Do you know the ways in which you habitually rob yourself of your leadership? For example, do you find yourself running on autopilot, not always making the best decisions, or simply pushing to one side the nagging feeling that change is needed?
When you forget that you have the ability to make empowered leadership choices, it can be easy to find yourself playing a role in the dreaded Drama Triangle, which is dysfunctional patterns of behavior and thought that manifest themselves in three main characters: Villain, Victim, and Hero.
It’s important for us to understand how we get pulled into the Drama triangle, because it’s the antithesis of emotionally intelligent leadership.
Your suffering is never actually caused by the person you’re blaming, the person you’re saving, or the person you feel victimized by. Instead, you’re suffering because of the way you think about a person or situation.
When we’re trying to build cultures of accountability, the Drama Triangle always creates problems, because the Villain thinks that other people are the issue. The Victim thinks that they are helpless, and have no power over a different outcome. And the Hero refuses to give other people agency in their own decision-making.
When you’re in the Drama Triangle, you’re focused on circumstances, and things that are outside your control, but those things don’t hold us accountable to ourselves.
The only way OUT of the Drama Triangle and back into leadership is owning your personal power.
That means noticing the stories you tell yourself, challenging your assumptions, and noticing where you’re placing your focus. When you’re willing to uncover how you are contributing to a situation – whether that situation is positive or negative – you get to reclaim your sovereignty, and you get to remember how to be accountable to yourself.
If you want to humanize your leadership and master how you lead, remember: You are ultimately responsible for your own leadership footprint.
How will you be more intentional about being accountable to yourself, and taking responsibility for your thoughts and actions in the future? Share with me in the comments.
In the Leadership MasteryTM system, identifying these mental paradigms is part of a complete pivot into leadership, once they are fully understood. Learn more here.
