Drama queens (and kings!) are bad for business. They disrupt your workplace by gossiping, backbiting, exaggerating every situation, justifying their bad behavior, and blaming others for their failures. Their behavior and their very presence compromises the teamwork that you and your colleagues need to succeed.<\/p>\n
Seventy-eight percent of respondents said that they spend 3-to-6 hours a week dealing with drama queens (along with other disruptions), according to a 2012 study by workplace communications consultant Linda Swindling. The drive-bys and other issues resulting from drama queens and their enablers lead to lost productivity for everyone.<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t always keep wannabe soap opera stars off your team. But there are two steps that leaders can take to neutralize them.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve probably seen this happen more than once: The team has to meet a deadline on a big project. On the day everything has to be wrapped up, George comes to your office to complain about some slight from a coworker that isn\u2019t even related to the project. You have to spend precious time dealing with the complaint instead of finishing the project.<\/p>\n
Odds are, this isn\u2019t the only time George has wrought havoc. There\u2019s the time he told Jack about some gossip, which led to a week\u2019s worth of discord. The day when George was angry that Hakim gave the company-wide presentation that he thought he was supposed to handle. The moment George instigated a minor dispute between Becky and Paul over software. You get the picture.<\/p>\n\t\t