Some points we’ll cover on this topic include:
What is professional ghosting?
Examples of ghosting at work
What affect does ghosting have on the workplace?
3 Ways to overcome ghosting
Straight talk to ghosters
Straight talk to employees being ghosted
Is ghosting illegal?
What is professional ghosting? “Ghosting” began as a term in the in the dating world as a way to avoid the awkwardness of rejecting another person whereas, a person ceases communication by ignoring calls, email, and texts; in essence goes silent. Alas, the behaviors involving ghosting have shifted gears and are now being seen in the workplace. If you’ve recently looked for a job or tried to hire someone you may already be familiar with the phenomenon of ghosting. Both job seekers and employers say they’ve been ghosted when filling a job vacancy. Some employers reported they’ve gone through the entire interview and job offer process with a candidate that has accepted the position but doesn’t even bother to show up on their first day of work.
”Ghosting doesn’t just happen in the employment process, it can also happen when you are networking,” says LinkedIn career expert Catherine Fisher, like when you email a former colleague or boss for a recommendation or an introduction and then never hear back. Or when you’ve agreed to work on a project with someone—and then it just falls flat with no response.
As a human resource professional, I am now seeing managers and directors in organizations being ghosted in their workplace when participating on projects or as part of a team, and/or being ignored by their senior leaders.
Examples of ghosting at work: Your new CEO calls a finance department meeting to talk about how your department is the most important department in the organization and plans to have monthly meetings with the group. The meetings never occur, and you’ve only met with the CEO once in a years’ time. Your department has been ghosted.
– You’ve asked your boss for approval to purchase a piece of equipment for office automation, included it in your written justification for your budget, and he/she never gets back to you. Months go by and you have reminded him/her of the purchase in meetings but never get a definitive yes or no. You’ve been ghosted.
– A co-worked promised to get you a work-product by Monday….Monday passes and silence. You’ve been ghosted.
– You send calendar invites to another manager to participate on a strategic implementation team, since the recommended changes from a consultant’s report impact not only that person’s department but the entire department. The manager attends the first meeting but doesn’t show up for the rest. You’ve been ghosted.
– A department director begins reporting to the new CEO who has met with him only a couple of times. He hears rumors that the CEO secretly has plans to outsource the entire department; however, he has never discussed it with the department director. A year passes and the department director is told he needs to retire! He’s being ghosted.
– An official has been asked to be the chair for an employee recognition committee (ERC). The ERC committee decides to create a meetup group so employees can get involved in activities and see what is happening in different departments and locations throughout the organization. The official is scheduled to present the meetup website to the executive leadership team but is unable to attend the meeting. She decides to have another ERC team member present on behalf of the team and notifies the CEO of the change. The ERC presenter has the website set up before the beginning of the meeting, on a projector, and is ready to demo the new meetup group’s site. When one of the executive team leaders arrives to the meeting ahead of the CEO, she looks at the presenter and asks why she is there; to which she replies she is on the agenda and was invited to present. A few minutes later the CEO shows up and asks the presenter if the presentation can be done in two minutes; to which the presenter said it can be rescheduled if he wished (because he didn’t seem interested). The CEO tells the presenter to proceed after joking the first page of the website looks like Tinder (the dating website)…adding “I want to swipe left, or swipe right.” The website’s main page that the CEO is referencing is a picture of a lifeguard tower displayed to represent a recognizable symbol in the local area where a future meetup activity could to occur at the beach. At this point the presenter is embarrassed for the CEO’s arrogance and complete ignorance (Meetup.com is a platform for finding and building local communities of people to learn new things, find support, get out of comfort zones, and pursue common passions and interests), not a dating site, and also pities the executive leadership team for having to sit through such a pathetic display of leadership from the organization’s top leader. However, the presenter complies by completing the presentation in under two minutes and then gets up to leave. Interested members of the leadership team begin asking questions about the site and the presenter responds but feels uncomfortable knowing the CEO had zero interest in the topic. The painful presentation finally ends. In a follow-up call with the ERC chair several days later she apologized because she heard how unprofessionally the presenter had been treated by the CEO. The official and the ERC team was ghosted by the CEO.
