26. Powerful Women Lead Without Drama
Are you constantly caught in cycles of conflict that leave you feeling drained and frustrated? You might be trapped in the Drama Triangle, a powerful psychological pattern that keeps leaders stuck in reactive mode. This hidden dynamic is silently sabotaging your leadership effectiveness and preventing you from reaching your full potential.
I discovered the Drama Triangle years ago, and it completely transformed how I understand conflict in both personal and professional settings. This powerful tool identifies three key roles we unconsciously play: Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor. Each role creates drama that distracts us from real issues and keeps us from making meaningful progress.
The cost of drama is staggering. In this episode, I'll show you how to recognize when you're caught in the Drama Triangle, the surprising ways each role actually gives you a false sense of power, and most importantly, how to break free and step into more empowered leadership.
Whether you're leading a team, making big bold decisions, or tackling tough conversations, confidence is the key to showing up powerfully. That's why I created the Confidence Hack, a simple yet powerful tool that has helped tons of women just like you break free from limiting beliefs and step fully into their potential.
Click here to download the Confidence Hack for free now!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
How to identify which of the three Drama Triangle roles you typically fall into during conflict.
Why the Victim role feels powerless but gains power by getting others to help them.
How Rescuers burn themselves out while preventing others from growing and solving their own problems.
The hidden emotions driving Persecutors and how to respond effectively.
The key emotional resilience skills needed to break free from ingrained drama patterns.
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State of the Global Workplace - Gallup article
Full Episode Transcript:
Have you ever found yourself caught in a cycle of conflict, whether it's at home or at work, where no matter what you do, you feel stuck, frustrated, and drained? You might be trapped in something called the Drama Triangle, a subtle but powerful trap that keeps leaders in reactive mode, holding you back from your full potential. In today's episode, we're going to expose the hidden cost of drama and how it's sabotaging your leadership, and more importantly, how to break free.
If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start stepping into your most confident, empowered self, this episode is for you. Let's dive in and change the way you lead forever.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey podcast listeners, welcome to today's show. I am going to talk about the Drama Triangle. And if you're noticing yourself in a lot of conflict, maybe it's a lot of office politics, maybe you are having troubles explaining yourself or being heard or seen with a loved one, it can impact you personally or professionally.
I want to introduce you to a tool that when I discovered it many years ago, it blew my mind. It opened up the way I saw the world, the way I saw conflict, the way I saw myself. And I bring you this episode so that it can help you have greater awareness, greater empowerment, and more confidence when you are dealing with conflict.
So, what is it? It is a tool that was designed by Dr. Stephen Karpman. He came up with this. He's a student of Eric Berne's, if you know him. He is kind of like the father of transactional analysis and did a lot on game theory and really studied people and the games people play. So his student, Dr. Stephen Karpman, came up with this Drama Triangle, which consists of three roles: the Victim, the Rescuer, and the Persecutor. And each role creates drama and conflict, and leaders often unknowingly fall into these roles.
You're going to see the Drama Triangle everywhere when you start learning about how it works, what the players are. You see it in fairy tales, you see it in movies. You can see it in your family systems, you can see it within yourself. But let me dive into why it actually matters.
Drama distracts us from real issues. Drama makes it seem like we are unleashing emotions, discharging emotions, and speaking up or venting. So oftentimes when somebody's telling you a story and they use a lot of words and you can start telling that they are trying to really come up with the story to convince you of something. And this is where the drama ensues.
But what happens in drama is it keeps you reactive rather than proactive, and it blocks your growth. And transitioning out of this Drama Triangle helps you to make clearer decisions. It helps you to be more responsible, create stronger relationships with other people. And if you stay out of drama as a leader, you can also expect that your team will perform better.
So I'm going to talk about examples from my clients, but also from my own work experience as I explain the role of the Drama Triangle, but also the cost to us. And I want to illustrate really the cost to us of what drama is. The Energy Project did a study on employees and they said that employees spend 25% of their workweek managing unnecessary drama, conflict, and misunderstandings. That's a lot of your workweek. Like if you think you're working, you know, you're working 40 hours a week, like 10 hours of that is just in drama, you know, gossiping, talking, dealing with misunderstandings.
But oftentimes people aren't getting clear. And one of the stats that I had heard about the Drama Triangle before is that when the Drama Triangle exists, that there is very little chance of any change happening. I think it was like 6% chance of change happening. And then Gallup estimates that drama and workplace stress costs US businesses around $500 billion annually due to loss of productivity, turnover, and poor employee engagement. So the cost is high with drama.
And as leaders, we need to be able to, number one, understand and lead ourselves, and then see past the drama as well. But sometimes we get stuck in drama and we don't even know how. So I'm going to talk to you about how the Drama Triangle shows up, especially for women in leadership. And I'm going to call myself out here. I had a lot of drama before I learned about this and before I learned the tools of how to really take radical responsibility for my satisfaction.
