Dealing with Drama Queens and Kings - Emerging Nurse Leader

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN

It comes up in almost every leadership session that I teach. Leaders want to know how to deal with the drama queens and kings who work for them. These are staff who, though often great clinicians, are emotionally expensive to organizations. John Maxwell describes organizational problems or challenges as sparks and fires. When professionals encounter these problems – they can choose one of two buckets. The first bucket is water to put the spark out and solve the challenge. The second bucket is gasoline, which the professional can use to fuel a fire. Drama queens and kings usually choose gasoline. They get caught up in their egos and don’t try to reframe what is happening or solve challenges realistically. When this happens, group energy, which could be harnessed to solve problems and meet patient needs, is instead focused on creating drama or making situations seem more catastrophic than they are.

Drama queens and kings often have an unhealthy need for significance that plays out in the drama they create around situations. Cy Wakeman, an expert in this area, observes that drama occurs when staff take reality and distorts it by transforming what happened into a self-serving story to gain approval and validation. The drama can be both in the workplace and in their home life. She contends the only way to confront it is by adopting a reality-based leadership approach.

Workplace drama and the gossip that accompanies it can be very corrosive to a healthy work environment. A high level of emotional drama erodes trust and contributes to a lack of psychological safety for other team members. It also can consume a great deal of the leader’s energy. Leadership expert, Michael Hyatt, has four suggestions on how to confront drama queens and kings:

Quash all rumors directly and seek the truth in situations. Directly confront false stories and reports given by drama kings and queens. Ask questions such as “how do you know that your assumptions here are true? or “how are you contributing to what is happening here?” Force them to talk about the contributions of others. Let staff know that you are a leader who does not like drama. Former President Obama used to tell his staff – I am the no-drama Obama so don’t bring it to me. Develop a solutions-oriented only approach in your leadership.
Respect the process. Don’t get sucked into the drama. When the story involves another staff member – don’t listen to it without the other staff member present. If you are told that a staff member posted something negative on social media – bring them in and ask them to say it directly to the person. Chances are that they will not. You can never allow triangulation because that is what drama queens and kings seek to do.
Allow pushback. Hyatt contends that you need to allow for pushback because there is a chance that you or your leadership style may be part of the problem. Maybe, you don’t communicate enough or try to avoid conflict. Ask yourself – What is it about my leadership that created this? It is important that the leader “holds the space” and listens to what is being said.
Move drama kings and queens out of your organization or out of their role. The behavior of drama queens and kings needs to be called out in an explicit way. Hyatt contends that some people are so addicted to drama that they cannot stop even inventing drama when there is none. This is so costly to organizations that it can be worth the challenges that accompany removing them.

Humans are emotional by nature. Where there is emotion, you often get gossip and drama. But some staff will seek attention by further stirring the emotional pot. It is the role of leaders to dial down drama and this begins by dealing with drama queens and kings to stop the drama cold.

Read Rose Sherman’s new book – The Nurse Leader Coach: Become the Boss No One Wants to Leave

Read to Lead

Wakeman C Y. No ego: How leaders can cut the cost of workplace drama, end entitlement and drive big results. St Martins Press, NY; 2017.

Hyatt M. (October 2nd, 2018 Podcast) How to dial down the drama at work.