No Bull Business Blog

Gossip: Treat it as a viral infection

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Managing Gossip: What You Need to Know to Keep the Rumor Mill in Check.

Gossip and rumors spread much like any sort of disease - from one person to another.

But just like a viral or bacterial infection, some people are more susceptible to the invading germs, and others are more active in spreading them. It's important for managers to identify these individuals so the spread of gossip and rumors can be contained.

An experienced manager will be able to spot a gossipmonger or rumor mill feeder more easily than  will a new boss. But any manager can learn to identify the telltale traits of these folks.

To prevent or stop office gossip, a manager must first understand the personality profile of an employee who spreads information about others.

Very often, the person who is a gossip monger is also a person with an unsatisfied ego. The need to feel important or the need for power, coupled with a weak value system, can add up to the kind of person who uses gossip as a way to ingratiate himself or herself with others. By offering up valuable information, this person feels needed, valuable and indispensible to others.

Most gossipers are flat-out attention seekers. They want to draw attention to themselves to feel connected and powerful within an organization.

If knowledge is power, displaying that knowledge will demonstrate the gossiper's powerful profile.

DIGGING DEEPER
You can't keep employees from gossiping, but you can keep it from getting out of control and even use it to benefit your organization. Find out more in the Executive Report: Managing Gossip: What You Need to Know to Keep the Rumor Mill in Check.

Management and leadership are not the same thing

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Taking Leadership to the Next Level.

Leadership and management go hand in hand, but they aren't the same.

Warren Bennis, one of the nation's foremost authorities on leadership, described the difference between management and leadership best with the following definitions:

• "To manage means to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for, to conduct."
  
• "Leading is influencing, guiding in a direction, course, action, opinion. The distinction is crucial."
  

Yes, managers have some leadership qualities, and leaders need management skills. But leaders see the big picture and keep an eye on the horizon. Managers focus on what needs to get done at that time with an eye on the bottom line.

Stephen Covey, who has published extensively on leadership, used a ladder scenario to demonstrate the difference between leadership and management in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

"Management is concerned with getting up a ladder in the most effective and most efficient manner. Leadership is making certain the ladder is on the right wall."

To be successful, management and leadership must go hand in hand.

DIGGING DEEPER
Leadership makes the difference in every successful organization. The myth says leaders are born. That's simply not true. Find out more about what it takes to be a great leader in the Executive Report: Taking Leadership to the Next Level.