But let's dive into the roles of the Drama Triangle. We'll start with the Victim role. And I'm going to share with you some again, examples and how the victim - actually every role has some sort of power. Even though it might not seem like power, there is power to every role.
So an example is, I'm working so hard but no one appreciates me. This is a very sort of victim mindset. And many of my clients, they feel like they're doing everything they can, but no matter what, especially if they're in a male-dominated space and they are not being recognized, they feel like they're not being heard or valued.
And they may think I'm doing all of this hard work, but no one recognizes it. And this mindset keeps them stuck because they feel powerless to change their circumstances and disengage from taking full ownership of their actions. I actually remember being like this very much so, especially early on in my career. I used to manage the budget, so I knew all of everybody's payroll and salary. And I actually remember being an analyst at the time in New York City and I managed the corporate budget. You know, not only managed it, but I actually did the forecasting for it, so I knew what everybody was getting paid.
And I remember doing it and being like, oh my gosh, I am like the lowest level paid person in this corporate center. And it kind of made sense because I was like the most junior person. They didn't really have junior people in this like corporate center. I think the other person that kind of made around what I did was like an executive assistant, which at that level, executive assistants were making like six figures, so it wasn't like they were underpaid. But I just remember being like, oh my gosh, like I barely make, you know, what an executive assistant makes. But I was like really one or two years out of school, so it made sense at the time.
But I remember being in so much victimhood and I felt sad and I disengaged from my work. I wasn't as motivated and that role just kind of keeps you stuck, right? So you want to just notice, are you playing the victim role in some way? I also used to play like this damsel in distress. Sometimes I would get a big project and I would just, you know, feel a lot of fear. And instead of going and figuring it out, I would like go and explain it to somebody, maybe a male colleague that I knew like cared about me and wanted to help me.
So I would be like this damsel in distress and then he would come in and say, don't worry, I'll help you with this or I'll do this. And this is where the rescuer role comes in. But I just want to show you how the victim actually gets power because the victim is like, help me, I'm helpless, you know, I need support and somebody will come in. So if we also think about fairy tales, you want to think about Cinderella. Cinderella is totally the victim and she's waiting for the rescuer to come rescue her or the prince, right? These are the people who are going to come rescue her.
So you want to notice for yourself that the victim role actually has power. They're like kind of help me, I'm helpless, I can't do it. And that's, they get power from getting people to help them. But what is limiting for that victim is that they're not empowering themselves. They are kind of using other people to empower them and they're waiting for Prince Charming or a fairy godmother to come. And that doesn't always happen, right? So it doesn't feel like you're in your power when you're waiting for somebody to come rescue you.
So the next role is Rescuer. And an example of this is, I need to fix everything for my team. If I don't step in, things will fall apart. You know you're a rescuer if you are overfunctioning for lots of people and you're doing lots of people's jobs and you justify it because you're like, they need me to do this. If I didn't do this, things would fall apart. So you just want to notice if this is your MO. And I'm going to share with you what the rescuer gets, but also what it costs for the rescuer to play this role.
And oftentimes in some of my clients, especially as leaders, they fall into this rescuer role, especially if we are more maternal and we really look after our team and we like our mama bears for our team. They often take everyone else's problems, you know, more seriously than the thing that they have at hand. They try to save their team, like if your team members are not doing what they need to do, they step in. They also take care of their peers. So you want to notice, is this you if you're constantly helping your peers with their projects?
Or even in their family members, they are there to help them with stressful situations, maybe help them financially, maybe are always their emotional like person that's there. Maybe you play the therapist for your family and friends. The problem here is that they burn themselves out all while preventing those that they're helping from growing and learning to solve their own issues. It's limiting in two ways. If you are a rescuer of your team or your company, what you're doing is also enabling people to not step up and learn new skills and learn how to be responsible for what their deliverables are.
So this is what happens when rescuers come in and help victims. If somebody's playing a victim role and they're like, I don't know how to do this. I don't understand how to create this Excel model. And you as like the leader is like, let me come in and do it instead of teaching them how to do it or coaching them how to do it. You literally go in and do it. And so every time your team member has to do this project, you say, oh, I'm going to do this part for you because you don't know how. And it keeps you stuck because you're doing something that is super easy for you.
And then it also keeps your team member stuck because they're not learning and growing and they're dependent on you to do this critical part of their job. So I want to share that example. But what happens with the rescuer, and I historically have been a rescuer of my family, always coming in, helping other people, making sure they're okay, seeing how they're doing financially. What happens with a rescuer is they spend more time focused on other people's problems and they get to feel superior, you know, so like the victim role feels inferior. They get to feel superior because they're like, let me help you.
