Honor Your Word, Be Candid, End Gossip

Tell the truth, don’t lie, and stop gossiping. 

It seems so simple, so clear-cut, so obvious. However, it’s not.

Research shows that 97% of people admit to outright lying. And, while lying is a problem in many nonprofit organizations, it’s not nearly as big of a problem as withholding.

According to Jack Welch, leadership expert and former CEO of GE, “the team that sees reality the best wins.” For nonprofit leadership teams, seeing reality clearly requires all the team members to be candid. But in many nonprofit organizations, leaders practice selective candor, or put another way, they withhold.

“Withholding” is the act of refraining from revealing everything to all the relevant parties. Everything includes facts, thoughts (including beliefs, opinions, and judgments), feelings, and sensations. At any moment, individuals and leaders are either revealing or concealing. They are either becoming more transparent or more opaque.

Leaders who are candid and reveal (facts, thoughts, feelings, and sensations) have a free flow of abundant energy for accomplishing their vision. Leaders who conceal and withhold interrupt this free flow of energy in themselves and their organizations. People withhold for many reasons, including:

-They don’t want to hurt others’ feelings.

-They don’t want conflict.

-They say to themselves: “it won’t do any good to tell them anyway (because they’ll never change).”

-Or, they say: “nobody else in this culture talks about these things directly with other people so I shouldn’t either.”

With candor, you care personally AND challenge directly (Kim Scott’s definition from her excellent book Radical Candor). However, that does NOT mean you are rude. Rudeness is a form of obnoxious aggression. It also does NOT mean that you are insincere.

Here’s one way it might look according to Thubten Codron:

“Your grandmother invites you for a homemade dinner, but she forgot that you don’t like what she serves. When she asks, “How do you like the food?” do you say, “Grandma, I don’t like it,” which is the truth, or do you lie and reply, “It’s delicious,” so she isn’t offended? Neither. The question she is asking is, “I cooked this food because I love you. Are you receiving my love?” So when she asks about the food, you can reply, “Grandma, I appreciate your cooking dinner so much, and I’m delighted to spend time with you. I care about you.” That is the truth, and it makes her much happier than saying you like her food, even if it’s the food you do like.”

Now that exchange has integrity (for the most part). It fully expresses the thoughts and feelings in the service of the relationship. The “fact” that Grandma forgot that the Granddaughter does not particularly care for the type of food she prepared is irrelevant. The connection remains “whole and complete,” which is the definition of integrity. In this case, the relationship remains “workable.”

In this context, we can look at integrity not so much as doing the right thing or conforming to a moral or ethical code (“do not tell a lie”) but rather as facilitating the flow of positive energy and wholesome relationships.

According to Werner Erhardt, integrity for a person is “a matter of the person’s word, nothing more and nothing less.” For a person to have integrity, the word of that person must be (as integrity is defined in the dictionary) “whole, complete, unbroken, unimpaired, sound, perfect condition.”

Why your word? In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz shares that your word is the power that you have to create. Through the word, you express your creativity. It is through the word that you manifest everything. Regardless of what language you speak, your intent manifests through the word. In the context of fundraising, your word to donors is worth your weight in gold.

You might think of your word as a force; it is the power you have to express and communicate, to think, and thereby to create the events in your life. However, like a two-edged sword, your word can create, or it can destroy. One edge is the misuse of the word. The other edge is the “impeccability” of the word.

When your word is impeccable, it creates a culture of integrity, a culture where each person takes 100% responsibility for actions. A culture where individuals speak authentically and with candor. A culture where gossip is minimized and even eliminated. A culture where agreements are made and kept.

An agreement is anything you have said you will do or anything you have said you won’t do. It exists between two or more people. When you say to a colleague, “I’ll get you the report by Tuesday at 5 p.m.,” you have made an agreement.

To empower and enable yourself as a leader, you will have to be rigorous in honoring your word. And, when you are up to something big in the world, there will be times when agreements are broken (like, “I’m not going to be able to get the report to that colleague by Tuesday at 5pm.”). At those times, it’s essential to remember that as soon you know you will not or may not be keeping your word, you let those to whom you gave your word know, and clean up any mess left for yourself and others.

