If information is treated as a form of social currency in your workplace, your organisation might be exhibiting signs of gatekeeping. Here are some tips to combat it before it snowballs into a larger issue. 

Gatekeeping might look like being left out of an important meeting invite, or a colleague micro-managing a project by keeping all the key details to themselves. Or it might manifest as something less easily explainable or tolerated, such as intentionally sabotaging an individual’s opportunities for mentorship and career growth.

Gatekeeping in the workplace operates through omission. It can range from microbehaviours – such as subtly taking credit for others’ contributions – to blocking opportunities for certain employees.

“Gatekeeping is intentionally withholding information from someone,” says Dr Tessa West, Professor of Psychology at New York University, who specialises in interpersonal communication. “Sometimes people elaborate that [definition] to include withholding information to prevent someone from getting ahead.”

West has profiled common disruptive personalities in her book Jerks at work: Toxic coworkers and what to do about them, and says gatekeeping tends to go hand in hand with other competitive behaviours.

She identifies the ‘kiss-up/kick-downer’: a status climber who undermines other peers, while ingratiating themselves with their boss. 

“One way they might do this is by gatekeeping. They’ll learn important information for making projects run more efficiently, the hidden curriculum for getting ahead – and they’ll systematically withhold it from people who they see [themselves in competition with]. 

“We also see it on the opposite end of the continuum with ‘gaslighters’: people who are trying to control another person in the interest of achieving a goal. 

“In order to isolate that individual, which is a component of gaslighting, they feed them information that’s not tethered to reality.”

Read HRM’s article on managing gaslighting in the workplace.

This might look like convincing someone that what they recall happening in a meeting didn’t actually happen, or belittling them to other colleagues in private, to skew other people’s perceptions of that individual.

Importantly, gatekeeping hinders employees from being able to do their jobs efficiently, and erodes trust and team relationships. If it isn’t identified and resolved, affected individuals may slip into a learned helplessness and disengage. 

Given the adverse impact on engagement and performance down the track, there are plenty of reasons for HR to curb this behaviour before it spirals out of control. Not least because it often takes a while for organisations to see the outcomes of gatekeeping, says West.

“It’s a frog-in-boiling-water behavior at work; if someone gatekeeps, it might take two years to see the pattern of behavior. It can rot cultures from within.”

Information as a currency

Gatekeeping is usually driven by fear and control, says Ali Drew-Forster, Director at workplace culture consultancy Workology Co and a former workplace relations solicitor. 

“Maybe they’ve been the person that has been the favorite and they want to hold on to that status. Or it’s fear of being left behind because there’s new people joining the organisation who have new ideas and ways of doing things that they don’t necessarily understand.”

This behaviour often takes root in environments where employees are incentivised to hoard knowledge.

“Leaders often use gatekeeping as a mechanism for favouritism and punishment,” says West. “If you work in a culture where information is a reward, then you’re going to have a real problem.”

“For example, does everybody know the equation for how you get a promotion? Or is it a secret conversation that only some people know?”

A signal that something could be amiss is if the variability of knowledge within an organisation is directly associated with a relationship: an employee knows a lot and has a great relationship with their boss, versus an employee who knows little and has a poor relationship with their boss.

This may also creep up in levels of middle management. For instance, if the degree of feedback provided to a specific employee correlates with their personal relationship with their manager, rather than a fair, standard process.

Unintentional gatekeeping

When you take away the Machiavellian power games, gatekeeping in the workplace is actually a more common behaviour than people might realise – and it can manifest unintentionally, stemming from the ways we process information, says West.

She cites psychology experiments performed under ‘hidden profile’ paradigms that study information-sharing and decision-making in groups.

“It’s a frog-in-boiling-water behavior at work; if someone gatekeeps, it might take two years to see the pattern of behavior. It can rot cultures from within.” – Tessa West, Professor of Psychology, New York University

In these experiments, one person in the group holds a special piece of information, while the rest of the team only holds shared information. The pooling of this ‘special information’ in the group is essential to making the most optimal decision.

“Sixty per cent of the time, that person doesn’t communicate those pieces of information. The reason is because they think they’re communicating information, but when they’re doing it, it either gets interrupted, restated or lost through the game of telephone.”