And they get value from helping other people and from giving other people things, instead of getting value from knowing that, you know, them taking care of themselves and them taking responsibility for their problems is really what is empowering for them. So this rescuing role not only enables people to not learn new skills, but the rescuing role also keeps the rescuer from really dealing with the issues that they have to deal with.
And for sure, for me, in my family system, I felt like I couldn't rely on my family for emotional or even financial support because my belief at the time was they need me. They need my help. I have to help fix them. And so there wasn't a lot of room for me to be human, for me to ask for help, for me to be vulnerable. And over time, that can feel really heavy and you can feel really stuck in your role.
So I had a client who very much played this rescuer role. She did this both at work and at home. So at work, she was actually in charge of sales enablement and put a lot of systems in place to help the sales team, to help the sales team track all the stuff. And she gave them all these tools and trained them up on it. But she felt super frustrated because she wasn't able to actually get them to do more sales. I mean, that wasn't her job to actually pick up the phone and do more sales.
And she started wanting to figure out how to do that. And I literally had to tell her, hey, that's actually not your role. You're actually taking responsibility for these sales people who aren't making their goal. And instead of working with them to figure out what it is that they're not doing or how this is impacting the company, sharing with their boss, the sales leader, you're kind of thinking that you're supposed to be in charge of this and somehow you can rescue the company from the sales target by, you know, actually doing the sales.
But that's not your job, right? So she just didn't even notice how she was taking on the pressure of getting all these things done and how she was constantly trying to rescue the sales team versus holding them accountable and working with the sales leader on what they could do to drive it forward. So she was stuck in this drama. And then at home with her family, she was living with both of them. At the same time, she wanted a life of her own. She wanted to move out and have her own place, but financially she was providing for them.
And it was really hard for her to see a way out of this, because as a rescuer, we oftentimes put other people's emotions and their problems ahead of our own. So she was constantly putting other people's desires and goals above her own. And she wasn't even realizing that she was doing this consciously. She just knew she felt really stuck.
And so when she came to work with me, she was like, I need to get unstuck. And I was like, yeah, you need to learn about the Drama Triangle and you need to see where you're not taking responsibility for your own happiness and your own satisfaction. And this is one of the things that helped to unlock it.
The next one is the Persecutor. So this role is like, if we think about Cinderella, it is like the stepmother and the stepsisters. So the persecutor is always blaming other people for things. And actually Brené Brown does a lot on why people blame other people for things. And oftentimes it's like a discharge of uncomfortable emotions, usually hurt or fear or sadness.
But what happens with a Persecutor is they don't take full responsibility for what they can. They basically blame someone else. And even though a Persecutor, they may seem strong and powerful, they're actually underneath it, feeling probably hurt or fear. And so this was actually critical.
When I learned more about this Persecutor role, I dealt with bullies at work in a totally different way. I could actually ask them what their main concern was, what they were scared was going to happen because typically riding on anger, underneath anger is usually hurt or fear. And Persecutors are usually the ones that are going to show up with that anger.
And it's going to sound something like, why can't my team get things done? I'm constantly fixing their mistakes. I actually remember one of my bosses once was like telling me and my colleague, he was like, I have no confidence in your ability to forecast. He was really angry and upset and fearful at the time because, you know, we had to explain some numbers that were missed. And if I put it in that perspective, I was like, I understand why he's expressing this way.
But what you want to know about yourself is if you're in that Persecutor role, oftentimes in leadership, the Persecutor role shows up when my clients become overly critical of themselves or other people. So this can also show up in yourself. They might think, why can't my team just get it right? Or I'm not going to be good enough. This harsh critical approach creates friction in relationships and keeps us from cultivating trust and growth in our teams and in our personal lives.
So it might also sound like you as you're persecuting yourself, especially if you don't feel super confident in yourself. It might sound like, why can't you just be more confident? Or why don't you know this stuff? It's when we start berating ourselves, when we start treating ourselves super harshly. I remember when I made a mistake at work, I was just so mean to myself. I was like totally persecuting myself. I felt like I was just the scum of the earth. And oftentimes we don't notice this. It just kind of happens and it's autopilot.
But the more you get aware of it, the more you can take responsibility for what's actually happening. There's actually an emotion that's happening and there are a lot of thoughts that we're having in the moment. And oftentimes we are pulled into the Drama Triangle because it becomes a story and we sit into a role and we end up starting to play this role out for ourselves. A critical point for me in my growth journey is when I realized that I was being the Persecutor of another team.
I actually used to be in charge of all of the financial decision making. So my role was to help my leadership team, including my CEO, with strategic decisions related to the business. And I would provide the financial foresight and the financial view of all of that. You know, we're going to do this business project. This is how it's going to impact the bottom line.
