As Brian Gallagher (2020) concludes: “Conspiracy thinking isn’t just a result of information suppression or mis- and disinformation saturation in wider society, of course. It can also fester in the relatively small confines of the workplace, corroding any sense of trust or collaborative spirit in an organization. Conspiracy beliefs can thrive when workers in businesses are relatively powerless, having little responsibility or control over their duties, and face uncertainty concerning things like the motives of new management. Employees in these circumstances are liable to suspect that managers may, for example, conspire to hire a particular person for a job, or coordinate in getting a worker fired”. Brian Gallagher (Conspiracy Thinking in the Workplace Isn’t Harmless Gossip – Ethical Systems).
Douglas and Leite (2016) offer the following comment: “Conspiracy theories decrease organizational identification. If an organization is riddled with perceptions of conspiracy, such as beliefs that managers are deliberately trying to harm employees, this is likely to weaken the importance of the organization to the individual and reduce the positive self-esteem they derive from it.”
The findings by Douglas and her associates (Douglas, et al. 2016) “suggest that managers and employees may need to be mindful of the effects that conspiracy theories could have on the workplace. Considering Conspiracy theories in organizations and the potential costs of (employee) turnover, and the negative effects of low commitment and job satisfaction on behaviours at the workplace such as organizational citizenship behaviour, it would be a mistake for members of an organization to dismiss organizational conspiracy theories as idle gossip or rumors with little consequence”.
Leadership coaches and consultants are in a unique position to counter organizational conspiracy gossiping given that their roles are not “line” positions and are most often trusted advisors. They also often cross organizational structure boundaries and formal roles. They can then “follow the conspiracy dialogue” to its source and provide coaching and advice on how reduce gossiping and alert, coach and advise leaders on the potential threat these conspiracy theories pose, and their potential impact on the organization’s performance.
Leaders, for example, can mistakenly but brazenly stimulate conspiracy gossiping by engaging in cost cutting retrenchments. This organizational strategy has been frequently engaged in recent years. One of us was consulting for a long period of time to a large technology company. An announcement was made by a new senior executive about restructuring of the global business unit. Immediately, this stimulated questions about the potential for redundancies and lay-offs.
The senior executive emphatically stated that there would be no lay-offs, yet within three months extensive lay-offs where announced. This perceived deception caused a cascade of conspiracy gossiping which destroyed trust in this new leader and in the organization as a whole. The explosion of conspiracy theory gossiping that followed was massive as thousands of employees began to worry about their own careers as well as disbelieving their own divisional leaders. The amount of emotional energy and time spent on conspiratorial gossiping sapped productivity and damaged careers.
Download Article 1K Club
