A Case Study of Coaching and Gossip: Bringing the Elephant Into the Room
By Dr Kathryn Waddington.
Gossip has traditionally been viewed in a negative light as something trivial or irrelevant to ‘serious work’. Something to be prevented or managed. However like it or loathe it, the picture is changing.
The issue addressed in this article is how to harness the positive power of gossip in organisations. Anonymised case study material shows how gossip can be used in creative, compassionate coaching conversations to ‘bring the elephant in the room’ and address significant problems that have previously been ignored, suppressed, and/or silenced.
Note: This is an extended version of a presentation made at The ABP Workforce Experience Conference 2026.
The Evidence-Base for Organisational Gossip
Gossip, defined as informal, evaluative talk about an absent third party, issue, incident, or situation is now emerging from the shadows and into the spotlight as an area of research with important implications for individual, industry, and business reputations (Giardini & Wittek, 2019). Gossip also plays a role in nurturing positive, prosocial interpersonal relationships at work (Greenslade-Yeats et al., 2025), and creating psychologically safe ‘speak up’ team and organisational cultures (Waddington, 2022). My doctoral research into gossip in healthcare organisations reframed gossip as organisational communication and knowledge. Within these two parameters, five concepts were identified that represent fundamental components of organisational gossip:
- Ethics
- Power
- Sensemaking
- Identity
- Emotion
Ethics, power, and emotion are of particular relevance to this coaching case study.
Coaching Case Study: Bringing Gossip to the Surface
The case study has been anonymised following American Psychological Society (APA) guidance by removing specific identifying details and altering some aspects of the case without compromising accuracy of reporting. This was a coaching intervention with a senior public sector team of 12 directors and team leaders. Despite deep mutual respect, this was a team in difficulty. Meetings were characterised by interrupting, disregarding, undermining, resentments, and a sense of unfairness and favouritism (dynamics I’m sure many Business Psychologists, coaches and consultants will have encountered). There were no adequate processes in place for surfacing and managing difficult emotions and conversations, and the overarching coaching goal was:
- To design a series of interventions and create a non-threatening environment in which to ‘surface the gossip’ by modelling a compassionate approach.
Challenges of Executive Team Coaching
Executive team coaches face particular challenges, because the task of top teams is to make decisions that have an impact upon the whole organisation/business. This gives the team enormous power. Coaches must be honest and speak out about what they are noticing, and not be held back by boardroom power dynamics, rivalries and revenge patterns. From the outset, care is needed to create a team coaching climate of honesty, trust and respect. This will enable courageous conversations that allow team members to share perspectives, emotions and vulnerabilities, and bring hidden problems and dynamics to the surface. This can be achieved by asking coaching questions such as:
- What’s the gossip about this team and what does it reveal about how we work together?
- What emotions are bubbling below the surface?
- How can we judge the credibility of content/sources of gossip?
- What needs triangulating with other sources of evidence?
- What are the ethical implications of acting/not acting on knowledge expressed as gossip?
Using Arts-Based Creative Coaching
Arts-based creative coaching approaches (e.g., Giraldez-Hayes & Eames, 2025) can help individuals and teams be more comfortable about addressing difficult issues surfaced through gossip because they offer new ways of seeing and talking about tough topics. For example, the technique of coaching with stones (Waddington, 2024) uses stones arranged – and rearranged – to create a configuration that represents team dynamics, conflicts, and connections for further reflection.
Compassionate Coaching
Using gossip as a team coaching tool in a compassionate manner is about noticing distressing emotions and issues, responding with empathy, and crucially, taking action. This involves personal risk-taking around disclosing fears, assumptions, systemic gaps, and obstacles, which can become emotionally distressing and volatile. In the case study, this required courage on the part of both the team and the coach, but opened up space for conversations and actions towards bridging gaps and overcoming obstacles. Notably, coaching outcomes were:
- Improved psychological safety and personal boundary setting
- Team members becoming more open with each other
- A revised team charter
- Enhanced engagement with other teams across the organisation
Conclusion
Undoubtedly there are still negative and harmful aspects of gossip, which is why the ethical component of gossip must never be overlooked. However, as gossip is now a state-of-the-art topic in business research, this opens doors into new landscapes for Business Psychology practitioners and researchers who have the curiosity and courage to take the next step.
As evaluative talk, gossip is also an expression of care, concern and compassion, which opens up new possibilities and resources of knowledge that organisations can tap into to prevent future injustices, inequalities, and harm. Or to paraphrase the Cherokee Nation State proverb:
Listen to and act on the gossip and you won’t have to hear the screams.
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About the Author
Dr Kathryn Waddington is a Chartered Coaching Psychologist, Member of the International Society for Coaching Psychology, and European Mentoring and Coaching Council senior practitioner. She is also on the BPS Register of Applied Psychology Practice Supervisors (RAPPS). Her coaching psychology research and practice interests are in areas relating to coaching as a social practice, compassion, and organisational gossip as an overlooked form of communication and knowledge.
References
Giardini, F., & Wittek, R. (Eds.). (2019). The Oxford handbook of gossip and reputation. Oxford University Press.
Giraldez-Hayes, A. & Eames, M. (2025). Arts-based coaching: Using creative tools to promote better self-expression. Routledge.
Greenslade-Yeats, J., Cooper-Thomas, H., Morrison, R., & Corner, P. D. (2025). How workplace gossip shapes interpersonal relationships: A qualitative study from the gossip recipient’s perspective. Group & Organization Management, 50(3), 799-839. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10596011231184685
Waddington, K. (2022). Gossip, organization and work: A research overview. Routledge.
Waddington, K. (2024). Creative coaching conversations: Talking with stones. BPS Division of Coaching Psychology Conference. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/401385996_Creative_Coaching_Conversations_Talking_with_Stones