And what would oftentimes happen is when we were looking at our results versus our business plan, some of the numbers weren't correct. Some of the actual numbers that were coming through from the accounting services team. This is a separate team from mine that's in charge of all of the numbers. They're actually just in charge of making sure the journal entries are put in properly.
And what was happening was that team didn't have enough resources. So there were so many mistakes. Things were not put in the right buckets. When I was looking at my numbers, they weren't correct. And instead of being the leader that I am now, I know who I'm capable of being. At the time, I didn't know. I was really upset and I didn't feel great about the service I was getting from this accounting services team. I actually became the Persecutor. I didn't realize how much drama I was actually creating in the team by really blaming them for not having the correct numbers. Now, I was upset and of course, I felt fear and anger because I was like, these numbers aren't correct.
But I didn't realize I was creating all of this and my team was also like, it's their fault. And so what was happening is we weren't taking responsibility of what we could. And I just remember I had like an aha moment like, wow, I'm creating this drama. I'm part of this drama. And it was, you know, eye opening. I also felt like sad. I think I felt maybe a bit of shame too, not realizing, but I was causing.
But with that information, I could actually come back to the problem and be part of the solution. And being part of the solution meant really partnering with the leadership team there and saying, listen, your team needs more support, your team needs more training. How can we work on this together?
And this is really the power of stepping out of the Drama Triangle. You actually get to the root cause of the issue and you're empowering yourself and other people to solve the problem. When we stay stuck in these drama roles, we stay stuck in the story of what we are and who we are, and we stay stuck in expecting certain things from certain groups of people. You know, instead of actually expecting that victim to rise up and take responsibility, we're just kind of in that same cycle where everybody's stuck. It feels like a powerful story because people are like venting and emoting, but it's actually nobody in this Drama Triangle is taking responsibility.
So now that you understand the Drama Triangle, you want to see how it plays out in your life. You want to see where it shows up because awareness is the first step to strategically solve problems and take responsibility for yourself. These different roles are different mindsets that you're holding onto and these mindsets are not serving you.
So, what can you do? First of all, again, it's awareness, noticing, okay, there's a drama coming up, there's conflict. What part am I playing? What role am I playing? Am I noticing myself playing a certain role here?
You want to identify yourself because when I identified that I was the Persecutor, I was like, okay, great. That doesn't feel great. But now I can do something about it. I can take ownership. I was both the Persecutor and the Victim in that role. So you want to notice that for yourself. So number one, awareness. Start identifying which role you tend to fall into. And if conflict comes up, you want to start noticing who's playing what role.
And instead of being the victim, you want to shift to taking ownership and becoming the creator. Instead of asking, why is this happening to me? You can ask yourself, what can I do to change this? Taking ownership of your role in a situation and focusing on the solutions instead of the story of being the victim. You're really focusing on the skill sets you need to learn to enable yourself.
The next one, instead of being the Rescuer, you're going to shift to empowerment through coaching. Rather than saving other people, you are empowering your team to solve their own problems. Encourage them to take responsibility and problem solve in those areas instead of fixing things.
This is also going to create more mutuality. When I started doing this with my family members, I started being more mutual with them. I could share more of my issues. And oftentimes when I'm talking to my family members, I really make sure that I'm starting to share about myself and I'm putting myself out there because historically, what I would do was just like, hey, what's going on with you? How can I help or fix you? And that wasn't fun for me. It wasn't mutual and it was kind of like the same story playing over and over again.
The next one is, instead of being the Persecutor, you get to be the challenger and you get to clarify what's actually happening instead of criticizing and challenging other people and yourself with constructive feedback. You are actually wanting to inspire growth and improvement rather than blame. It's owning and using that anger intentionally to get what you need, to ask for what you need, to challenge for what you need, right? This is a really critical part of shifting from that persecutor to really empowering other people by asking challenging questions, for asking for things and getting that clarity.
And then, of course, you know, my big one is that emotional resiliency. If you are able to cultivate emotional resiliency, this allows you to respond from a place of confidence and calm rather than reacting emotionally. When we react emotionally, it oftentimes has us in this pattern of the Drama Triangle.
Building emotional intelligence and resiliency is the key to breaking free from these ingrained patterns of drama. So I will also refer you back to my episode on emotional resiliency and also my episode on the power of emotion so that you can start building these skills.
Having emotional resiliency, understanding your emotions, being able to name them will often times have you in a more calmer space, a grounded space so that you don't automatically react in one of these Drama Triangle patterns. So you're not just going to fall into that victimhood.
Again, a practical solution, if you noticed yourself as the victim, why is this happening to me? You can instead be the creator. What can I do to support my team for better success? And then of course, the rescuer. I'll just do everything myself. That's how it gets done correctly.
You want to move to being the coach. And this comes from David Emerald. He has this empowerment model, which is the coach. How can I guide them to take ownership of the solution? And then lastly, instead of the persecutor, which sounds like, this is unacceptable, you failed at this project. You're going to be the challenger. What feedback can I give this team to help them improve for next time?