– Your boss said you’d get that promotion soon. Months pass and nothing. You’ve been ghosted.
– Your boss has retired but instead of filling the vacancy internally through promotion, your CEO brings in a 25-year-old that he has worked with previously. She who knows nothing about your department and has no previous experience performing the department’s work. You are told this person is there to “help” and to have this person in attendance for every meeting. Later your entire department is reorganized while ignoring the staff that has worked there for years, and everyone is now reporting to the inexperienced 25-year-old. Your staff has been ghosted.
In these examples “the person who is being ghosted can’t help but obsess over why they haven’t been part of the discussions that needed to take place or heard back after asking for feedback. “What did they do wrong, should they follow up again—or will that make them look desperate,” says Dana Brownlee, president of the Atlanta-based consulting and training firm Professionalism Matters. “It’s a lot like dating,” she says. “Most people want and need some level of closure and that lack of closure is often worse than the potential bad news they never received.”
What affect does ghosting have on the workplace?
According to an article in psychology today “Ghosting at work is accelerating perhaps because people are busier and more stressed and so more likely to choose convenience over courtesy. After all, not responding is not only easier but by avoiding conflict (an angry or defensive response) altogether, the boss can do what they want while believing there are no consequences to their behavior…such as a discrimination lawsuit. If the ghoster (boss) gives the standard vague but bulletproof, “Yea, we need to talk about that” the ghoster has given the person nothing useful, while saving themselves from a potential difficult conversation. Yet simply saying no without explanation may well result in the person coming back and asking for one. So, leaders are deciding it’s easier to ghost the other person.
Most employees who have experienced this are hesitant to believe the person is using ghosting to punish them because they are not liked. Wanting to trust, that the organization has their best interest in mind and appreciates their work efforts, the employees might tell themselves their boss has other plans (an unarticulated agenda) that just hasn’t been shared with the employees at this time. But it’s hard for any individual not to digress into negative thinking when it feels very personal. It also begs the question “how long a person can show up for work and give 110% every day while continuing to be ghosted by their decision makers or coworkers?”
This type of behavior not only erodes the employee’s confidence but creates an atmosphere of distrust with coworkers when it becomes clear that the person being ghosted no longer has any authority nor value. Many coworkers do sympathize with the person being ghosted but are afraid to say anything because nobody would ever want to have this experience nor find themselves in the bullseye.
Using the examples above, the employee continues to show up for work but has learned through their negative experiences to become disengaged. The employee has mentally quit “on the job” and is only showing to collect a paycheck. Ideas are no longer shared, attendance to meetings are cancelled and the person who previously would have volunteered to do anything…only does the minimum requirements of the job. Now the employer has a bigger problem that could have been avoided with regular communication with the individual. Because it can feel VERY personal, the person is now more likely to sue the employer for discrimination, receive a settlement, or go work for a competitor; albeit the latter may be what the boss wanted all along.
3 Ways to overcome ghosting
We are human and you may not be able to separate the way being ghosted has made you feel unimportant. Worrying about a situation that you have little to no control over doesn’t make it any better either. Reflection can however give you some control over your thinking and the way in which you choose to ultimately respond to your ghoster.
1. Reflect on your role in having been ghosted. Was it unreasonable for you, for example, to suggest a change to the work, request a meeting, or ask the person to help you on a task or project? Or if your request was reasonable, had you previously made the person justifiably dislike you? Sometimes, we must find a way to just get along with people we don’t like working with. You may have to try different methods of communication with the other person and keep giving them the benefit of the doubt that it’s not personal or come to the realization they are incapable of operating differently.
2. Choose the wise response: a tactful follow-up, a blunt follow-up, or no-response. Usually, a brief tactful follow-up is wise.
– When you are not receiving support on a task you have been working on you can make an inquiry, such as “I have been working on this project that needs to be completed by X because of the funding mechanisms. Person X, Y, and Z are completing their parts before the projected go live date. Is this what you want me to be working on or is there something else that I should be thinking about as a higher priority? How would you like me to proceed? I want to make sure my goals are aligned with yours.
