• Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Nobody Likes a Tattletale: Do Not Play the Office Cop

February 8, 2012 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

A co-worker takes twice as many days off as your company allows. The receptionist is frequently on the phone with her boyfriend. A team member goofs off all the time and never gets his job done. To top it all, your easygoing boss does not seem concerned about all these. Convinced you should tell on others? Thinking of complaining to your HR in the interest of fairness?

Do not play the office cop. Because, nobody likes a tattletale. Moreover, it’s is your boss’s job to keep an eye on everybody at your workplace and correct them if necessary, not yours. You have some influence over your peers, but no authority. Hence, you cannot control them.

Examine Your Motivations

Tattling is a common trait during the formative years of life. Children tend to feel compelled to notify elders when siblings or other children do something wrong. By taking on a parental responsibility under the guise of being helpful, young tattletales use a socially acceptable way to tell on others and get them in trouble. As children age, they learn to discern between when to keep a secret and when to inform on others. Some never seem to outgrow the need to tattle or gossip and bring these traits to the workplace.

A tattletale is usually motivated by selfish reasons. Therefore, examine what is behind your own desire to inform on someone. Are you bothered more by your boss’s laidback attitude rather than the behaviors of your colleagues? Are you trying to draw positive attention to your own righteous adherence to the rules? Is your intention to gain acceptance by management and be seen as a dependable employee? Are you seeking to curry favor with the boss? Or, do you sadistically enjoy having your colleagues punished or embarrassed?

Don’t Rob the Workplace of Trust

A tattletale quickly destroys team morale and brings about increased conflict in the workplace. In successful organizations, team members set high expectations for one another and push each other to work smarter. When you do complain to your boss, you do not want to raise anything that may seem trivial or vindictive.

If you observe an incident that might constitute a breach of ethics or is significant enough to affect your team, you have every right to blow the whistle through the established channels or a whistleblowing system even at the risk of being branded a tattletale. The standards of decency require you to talk directly to anybody who offends you before going to your boss. If a peer persistently interferes with your work or sabotages your projects, you should privately warn the offender that if it happens again, you would report it to your boss.

Wisdom Comes from Knowing What to Overlook

Control the impulse to be worked up and tattletale on issues that have little to do with your own work. Let your resentment subside. Be quiet and keep your head down. If someone’s behavior is genuinely in the way getting a job done, wait for a manager or HR to identify and fix the problem.

For now, think of ways to ask your lenient boss for some extra time off for yourself.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Leaders Need to Be Strong and Avoid Instilling Fear
  2. Direction + Autonomy = Engagement
  3. To Inspire, Translate Extrinsic Motivation to Intrinsic Motivation
  4. Extrinsic Motivation Couldn’t Change Even Einstein
  5. Don’t Push Employees to Change

Filed Under: Managing People, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Feedback, Great Manager, Workplace

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Me says

    December 6, 2018 at 9:44 AM

    interesting

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Popular Now

Anxiety Assertiveness Attitudes Balance Biases Coaching Conflict Conversations Creativity Critical Thinking Decision-Making Discipline Emotions Entrepreneurs Etiquette Feedback Getting Along Getting Things Done Goals Great Manager Leadership Leadership Lessons Likeability Mental Models Mentoring Mindfulness Motivation Networking Parables Perfectionism Performance Management Persuasion Philosophy Problem Solving Procrastination Relationships Simple Living Social Skills Stress Suffering Thinking Tools Thought Process Time Management Winning on the Job Wisdom

About: Nagesh Belludi [hire] is a St. Petersburg, Florida-based freethinker, investor, and leadership coach. He specializes in helping executives and companies ensure that the overall quality of their decision-making benefits isn’t compromised by a lack of a big-picture understanding.

Get Updates

Signup for emails

Subscribe via RSS

Contact Nagesh Belludi

RECOMMENDED BOOK:
The 48 Laws of Power

The 48 Laws of Power: Robert Greene

Robert Greene's controversial bestseller about manipulative people and advance your cause---or how to understand others and protect yourself from the nefarious.

Explore

  • Announcements
  • Belief and Spirituality
  • Business Stories
  • Career Development
  • Effective Communication
  • Great Personalities
  • Health and Well-being
  • Ideas and Insights
  • Inspirational Quotations
  • Leadership
  • Leadership Reading
  • Leading Teams
  • Living the Good Life
  • Managing Business Functions
  • Managing People
  • MBA in a Nutshell
  • Mental Models
  • News Analysis
  • Personal Finance
  • Podcasts
  • Project Management
  • Proverbs & Maxims
  • Sharpening Your Skills
  • The Great Innovators

Recently,

  • Did School Turn You Into a Procrastinator?
  • Inspirational Quotations #1101
  • Luck Doesn’t Just Happen
  • The Speed Trap: How Extreme Pressure Stifles Creativity
  • Inspirational Quotations #1100
  • Airline Safety Videos: From Dull Briefings to Dynamic Ad Platforms
  • How Small Talk in Italy Changed My Perspective on Talking to Strangers

Unless otherwise stated in the individual document, the works above are © Nagesh Belludi under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. You may quote, copy and share them freely, as long as you link back to RightAttitudes.com, don't make money with them, and don't modify the content. Enjoy!