All right, so that was today's episode all on the Drama Triangle. So go out there, notice yourself in it and step out and choose to be more empowered, more responsible for your satisfaction. And share this podcast with other people on your teams, other people that you work with that you notice that they're stuck in drama and they're feeling really lost and they want a way out to empower themselves.
All right, so that was today's episode and I'm going to encourage you to go reflect on conflict that arises, whether it's at home and at work. And notice and allow your team members or your family to identify what role they're playing in that Drama Triangle. Ask them to consciously choose one of the empowered roles instead. And you can ask that of yourself.
But the more you use this Drama Triangle and step out of the drama, the more you're going to transform yourself and the people around you to feel more empowered, to take radical responsibility and to be more satisfied. Let me know how you use the tool and how it is changing your life. You can feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or of course, leave a review for me. Have a great week ahead.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start stepping into your most confident, empowered self, this episode is for you. Let's dive in and change the way you lead forever.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey podcast listeners, welcome to today's show. I am going to talk about the Drama Triangle. And if you're noticing yourself in a lot of conflict, maybe it's a lot of office politics, maybe you are having troubles explaining yourself or being heard or seen with a loved one, it can impact you personally or professionally.
I want to introduce you to a tool that when I discovered it many years ago, it blew my mind. It opened up the way I saw the world, the way I saw conflict, the way I saw myself. And I bring you this episode so that it can help you have greater awareness, greater empowerment, and more confidence when you are dealing with conflict.
So, what is it? It is a tool that was designed by Dr. Stephen Karpman. He came up with this. He's a student of Eric Berne's, if you know him. He is kind of like the father of transactional analysis and did a lot on game theory and really studied people and the games people play. So his student, Dr. Stephen Karpman, came up with this Drama Triangle, which consists of three roles: the Victim, the Rescuer, and the Persecutor. And each role creates drama and conflict, and leaders often unknowingly fall into these roles.
You're going to see the Drama Triangle everywhere when you start learning about how it works, what the players are. You see it in fairy tales, you see it in movies. You can see it in your family systems, you can see it within yourself. But let me dive into why it actually matters.
Drama distracts us from real issues. Drama makes it seem like we are unleashing emotions, discharging emotions, and speaking up or venting. So oftentimes when somebody's telling you a story and they use a lot of words and you can start telling that they are trying to really come up with the story to convince you of something. And this is where the drama ensues.
But what happens in drama is it keeps you reactive rather than proactive, and it blocks your growth. And transitioning out of this Drama Triangle helps you to make clearer decisions. It helps you to be more responsible, create stronger relationships with other people. And if you stay out of drama as a leader, you can also expect that your team will perform better.
So I'm going to talk about examples from my clients, but also from my own work experience as I explain the role of the Drama Triangle, but also the cost to us. And I want to illustrate really the cost to us of what drama is. The Energy Project did a study on employees and they said that employees spend 25% of their workweek managing unnecessary drama, conflict, and misunderstandings. That's a lot of your workweek. Like if you think you're working, you know, you're working 40 hours a week, like 10 hours of that is just in drama, you know, gossiping, talking, dealing with misunderstandings.
But oftentimes people aren't getting clear. And one of the stats that I had heard about the Drama Triangle before is that when the Drama Triangle exists, that there is very little chance of any change happening. I think it was like 6% chance of change happening. And then Gallup estimates that drama and workplace stress costs US businesses around $500 billion annually due to loss of productivity, turnover, and poor employee engagement. So the cost is high with drama.
And as leaders, we need to be able to, number one, understand and lead ourselves, and then see past the drama as well. But sometimes we get stuck in drama and we don't even know how. So I'm going to talk to you about how the Drama Triangle shows up, especially for women in leadership. And I'm going to call myself out here. I had a lot of drama before I learned about this and before I learned the tools of how to really take radical responsibility for my satisfaction.
But let's dive into the roles of the Drama Triangle. We'll start with the Victim role. And I'm going to share with you some again, examples and how the victim - actually every role has some sort of power. Even though it might not seem like power, there is power to every role.
So an example is, I'm working so hard but no one appreciates me. This is a very sort of victim mindset. And many of my clients, they feel like they're doing everything they can, but no matter what, especially if they're in a male-dominated space and they are not being recognized, they feel like they're not being heard or valued.
And they may think I'm doing all of this hard work, but no one recognizes it. And this mindset keeps them stuck because they feel powerless to change their circumstances and disengage from taking full ownership of their actions. I actually remember being like this very much so, especially early on in my career. I used to manage the budget, so I knew all of everybody's payroll and salary. And I actually remember being an analyst at the time in New York City and I managed the corporate budget. You know, not only managed it, but I actually did the forecasting for it, so I knew what everybody was getting paid.
