulge in inappropriate topics of conversation.

There are five tips to handle the situation with aplomb:

1) Rise above the gossip;

2) Understand what causes or fuels the gossip;

3) Do not participate in workplace gossip;

4) Allow for the gossip to go away on its own.

Peter Vajda identifies gossip as a form of workplace violence, noting that it is " essentially a form of attack." Gossip is thought by many to " empower one person while disempowering another" (Hafen). Accordingly, many companies have formal policies in their employee handbooks against gossip.

Sometimes there is room for disagreement on exactly what constitutes unacceptable gossip, since workplace gossip may take the form of offhand remarks about someone's tendencies such as " He always takes a long lunch, " or " Don’t worry, that’s just how she is."

Corporate email can be a particularly dangerous method of gossip delivery, as the medium is semi-permanent and messages are easily forwarded to unintended recipients. Thus, employers should be advised to instruct employees against using company email networks for gossip. Lowself-esteem and a desire to " fit in" are frequently cited as motivations for workplace gossip. There are five essential functions that gossip has in the workplace (according to DiFonzo & Bordia):

- Helps individuals learn social information about other individuals in the organization (often without even having to meet the other individual).

- Builds social networks of individuals by bonding co-workers together and affiliating people with each other.

- Breaks existing bonds by ostracizing individuals within an organization.

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- Enhances one's social status/power/prestige within the organization.

- Inform individuals as to what is considered socially acceptable behavior

within the organization.

According to Kurkland and Pelled, workplace gossip can be very serious depending upon the amount of power that the gossiper has over the recipient, which

will in turn affect how the gossip is interpreted. There are four types of power that are influenced by gossip:

- coercive: when a gossiper tells negative information about a person, their recipients might believe that the gossiper will also spread negative information about them. This causes the gossipers coercive power to increase.

- reward: when a gossiper tells positive information about a person, their recipient might believe that the gossiper will also spread positive information about them. This causes the gossipers reward power to increase.

- expert: when a gossiper seems to have very detailed knowledge of either the organization's values or about others in the work environment, their expert power becomes enhanced.

- referent: this power can either be reduced or enhanced to a point. When people view gossiping as a petty activity done to waste time, a gossiper’s referent power can decrease along with their reputation. When a recipient is thought of as being invited into a social circle by being a recipient, the gossiper’s referent power can increase, but only to a high point where then the recipient begins to resent the gossiper (Kurland & Pelled).

(By Harcourt, Richerson & Wattier)

II. Read and memorize the following words:

agenda – повестка дня

anger – гнев

be aware of – сознавать, отдавать себе полный отчёт в чём-либо

coercive – принудительный, обязательный

consistently - последовательно

contaminate v. – оказывать пагубное влияние, загрязнять

credibility – достоверность, правдоподобие

discontentment – недовольство, досада

empower v. - уполномочивать

even – даже

goal – цель

indulge v. – потворствовать, потакать

integrity – целостность, прямота

lowself-esteem – низкая самооценка

participate v. in – участвовать в

prejudice – предрассудки

spoil v. – портить

strained – натянутый, неестественный

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surefire – безошибочный, верный, надёжный

trust v. – доверять

violence - насилие

trust v. – доверять

waste v. – тратить (впустую)