– I was pleased that you agreed to help me on the project. I know that we all experience interruptions and have shifting priorities, so I just wanted to check in with you to see if Monday still works for you? Do you need more time?
Sometimes, it’s wiser to be blunt. For example:
Per my previous emails to you there has been no response. If I don’t hear from you by Monday, I will assume that I have your approval to proceed as proposed. Otherwise, I look forward to a clear response at your earliest convenience.
3. Move on. Having reflected on possible responses to being ghosted, it’s usually wise to not additionally mull over, let alone fume about it. Rather distract yourself by—at the first moment you find yourself revisiting the issue—forcing yourself to redirect to a positive baby step on some other matter and being productive again. Sometimes it is healthier to accept what we do and don’t have control over. If you know your boss has been unreliable in the past just forge ahead and keep them informed along the way.
Straight talk to Ghosters
I’ll be unvarnished: Ghosting someone at work is beyond rude and completely unprofessional; and it reflects poorly on you as a boss. It poisons the culture of the organization because other leaders come to learn ghosting as an acceptable response to an uncomfortable situation, when it is in no way acceptable on any level. To build a strong team, you must see someone else’s strength as a complement to your weakness and not a threat to your position or authority. Stop acting so self-important as to leave people hanging and respond, even if it’s just to respond with a one-liner such as, “I’m swamped. I’ll get back to you in a week.” Otherwise, you need to face up to the fact that you probably shouldn’t be in a leadership role because leaders are paid to handle difficult conversations smoothly. If you feel ill-equipped for such a conversation or worry the other person might not agree with you then I highly recommend that you go to training or perhaps role play with someone who is more skilled in this area. The morale in the organization falls squarely on your shoulders as the leader, so stop taking the coward’s way out.
Straight talk to employees being ghosted
If you believe that you have spent a proper amount of time reflecting and trying to repair the relationship with the person “ghosting” you…to no avail, then it’s probably time to move on. You need to recognize that the other person may be insecure or incapable of having the necessary skills to deal with the situation productively. You might attempt to transfer to another manager or position within your organization if this is not part of a bigger organizational culture problem. If this is something more systemic throughout the company my advice to you is to run for the door as fast as you can. Don’t ever settle for a toxic work environment because it can affect your long-term health. If they act like they don’t care about you, my best advice is to believe them. Instead, apply for another job with a different employer or do something else completely. Breakdowns can lead to breakthroughs. Don’t be afraid to hold yourself in high esteem and to know that your skills and experience is valuable in the right organization that values its employees.
Is ghosting illegal?
Sadly, the more insidious forms of discrimination are harder to stamp out than the overt ones that may be in play here. Discrimination has evolved and become more sophisticated, hidden, and subtle. It’s not the #MeTooCulture but it is a culture of where it’s hard for women and minorities to thrive. The more apparent examples of outright discrimination and harassment, that existed in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s have mostly been drummed out of most workplaces. You can still be excluded, nonetheless. Some male and female bosses have a fundamental lack of ability to work with other women and perhaps even more so when it is a non-white female. The desire is to perpetuate the existing misogynistic culture at all costs. Sadly, some women are taught to compete and blind to the fact that when they ghost a coworker they are also contributing to the status quo, at the expense of their own dignity, integrity, and reputation.
On the surface, being “ghosted” by an employer is not illegal under the law but it can be if: 1) the employer’s practices are shown to have treated individuals in protected classes differently (e.g. a pattern of not promoting women or minorities) and 2) these individuals are not being considered for promotion because they are not receiving the same opportunities to contribute or participate, 3) the employer has a practice that can be shown where they are promoting younger people over older employees, 4) it results in harassment or a hostile work environment. Leaders need to recognize their contribution, then rise to lead the organization while holding others accountable for this type of behavior. Embrace it. Lean in. Be the leader your employees need you to be.
Please take a brief survey by answering 1 = Yes or 2 = No
Have you experienced being ghosted at work, or seen it happen to another person?
Was the person being ghosted a woman?
Was the person being ghosted part of a minority group or protected class?
Did it negatively impact productivity or morale?
Did you report it to anyone? If not, why not?
I would love to hear any other comments you may have on ghosting at work.
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