What should I do if I think my coworkers are gossiping about me?

Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Company’s workplace advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer your biggest and most pressing workplace questions.

Q: What should I do if I think my coworkers are gossiping about me?

A: In past columns I’ve said that much of office life can feel like high school, and this is the ultimate example. 

This is a situation that feels awful but that you have little control over. So while you can’t control other people, you can control your own actions and reactions. Here are a few things you can do:

Don’t engage in negative gossip yourself

“Gossip is an important part of human communication,” says Jason Morgan, vice president of behavioral intelligence at Aware. It’s a way that people build relationships, feel more connected, and help soothe their anxiety. In other words, we are social animals that need to talk to each other and, often, about each other. But that doesn’t mean that the content of our gossip has to be vicious or hurtful.

You don’t need to bring someone down to bring yourself up. If you think your coworkers are talking negatively about you, your first step should be to evaluate your own gossiping tendencies. You’re never going to stop people from talking, but the more negativity you put out into the world, the more that’s likely to come back to you.

Use gossip as a force for good

Good gossip is beneficial to everyone’s well being. Fast Company contributor and behavioral scientist Art Markman points out that gossip can bring people together or it can create factions. Lead by example and start the kind of gossip that makes people feel better.

“When we celebrate other people’s successes and positive life events, we are bringing our community together,” Markman explains. “When we let team members know about a sad experience in the life of a colleague, it can create outpourings of sympathy and attempts to help. These are quite positive uses of gossip that can improve the overall sense of community.”

Deal with it directly

If trying to use office gossip as a force for good isn’t working and your coworkers are still saying negative things about you, you need to decide if it’s worth intervening. If the gossip is annoying but ignorable, then do your best to turn the other cheek. If it’s impacting your daily well-being, you have a few choices:

1. Confront it with humor. Sometimes taking a lighter approach might be more effective than an awkward conversation. For example if you overhear two colleagues whispering about how you are a know-it-all, you can say something like, “oh, tell me about it—that Kate, she’s a real pill!” That will shame them enough to either stop their gossip, or at least be more discreet.

2. Take it as feedback. You can take a more mature approach and view the content of their gossip as feedback and consider some behavior changes. (Maybe you do interrupt too much?)

3. Have an uncomfortable conversation. If you’re feeling brave enough you can confront the gossip directly. After all, we aren’t in high school anymore and hopefully in the years since you’ve gained some self-assuredness. You can start it off with something like “I’ve heard you and Dan talking about me and I just want to let you know that I’d love to hear your feedback directly.”

4. Talk to your boss. This is generally the type of problem you can handle yourself, but if it rises to the level of creating a toxic work environment, you can get your boss involved. Just make sure you’ve already tried to take some steps to mitigate it yourself.

Want more about office gossip? Here you go:

• Three steps to end office gossip
• How work gossip has changed in the age of hybrid work
• How to make office gossip your ally
• This is when gossip can be healthy in the workplace