Defeating Gossip – A Leaders Challenge

One of my struggles during change management is overcoming the sabotage by people trying to avoid a loss of comfort. I recently went through a period where too many conversations about a person were happening without that person. This gossip is detrimental in most every way possible. Here is I told my team I was going to overcome this:

Anticipate more redirects – in other words if you come to me to tell me something about someone, my first question is going to be have you shared this with that person. If the answer is no, then I am going to ask you if you need help sharing it with them. We are going to cut down communications that are around a person and have the conversation with the person. This may be a bit uncomfortable at first.

Nobody said being in a leadership role was going to be easy.

Who do you need forgiveness from? How can you cut down on the divisive gossip that destroys momentum?