In short, a lack of knowledge-sharing isn’t always fuelled by malicious intent. 

Sometimes when employees are already at capacity, it’s easier for key information to slip through the cracks. This means it’s critical to simplify – and often repeat – key messages during busy periods or times of constant change and disruption.   

4 strategies to combat gatekeeping

It’s important to recognise that addressing gatekeeping in the workplace doesn’t start and end with the individual who’s gatekeeping information.

While HR practitioners need to make sure managers are alert to patterns of these behaviours – and prepared to act when it occurs – both West and Drew-Forster agree it’s just as critical to apply a systems-lens to culture. 

They offer the following solutions to discourage gatekeeping from taking hold in workplaces:

1. Make gatekeeping unviable

Gatekeeping grants an individual power by ensuring that only they have a piece of information, resource or opportunity – that other people need.

The most effective way to tackle this is to have a system that allows for equal access to information so it can’t be treated as a valuable resource or form of social currency, says West.  

“You have to put structures in place to make sure information is conveyed [to everyone], so gatekeepers don’t have any leverage.”

For instance, HR can ensure that criteria for promotion pathways or attaining further training is explicit and freely disseminated to all employees, irrespective of their seniority or personal relationships with leaders.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that HR practitioners and leaders should be sharing information without discretion. It’s about taking a strategic approach – and being candid if an answer isn’t possible at that point in time, says Drew-Forster.

“Maybe employees have asked for something and the executive hears it and they’re like, ‘We can’t afford that’. Or, ‘That’s not something we’re interested in doing’. 

“That’s fine. It’s their right to make that decision, but they need to make sure they communicate it back to people that have raised the issue.”

2. Equitable feedback structures

Information-hoarding flourishes in highly competitive cultures where the tacit rules around performance are coveted and tightly guarded, says West.

One quick win for HR is coaching managers and leaders on how to effectively provide specific, actionable feedback to their teams and direct reports, rather than relying on generic feedback that doesn’t help businesses or people in the long run.

This is particularly important in formal performance discussions. 

“Everyone [should] get the same amount of [performance] feedback as a function of their role. That demonstrates that information will not be treated as a reward.”

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3. Provide outlets for communication – and listening

“A common theme I hear is that the executive team thinks they’re communicating well. Whereas everybody else is like, ‘No’”, says Drew-Forster. “Either they’re not hearing enough or it’s not in the form they want it to be in.”

Establishing interfaces for communication between all levels of the organisation can help prevent silos that contribute to gatekeeping.

HR can facilitate this through classic employee pulse checks, dedicated channels on your organisation’s digital messaging platform or via regular town-halls.

Drew-Forster recalls one method of executive drop-ins a university department used to strengthen connections between employees and senior leadership.

During the week, members of the executive team would take turns to sit in the employee cafe for one-to-two-hour slots. In this time, employees had the opportunity to sit down with the leader and voice their concerns in an uninterrupted, informal setting.

As a result, a dedicated employee resource group was established from those conversations.

“When leaders consistently share direct and aligned messages – early, often and through multiple channels – it leaves little space for gatekeepers to twist or withhold information,” says Drew-Forster. “It also sends a clear signal: this is a culture where openness matters.”

4. Checking information flow 

How often do you delegate a task to another colleague, and then actually check back in? In our time-poor work-days, this usually only happens when something has gone wrong, West points out.

We tend to drip information in one direction. However, pausing to reflect on how we relay information can help to address those unintentional forms of gatekeeping.

An effective way to do this is through ‘information checking’, says West.

This entails having the other person in the conversation restate the information back to you, through prompts such as, “I know we went over a lot today. Let’s hit those main points – can you synthesise them?”, and double checking their interpretation is accurate.

“Given the way communication operates, [information] is going to get muddy and the team is not going to incorporate it in the way you think,” says West.

“This is critical for HR because you… have systems that rely on quick decision-making. Assume some kind of unintentional gatekeeping is happening and put systems in place to make sure that’s not happening.”

By addressing the organisational structures that enable gatekeeping, HR practitioners can play a role in fostering a healthier workplace culture that values collaboration and trust.