Did you hear what Susan said about Sarah?

You may or may not have heard the quote, “What Susan says about Sarah says more about Susan than it does about Sarah.” 

 When I was around eighteen years old, I experienced my first real betrayal of gossip: two (I thought) very dear friends; the betrayal took me to bed for a few days.  

 It is harrowing to experience betrayal from people with whom you thought you had a relationship built on trust and loyalty.

 Until that moment, I thought that all gossip was fun, and if I am honest, it was the main way that I communicated with others. Many women admit to gossiping about people within and outside of their circle; nothing ignites a conversation better than judging another woman.

 Gossip can also be a great distraction because in focussing on what we perceive others are ‘doing wrong,’ we do not have to look at areas in our own lives that might need some examination. 

 In my early twenties, I had another insight into the destructive power of gossip. Someone at work was animatedly telling me about the ‘messed up life’ of another woman. In that moment, I realised that I could not trust the person speaking to me. Because if she was gossiping to me about ‘Sarah,’ there was a very high chance she was gossiping to ‘Sarah’ about me. 

 Gossip at work is as destructive to culture and safety as gossiping in our personal lives.

 Life has shifted since the pandemic hit, and many of us are reassessing the relationships and networks in which we choose to invest for the long term. 

Recently, while I was facilitating a Dare to Lead retreat, a client shared with me that she and her ‘work wife’ had been the gossips in their workplace, and it had backfired on them both. They had attended a zoom meeting, thought they were muted, and gossiped about a colleague; the colleague and their collective manager heard the whole conversation. 

One conversation left the reputation of two people damaged, and the confidence and trust of two others disintegrated.

Within the Dare to Lead framework, there are four skill sets that leaders can build. One of them is Braving trust. Braving is an acronym broken down into seven elements. The ‘V’ stands for the vault. This means that you don’t share information that is not yours to share; you don’t share information about other people. 

Gallup’s 2021 global employee engagement survey shows that only 20% of people are engaged at work. Of course, there are many reasons why people are disengaged at work, but we must not underestimate the destructive force of workplace gossip.

Although it may seem like a fun and trivial way to spend time, gossip erodes cultures. It sets up a dynamic in teams and organisations where there is no trust, and when there is no trust present, there is a lack of care andengagement. 

If you are running a business or work in a company, lack of engagement is kryptonite because once no one cares, things begin to crumble.

Creating cultures where people care means you have to create cultures where people feel safe. You may not be the person who can mandate the cultural guidelines of the workplace, but you can choose to mandate your own behaviour. 

You may not be the ‘gossip,’ but you can choose to walk away from a conversation that disempowers the woman who is not there to defend herself.

Courageous women have difficult conversations; they don’t talk about other women behind their back. 

I was once asked by a client, “How do I know if I’m gossiping?” 

I shared with her the questions I used to ask myself when I realised that I no longer wanted to be a gossip.

1. Would you say what you are saying behind someone’s back to their face? 2. Once the words have left your mouth, how do you feel? 3. Will you be proud of the person you were today when you lay your head on your pillow tonight?

There are circumstances when we do have to talk about people when they are not present: a surprise birthday party, for example, or collaborating to support someone who is struggling, but these conversations are very different from gossiping. 

We all know that our words create our worlds. We each have a choice in how we want to create and contribute to the world. 

What kind of workplace culture do you want to create?  

What kind of world do you want to create? 

If what Susan says about Sarah says more about Susan than it does about Sarah. 

Who do you want to be? 

About Kemi: Kemi Nekvapil is one of Australia’s leading credentialed coaches for female executives and entrepreneurs, an author and a highly sought-after international speaker. She has studied leadership and purpose at The Gross National Happiness Centre in Bhutan and trained with Dr Brené Brown to become a Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator, working with teams and organisations to create daring leaders and courageous cultures. Kemi is a facilitator for The Hunger Project Australia and a regular interviewer of industry icons including Elizabeth Gilbert, Martha Beck and Marie Forleo, and she hosts the number one ranking podcast The Shift Series. With a level of compassion and wisdom only gained through extraordinary life experience, Kemi is a powerful advocate for connected, value-based living.