"Someone in my team is gossiping and causing drama, what do I do?

We need to cut the drama to build a healthy culture

Sometimes it can feel more like you’re in a reality TV show than a workplace. And that all you’re ever doing is dealing with drama.

A client of mine this week felt the same. She came to me worried about a group of people in her team who were starting to feel toxic.

Cliques, gossip, drama - we often feel as though it’s all outside of our control. But it really isn’t.

Here’s the plan we made together…

1. It’s never a ‘group’, but an individual

First things first, we needed to pinpoint the source of the drama. The one person at the centre of the issues.

In most cases, it's actually not the entire team causing trouble. We might label the ‘whole group’ as an issue, but it's usually just one or two individuals that are the source of the problem.

So at this point, the priority is to identify that individual and have a one-on-one chat with them.

When you call out an entire group, it's easy for people to deflect blame and hide behind the crowd. But when you properly single out the toxic people, they're much more likely to listen and take responsibility for their actions.

This person needs a difficult conversation and very closely monitoring.

If this is the first time it’s happening - have a difficult conversation

If it’s the second time - time to get them on performance management

If it’s a regular occurrence, and they have been through both steps above, you might need to let them go from your team

Nothing will lose you great employees faster than them watching you tolerate a bad one, and the gossip you’re seeing will only be the tip of the iceberg.

But let’s say we’ve found the culprit, and had a difficult conversation and made them aware of their actions…

2. Are they growing?

Whilst yes we need to address the tricky behavior - we also need to understand why this person has ended up feeling the need to perpetuate toxicity in the first place.

Often, these team members have actually been great employees in the past - but they’ve started to feel stuck in a rut.

They're not growing, they're not feeling challenged or valued.

So we brought in the principle of progress - the only way we can keep our team truly happy. When we have team members acting up, at the core, you’ll usually find they’re not feeling growth or forward motion.

So, we made it a point to find ways to help them grow. In this particular case it was through finding new skills for them to learn, with a bump in salary on the horizon when they hit a certain goal and this behavior had been put to bed.

Every team hits a rough patch now and then. It doesn’t always mean they’re a lost cause.

With a little acceptance of responsibility, understanding and strong communication - you can turn that drama into a success story.

Peace,

H

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