I force myself to look out a different window and take a deep breath.
That’s how I stay focused on the real issue or the task at hand, when a negative thought or disruptive thought pattern arises. It works really well when I’m at my desk. That small physical shift helps me interrupt the thought pattern and choose where to put my attention.
When I’m in a conversation and the same thing happens, I change the subject as politely as possible, or I ask a question:
- What would serve you best right now?
- What do we need to move forward?
We all face what I call the “drama vortex.” The drama vortex is what happens when our attention shifts from understanding and addressing a situation to repeatedly reacting to it.
These common situations can pull us into the vortex:
- Speculation: It could be a rumor about an investor backing out, or a leader leaving. It could be ongoing speculation about what will happen.
- Unresolved issues: It could be revisiting a decision that was made without adequate explanation.
- Social dynamics: It could be lunchtime gossip about smokers, or single women, or the dress code.
This can become contagious. One person’s speculation becomes a team’s anxiety. A frustrating interaction becomes a narrative about someone else’s intentions. Soon, everyone is discussing the problem, but nobody is addressing it.
We can get sucked into these scenarios that don’t help us move forward. (This is not the same as difficult conversations or decisions that do help us move forward.)
Getting sucked into the vortex drains us of the energy, attention, and trust that we need to do our best work.
Sometimes the first sign that we’re being pulled into the drama vortex is physical. Our shoulders tighten, our stomach contracts, or our breathing changes before we’ve even identified what’s bothering us.
Our thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, and behaviors are interconnected. Changing one can influence the others.
That’s why something as simple as looking out a different window and taking a deep breath can help. It interrupts the pattern and gives us a moment to choose how to respond.
Personally, we need to practice self-awareness and make behavioral choices.
There are three questions you can ask yourself when you are feeling pulled into the vortex:
- Am I reacting to what happened, or the story I’m telling myself about it?
- Notice when you’re getting emotionally hooked. Are you looking at something you know to be true, or have you constructed or accepted a narrative about motives, competence or respect for you? Separating facts from assumptions can help you respond more thoughtfully.
- Is this something I can influence?
- Acknowledge your agency and decide what deserves your attention. Is this something you can influence by asking a question, challenging a decision, or raising a concern? Or do you need to redirect energy toward what you can control?
- Am I contributing to the solution, or feeding the drama?
- Sometimes we need to vent or simply be heard. But is the conversation helping us gain perspective, clarity, or a path forward? Or are we repeating the same frustrations and becoming more entrenched in them?
- Choose your response instead of reacting.
As leaders, we need to help our teams do the same thing. When a team gets sucked into a vortex, you cannot solve the problem by telling people to be more positive or collaborative. We must understand and address the underlying organizational issue(s).
In fact, if leaders consistently ask employees to stop complaining without fixing the underlying organizational issues, they may make things worse.
Many leaders interpret disagreement, frustration, or emotional reactions as disruptive behavior. But sometimes those reactions contain important information about organizational dysfunction, like repeated complaints about the same leader, the same goal, the same rule.
Repeated concerns can be signals, not distractions.
A leader who is skilled at avoiding the drama vortex doesn’t simply redirect negative conversations.
They discern which conversations need to stop and which conversations need to go deeper.
Imagine a leadership team that keeps revisiting the same resource allocation decision. The discussion spills into private conversations. People begin questioning one another’s motives. Yet no one has clarified the business priorities driving the decision or who ultimately owns it.
The problem isn’t necessarily the personalities in the room. It may be the way the team makes decisions.
Four practical leadership behaviors can help teams stay focused and aligned.
| Team behavior | What it looks like in practice |
| Make the destination clear | When departments disagree about priorities, bring the discussion back to the shared business objective and explicitly identify tradeoffs. |
| Clarify who decides | Establish who has authority, who provides input, and how decisions are communicated. |
| Address tension directly | Bring concerns into the appropriate conversation rather than letting frustration grow through side discussions. |
| Close the loop | Record decisions, assign ownership, establish deadlines, and follow up on commitments. |
Every hour spent revisiting a decision, speculating about someone else’s intentions, or debating priorities that should already be clear is time and attention diverted from execution. When leaders make these small behavioral shifts, they reduce friction, accelerate decisions, and free their teams to focus on the work that matters.
Sometimes staying out of the drama vortex starts with something as small as looking out a different window. Sometimes it means asking a question that changes the direction of a conversation. And sometimes, for leadership teams, it means changing how decisions are made, conflict is addressed, and people are held accountable.
In every case, the shift is the same: stop feeding the distraction and put your energy into what moves you forward.