And I remember doing it and being like, oh my gosh, I am like the lowest level paid person in this corporate center. And it kind of made sense because I was like the most junior person. They didn't really have junior people in this like corporate center. I think the other person that kind of made around what I did was like an executive assistant, which at that level, executive assistants were making like six figures, so it wasn't like they were underpaid. But I just remember being like, oh my gosh, like I barely make, you know, what an executive assistant makes. But I was like really one or two years out of school, so it made sense at the time.
But I remember being in so much victimhood and I felt sad and I disengaged from my work. I wasn't as motivated and that role just kind of keeps you stuck, right? So you want to just notice, are you playing the victim role in some way? I also used to play like this damsel in distress. Sometimes I would get a big project and I would just, you know, feel a lot of fear. And instead of going and figuring it out, I would like go and explain it to somebody, maybe a male colleague that I knew like cared about me and wanted to help me.
So I would be like this damsel in distress and then he would come in and say, don't worry, I'll help you with this or I'll do this. And this is where the rescuer role comes in. But I just want to show you how the victim actually gets power because the victim is like, help me, I'm helpless, you know, I need support and somebody will come in. So if we also think about fairy tales, you want to think about Cinderella. Cinderella is totally the victim and she's waiting for the rescuer to come rescue her or the prince, right? These are the people who are going to come rescue her.
So you want to notice for yourself that the victim role actually has power. They're like kind of help me, I'm helpless, I can't do it. And that's, they get power from getting people to help them. But what is limiting for that victim is that they're not empowering themselves. They are kind of using other people to empower them and they're waiting for Prince Charming or a fairy godmother to come. And that doesn't always happen, right? So it doesn't feel like you're in your power when you're waiting for somebody to come rescue you.
So the next role is Rescuer. And an example of this is, I need to fix everything for my team. If I don't step in, things will fall apart. You know you're a rescuer if you are overfunctioning for lots of people and you're doing lots of people's jobs and you justify it because you're like, they need me to do this. If I didn't do this, things would fall apart. So you just want to notice if this is your MO. And I'm going to share with you what the rescuer gets, but also what it costs for the rescuer to play this role.
And oftentimes in some of my clients, especially as leaders, they fall into this rescuer role, especially if we are more maternal and we really look after our team and we like our mama bears for our team. They often take everyone else's problems, you know, more seriously than the thing that they have at hand. They try to save their team, like if your team members are not doing what they need to do, they step in. They also take care of their peers. So you want to notice, is this you if you're constantly helping your peers with their projects?
Or even in their family members, they are there to help them with stressful situations, maybe help them financially, maybe are always their emotional like person that's there. Maybe you play the therapist for your family and friends. The problem here is that they burn themselves out all while preventing those that they're helping from growing and learning to solve their own issues. It's limiting in two ways. If you are a rescuer of your team or your company, what you're doing is also enabling people to not step up and learn new skills and learn how to be responsible for what their deliverables are.
So this is what happens when rescuers come in and help victims. If somebody's playing a victim role and they're like, I don't know how to do this. I don't understand how to create this Excel model. And you as like the leader is like, let me come in and do it instead of teaching them how to do it or coaching them how to do it. You literally go in and do it. And so every time your team member has to do this project, you say, oh, I'm going to do this part for you because you don't know how. And it keeps you stuck because you're doing something that is super easy for you.
And then it also keeps your team member stuck because they're not learning and growing and they're dependent on you to do this critical part of their job. So I want to share that example. But what happens with the rescuer, and I historically have been a rescuer of my family, always coming in, helping other people, making sure they're okay, seeing how they're doing financially. What happens with a rescuer is they spend more time focused on other people's problems and they get to feel superior, you know, so like the victim role feels inferior. They get to feel superior because they're like, let me help you.
And they get value from helping other people and from giving other people things, instead of getting value from knowing that, you know, them taking care of themselves and them taking responsibility for their problems is really what is empowering for them. So this rescuing role not only enables people to not learn new skills, but the rescuing role also keeps the rescuer from really dealing with the issues that they have to deal with.
And for sure, for me, in my family system, I felt like I couldn't rely on my family for emotional or even financial support because my belief at the time was they need me. They need my help. I have to help fix them. And so there wasn't a lot of room for me to be human, for me to ask for help, for me to be vulnerable. And over time, that can feel really heavy and you can feel really stuck in your role.
So I had a client who very much played this rescuer role. She did this both at work and at home. So at work, she was actually in charge of sales enablement and put a lot of systems in place to help the sales team, to help the sales team track all the stuff. And she gave them all these tools and trained them up on it. But she felt super frustrated because she wasn't able to actually get them to do more sales. I mean, that wasn't her job to actually pick up the phone and do more sales.
