What Is Up With The Office Queen Bee? Why are some women always competing? - mindful selfcare

 We have all known one at some point in our lives.  She's the girl who always has to be the center of attention.  If you take attention from her in anyway she views you as a threat.  Before you know it you are in some type of compaction you didn't even sign up for.  We expect this in high school but what happens if a Queen Bee takes ever your work environment?  I'm going to tell you how the Lauren show took over my favorite team and single handedly ruined the culture in our office!  Looking back I would have done so many things differently.  So how do you handle a female narcissist in the work place?  Hopefully, by the end of this rant ways to address this situation will emerge.  First, we need to define the problem.

I recently had the best job experience and the worst job experience collide in my professional life.  I was hired as an intake specialist for law firms by way of a call center.  I very quickly became the lead performer and I was promoted twice within my first year.  My position fell just underneath the administrator / director of operations.  The only person above my direct supervisor was the owner of the  so the start-up so technically I was third in command.  I helped launch this business, ran a lot of the operations, managed a team of 15-20 phone reps in the US and  trained and worked heavily with our international teams.  I trained anyone who joined our company after the launch and I really loved the culture of our company.  And then within the week that I was on vacation the wheels of progress started to turn someone else was promoted to fill in when I needed time off.  Much need time off, it was the mark of success genuinely.  But my superior had started hiring people from her church and things were about to change. 

I actually just had a hilarious stress nightmare about this whole thing that I will share with you so you can sense the atmosphere.  I was working somewhere and everything was going well when someone new entered the picture.  This person quickly created a team that spread like social media but based on nothing.  I watched as this team took over the company and then the bottom fell out of the entire business. I was called in to start where I left off.  The source of my fear was that there was no work ethic behind all the advertisement, right.  There was all this hype but no gumption.  My actual work experience was more of one of bad management.  I was in a unique position where at age 40 I was the oldest member of the management team but not the leader.  The administrator was 26 and this made a difference in how everything unfolded I'm sure.  When I was working directly with her the culture was amazing! Then when the Queen Bee surfaced I watched my once awesome boss deteriorate in credibility start making poor choices.  This Bee got in her ear and single handedly restructured the way we managed by being the opposite type of manager than me. She quickly gained attention and started taking over conversations basically.  The management suffered, people stopped working cohesively and it all became micromanaged in a matter of weeks.  Instead of promoting our employee's their naivety was to obsess over mistakes.  An international team we had fed for 2 years quickly started to turn over.  The turnover problem was the first of many to follow and I'm actually glad I was out and did not see any more.  The point is how do these bossy women alpha their way into situations they don't belong in and row can we root this behavior out?!

How do we get rid of the "mean girl" syndrome at the office and when will we admit we aren't supporting each other in the work place.  We are still competing with other women more than we are collaborating and the next generation is Qued up to do the exact same thing.  First of all, we have to go back to the idea of seniority and remember why it is so important.  While novel ideas are great in certain areas, management is probably not one of them, lol!  Stick with what works.  Experience is always better when it comes to a management team.  People who quickly rise to management need to be heavily vetted and trained.  

My advice to avoid this type of women boxing you out of your job, you need to be made aware of 6 things.  

1. Never train anyone else in all of the responsibilities of your role at the company.  IF you are asked to train someone, make sure to confirm that you are in a position of authority over that individual.  If you aren't than you aren't the appropriate person to train them. 

2. If you think she is trying to take your job it's probably because she is.  Keep track of behaviors that people under your management do that are negative.  Rather than having to go to your superior, have a report ready for when she comes to you.  

3. Don't engage in projects with someone without clearing assigning tasks and tracking input.  Make sure your work is clearly your own and divide task that assigned to you and the queen bee jointly.  You want to work well with others, but if you are the one doing all the work that should be plain to see. 

4. Never get bullied out of your own opinion.  The first time I was too busy to fight against glib nonsense the nonsense snuck in.  Always stay on top of your management role and don't get bogged down in other tasks.  Allocate responsibilities and don't let her step in where you are the team lead.  

5. Don't react to petty challenges.  When this person starts to use gossip and "mean girl," tactics, call out unprofessional behavior to her and in front of your superior.  Dealing with it head on is the best way to discourage a toxic work culture. 

6. Don't fall for the whole, "we are such good friends," gimmick.  No one at work is your friend.  Someone who tries to buddy up to you should be seen as a red flag.