Even leaders who have integrity and who are candid can fall into the trap of spreading and listening to gossip. “Gossiping” is the practice of sharing information about people who are not present in a “casual or unconstrained conversation [that] typically involves details not confirmed as being true.”

We are all familiar with it. Nearly every nonprofit organization is infused with it, and many leaders believe it’s a good thing. They mistakenly think that it helps grease the wheels of communication and that it will somehow serve as a source of valuable information that enables the organization to function smoothly.

Unfortunately, gossip accomplishes none of these. Leaders who rely on it to do so make a faulty assumption that people are unwilling or unable to be straight with one another. And, they fear that if people did express themselves candidly, all havoc would break loose. Gossip is not a sign of healthy communication — it’s a symptom of a more significant issue. It’s a sign that people in the organization are fundamentally out of integrity with each other, and that they waste time, energy, and effort spreading information about others instead of focusing on advancing the organization and its mission.

In the excellent book, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership the authors (Jim Dethmer, et.al.) describe gossip as a destructive force that is not helpful. One that harms the people and relationships involved and creates organizational DYSFUNCTION. They encourage leaders to commit to: “ending gossip, talking directly to people with whom they have a concern, and encouraging others to talk directly to people with whom they have an issue or concern.”

Easier said than done.

Why do people gossip anyway? While scientists site many reasons that we are hard-wired for gossip, there appear to be three main motivations and potential benefits for engaging in the behavior:

1. Avoiding Conflict — People fear that direct confrontation would cause a problem, so they vent their frustrations to a third party rather than bring it directly to the person whom it concerns.
2. Accumulating Power — Receiving, possessing, and sharing gossip is a way to gain allies and power in the organization. People come to see you as a vital source of “information.”
3. Influencing People and Outcomes — Conduits of gossip can influence people in the organization to validate themselves, invalidate others, and to get what they want.

The political motivations and potential benefits embedded in reasons #2 and #3 above are topics for a whole other post. For now, let us say that there are better ways to accomplish those ends other than gossiping.

In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz uses the analogy of the human mind as a computer and compares gossip to a computer virus. A computer virus is a piece of computer language written in the same language all the other codes, but with harmful intent. This code is inserted into the program of the computer (your mind) when you least expect it and most of the time without your awareness. After this code is introduced, your computer doesn’t work quite right, or it doesn’t function at all because the codes get so mixed up with so many conflicting messages that it stops producing good results.

Imagine for a moment what your nonprofit organization would be like without gossip — without backchannel conversations, without a rumor mill. How might you feel? Would you feel empowered to lead and communicate with greater integrity, or would you feel deprived of valuable information? Would teams more readily engage in creative risk-taking and intentional problem-solving or long for complexity and mediation? Would it enhance and inspire performance or add the pressure of “not knowing”?

In my experience coaching nonprofit leaders and their teams, I’ve discovered that eclipsing gossip by facilitating vulnerability and candor creates space for authentic conversations based on facts (rather than rumors). Also, ending gossip has longer-term benefits: issues get resolved faster, relationships grow stronger, and the organization functions better.

Right about now, you may be asking yourself: “So, I can never talk about anyone else?” The short answer is, “of course not.” So long as you are careful about your intention. If your aim is to serve those about whom you are speaking, AND you would say what you are about to say if those people were present, then, by all means, chat away. If you intend to get attention, divert attention, make yourself right and others wrong, then don’t do it! You decrease your power and credibility.

Ultimately, nonprofit leaders who recognize the benefit of creating gossip-free cultures commit to ending gossip on their teams and within their organization. They not only become extraordinarily careful about what they say about others; they also do not listen to gossip. They encourage those bringing information to them about others to take the issue directly to that person.

In a nutshell, honoring your word, being candid, and ending gossip are three factors that will save you time and energy. Not only that, by doing these three things you will create healthier and more fulfilling relationships.

You have my word on it.

David Langiulli is an executive coach and trainer who helps nonprofit leaders flourish and thrive. He works with nonprofit teams to create cultures of accountability, candor, and integrity.