And she started wanting to figure out how to do that. And I literally had to tell her, hey, that's actually not your role. You're actually taking responsibility for these sales people who aren't making their goal. And instead of working with them to figure out what it is that they're not doing or how this is impacting the company, sharing with their boss, the sales leader, you're kind of thinking that you're supposed to be in charge of this and somehow you can rescue the company from the sales target by, you know, actually doing the sales.
But that's not your job, right? So she just didn't even notice how she was taking on the pressure of getting all these things done and how she was constantly trying to rescue the sales team versus holding them accountable and working with the sales leader on what they could do to drive it forward. So she was stuck in this drama. And then at home with her family, she was living with both of them. At the same time, she wanted a life of her own. She wanted to move out and have her own place, but financially she was providing for them.
And it was really hard for her to see a way out of this, because as a rescuer, we oftentimes put other people's emotions and their problems ahead of our own. So she was constantly putting other people's desires and goals above her own. And she wasn't even realizing that she was doing this consciously. She just knew she felt really stuck.
And so when she came to work with me, she was like, I need to get unstuck. And I was like, yeah, you need to learn about the Drama Triangle and you need to see where you're not taking responsibility for your own happiness and your own satisfaction. And this is one of the things that helped to unlock it.
The next one is the Persecutor. So this role is like, if we think about Cinderella, it is like the stepmother and the stepsisters. So the persecutor is always blaming other people for things. And actually Brené Brown does a lot on why people blame other people for things. And oftentimes it's like a discharge of uncomfortable emotions, usually hurt or fear or sadness.
But what happens with a Persecutor is they don't take full responsibility for what they can. They basically blame someone else. And even though a Persecutor, they may seem strong and powerful, they're actually underneath it, feeling probably hurt or fear. And so this was actually critical.
When I learned more about this Persecutor role, I dealt with bullies at work in a totally different way. I could actually ask them what their main concern was, what they were scared was going to happen because typically riding on anger, underneath anger is usually hurt or fear. And Persecutors are usually the ones that are going to show up with that anger.
And it's going to sound something like, why can't my team get things done? I'm constantly fixing their mistakes. I actually remember one of my bosses once was like telling me and my colleague, he was like, I have no confidence in your ability to forecast. He was really angry and upset and fearful at the time because, you know, we had to explain some numbers that were missed. And if I put it in that perspective, I was like, I understand why he's expressing this way.
But what you want to know about yourself is if you're in that Persecutor role, oftentimes in leadership, the Persecutor role shows up when my clients become overly critical of themselves or other people. So this can also show up in yourself. They might think, why can't my team just get it right? Or I'm not going to be good enough. This harsh critical approach creates friction in relationships and keeps us from cultivating trust and growth in our teams and in our personal lives.
So it might also sound like you as you're persecuting yourself, especially if you don't feel super confident in yourself. It might sound like, why can't you just be more confident? Or why don't you know this stuff? It's when we start berating ourselves, when we start treating ourselves super harshly. I remember when I made a mistake at work, I was just so mean to myself. I was like totally persecuting myself. I felt like I was just the scum of the earth. And oftentimes we don't notice this. It just kind of happens and it's autopilot.
But the more you get aware of it, the more you can take responsibility for what's actually happening. There's actually an emotion that's happening and there are a lot of thoughts that we're having in the moment. And oftentimes we are pulled into the Drama Triangle because it becomes a story and we sit into a role and we end up starting to play this role out for ourselves. A critical point for me in my growth journey is when I realized that I was being the Persecutor of another team.
I actually used to be in charge of all of the financial decision making. So my role was to help my leadership team, including my CEO, with strategic decisions related to the business. And I would provide the financial foresight and the financial view of all of that. You know, we're going to do this business project. This is how it's going to impact the bottom line.
And what would oftentimes happen is when we were looking at our results versus our business plan, some of the numbers weren't correct. Some of the actual numbers that were coming through from the accounting services team. This is a separate team from mine that's in charge of all of the numbers. They're actually just in charge of making sure the journal entries are put in properly.
And what was happening was that team didn't have enough resources. So there were so many mistakes. Things were not put in the right buckets. When I was looking at my numbers, they weren't correct. And instead of being the leader that I am now, I know who I'm capable of being. At the time, I didn't know. I was really upset and I didn't feel great about the service I was getting from this accounting services team. I actually became the Persecutor. I didn't realize how much drama I was actually creating in the team by really blaming them for not having the correct numbers. Now, I was upset and of course, I felt fear and anger because I was like, these numbers aren't correct.
But I didn't realize I was creating all of this and my team was also like, it's their fault. And so what was happening is we weren't taking responsibility of what we could. And I just remember I had like an aha moment like, wow, I'm creating this drama. I'm part of this drama. And it was, you know, eye opening. I also felt like sad. I think I felt maybe a bit of shame too, not realizing, but I was causing.
