A disgruntled employee is verbally assailing you and your good work. You might’ve learned about this bad behavior by way of an inadvertent Reply All email (Absolutely! We’ll pause while you take a second to double check your email settings). You might’ve found out via a screen shot from a social media post. (Some people skipped the meeting about privacy on public platforms and it shows.) You might’ve found out by overhearing a loud diatribe in the hallway. Awkward doesn’t being to capture it. How you found out is less important than how you’ll correct and coach this colleague away from petty gossip and complaints towards professional dialogue and discussion.

If a teammate is talking trash about your management style and you say nothing, you’ve inadvertently given a green light to their amateur attempt to get attention. While there are workplace scenarios that fall into the category of “I’m not going to dignify that comment with a response,” this employee’s recklessness must be acknowledged. For every team member that knows how to ignore the cheap chatter, there will be another tempted to participate. Positivity and negativity are equally contagious and it’s your responsibility to make sure the negativity has no chance to take root. The team member might be wrong about you on every other management issue, but you’ve “own goaled” yourself if you choose to say nothing.

This is a safe space so you can admit that for one glorious moment you imagined Replying ALL with this all-time classic, “Maybe if you didn’t need so much supervision, you’d be less focused on criticizing me and more focused on doing a better job.” Yikes. Step away from the self-inflicted misery. Rebuttals like this do nothing to address your employee’s behavior; in fact, it will only add fuel to the fire of complaints and frustration. If their use of Reply All was problematic, responding in kind is no better.

There are two layers to the better response, and both are tied to what you hope to accomplish. Are you zeroed in on shutting down the “behind the back” complaining, or do you have the bandwidth to address the actual criticism as well? Gossiping and enrolling colleagues into negativity is inconsistent with your organization’s culture of trust and collaboration, so a timely conversation is nonnegotiable. “Here’s what I’ve [heard/read/seen]”, followed by the expectation that in this workplace we “talk to each other, not about each other” establishes that dialogue descending into disrespect will not be tolerated. Adding “I take any and all concerns seriously when they are conveyed to me directly.” leaves no room for confusion. Before you wrap it up, use this opportunity to pose self-reflection questions: “What do you think you can do to rebuild the trust that’s been lost?” or “If you could re-script these events, what would you do differently?”

Once the dust settles, you can be curious about the criticism without suggesting agreement or approval of the content. Ask specific and neutral questions:

• “I know you’ve got concerns with my management style. Help me understand how it’s impacting you.”

• “Can you give me an example of a manager or management style that has helped you succeed?”

• “What is something that is going well in the way I manage the team?”

The final word

Gossip or any type of malicious idle talk is a drag, but it doesn’t have to sink your team. With your excellent leadership, this negativity and gossip can be transformed. Now that’s something we can all talk about!