I’ve seen gossip kill the reputation of so many leaders, yet it’s incredibly predominant. This is the ironclad rule of gossip: If you tell Jones what stupid thing Smith did, then Jones will conclude that you’ll turn around and tell Smith something terrible about Jones! People learn not to reveal anything to known gossips. Gossips gradually get excluded, employees become disengaged, and innovation grinds to a halt.

Gossips are a workplace turnoff. A poll by market researcher Harris Interactive on the biggest pet peeves in the workplace found 60% of 2,429 U.S. respondents listed “gossip” as the number one annoyance. (Other workplace irritants included people making personal phones calls at work, surfing the Internet, messiness in communal spaces, and potent smells like perfume, food, or smoke.)

Around the office, innovation leaders know this: Keep your ears open and your mouth shut. When you talk about anyone—colleague, subordinate, or superior—be extremely circumspect. Don’t say anything about someone that you wouldn’t say to their face.

In contrast…

Innovation Leaders Know…

Winning leaders never participate in gossip because they see the relationship with their teams much like the way an attorney or a physician sees the confidential and privileged relationship of their clients and patients. In other words, they practice leader-team confidential privilege, and they are very serious about this. Any lawyer who shared privileged client information would be disbarred immediately. New federal law and the historical confidential privilege of physician-patient relationships absolutely mandate total confidentiality. These experts totally understand the confidential privilege and they would never violate it under any circumstances.

Innovation leaders know that the relationship between their team must be treated in much the same way. While it’s not governed by law, it should be your leadership policy to keep interpersonal discussions completely confidential. It will keep you out of hot water while building your brand as a superstar innovation leader.