But with that information, I could actually come back to the problem and be part of the solution. And being part of the solution meant really partnering with the leadership team there and saying, listen, your team needs more support, your team needs more training. How can we work on this together?
And this is really the power of stepping out of the Drama Triangle. You actually get to the root cause of the issue and you're empowering yourself and other people to solve the problem. When we stay stuck in these drama roles, we stay stuck in the story of what we are and who we are, and we stay stuck in expecting certain things from certain groups of people. You know, instead of actually expecting that victim to rise up and take responsibility, we're just kind of in that same cycle where everybody's stuck. It feels like a powerful story because people are like venting and emoting, but it's actually nobody in this Drama Triangle is taking responsibility.
So now that you understand the Drama Triangle, you want to see how it plays out in your life. You want to see where it shows up because awareness is the first step to strategically solve problems and take responsibility for yourself. These different roles are different mindsets that you're holding onto and these mindsets are not serving you.
So, what can you do? First of all, again, it's awareness, noticing, okay, there's a drama coming up, there's conflict. What part am I playing? What role am I playing? Am I noticing myself playing a certain role here?
You want to identify yourself because when I identified that I was the Persecutor, I was like, okay, great. That doesn't feel great. But now I can do something about it. I can take ownership. I was both the Persecutor and the Victim in that role. So you want to notice that for yourself. So number one, awareness. Start identifying which role you tend to fall into. And if conflict comes up, you want to start noticing who's playing what role.
And instead of being the victim, you want to shift to taking ownership and becoming the creator. Instead of asking, why is this happening to me? You can ask yourself, what can I do to change this? Taking ownership of your role in a situation and focusing on the solutions instead of the story of being the victim. You're really focusing on the skill sets you need to learn to enable yourself.
The next one, instead of being the Rescuer, you're going to shift to empowerment through coaching. Rather than saving other people, you are empowering your team to solve their own problems. Encourage them to take responsibility and problem solve in those areas instead of fixing things.
This is also going to create more mutuality. When I started doing this with my family members, I started being more mutual with them. I could share more of my issues. And oftentimes when I'm talking to my family members, I really make sure that I'm starting to share about myself and I'm putting myself out there because historically, what I would do was just like, hey, what's going on with you? How can I help or fix you? And that wasn't fun for me. It wasn't mutual and it was kind of like the same story playing over and over again.
The next one is, instead of being the Persecutor, you get to be the challenger and you get to clarify what's actually happening instead of criticizing and challenging other people and yourself with constructive feedback. You are actually wanting to inspire growth and improvement rather than blame. It's owning and using that anger intentionally to get what you need, to ask for what you need, to challenge for what you need, right? This is a really critical part of shifting from that persecutor to really empowering other people by asking challenging questions, for asking for things and getting that clarity.
And then, of course, you know, my big one is that emotional resiliency. If you are able to cultivate emotional resiliency, this allows you to respond from a place of confidence and calm rather than reacting emotionally. When we react emotionally, it oftentimes has us in this pattern of the Drama Triangle.
Building emotional intelligence and resiliency is the key to breaking free from these ingrained patterns of drama. So I will also refer you back to my episode on emotional resiliency and also my episode on the power of emotion so that you can start building these skills.
Having emotional resiliency, understanding your emotions, being able to name them will often times have you in a more calmer space, a grounded space so that you don't automatically react in one of these Drama Triangle patterns. So you're not just going to fall into that victimhood.
Again, a practical solution, if you noticed yourself as the victim, why is this happening to me? You can instead be the creator. What can I do to support my team for better success? And then of course, the rescuer. I'll just do everything myself. That's how it gets done correctly.
You want to move to being the coach. And this comes from David Emerald. He has this empowerment model, which is the coach. How can I guide them to take ownership of the solution? And then lastly, instead of the persecutor, which sounds like, this is unacceptable, you failed at this project. You're going to be the challenger. What feedback can I give this team to help them improve for next time?
All right, so that was today's episode all on the Drama Triangle. So go out there, notice yourself in it and step out and choose to be more empowered, more responsible for your satisfaction. And share this podcast with other people on your teams, other people that you work with that you notice that they're stuck in drama and they're feeling really lost and they want a way out to empower themselves.
All right, so that was today's episode and I'm going to encourage you to go reflect on conflict that arises, whether it's at home and at work. And notice and allow your team members or your family to identify what role they're playing in that Drama Triangle. Ask them to consciously choose one of the empowered roles instead. And you can ask that of yourself.
But the more you use this Drama Triangle and step out of the drama, the more you're going to transform yourself and the people around you to feel more empowered, to take radical responsibility and to be more satisfied. Let me know how you use the tool and how it is changing your life. You can feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or of course, leave a review for me. Have a great week ahead.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
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