Highlights

—Men who gossip are perceived by co-workers as less competent and less qualified for leadership.

—Women are also penalized for gossiping but were dinged less heavily.

—Why? Stereotypes. Gossip is seen as something women do, so what do you expect? Men, on the other hand, aren’t supposed to gossip. 

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So, did you hear? Don’t tell anybody but…

Men pay a higher gossip penalty at work than women. 

A new study from the Tippie College of Business finds that men who are seen as office blabbermouths are considered to be less competent in their jobs and less qualified for leadership than women who are also seen as talking out of turn. 

Trevor Spoelma, associate professor of management and entrepreneurship and study co-author, said the reason reflects stereotypical views of men and women. Society sees gossip as something that women do—the mean girls, the Karens, the busybodies. When people see a woman co-worker gossiping, they think, ‘Well, what do you expect.’

Men, on the other hand, are not supposed to gossip, they’re expected to be above that, and focus on their work and their next promotion. As a result, coworkers see gossipy men as considerably less competent and less equipped for leadership.

Women are also penalized, Spoelma said, but not to the extent that men are.  

“Stereotypes influence behavior and they affect how people respond to that behavior,” said Spoelma. 

Gossip can be good

He noted that office gossip isn’t always bad. In some cases, it can be used to call out slackers, warn coworkers about problems, or reinforce positive group behaviors. But when it’s used to criticize other workers unfairly, question their competence, or complain generally, then it starts to damage team cohesiveness. 

The researchers conducted three studies, with a classroom observation and two online experiments. For the classroom, they surveyed 272 undergraduate students who were working in five-person teams for a class project to evaluate their teammates on an array of qualities. 

They also used a pair of online surveys of about 450 U.S. workers, which confirmed that gossips received lower competence ratings across the board regardless of gender, but men were docked more heavily than women. 

The takeaway

Spoelma said the findings are important because businesses are turning more and more to “flat” organizations, relying on teams to manage themselves. To most effectively do that, they rely on leaders to naturally emerge through social interactions among the team. 

The study is published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior. 

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