Page 116 - Fearless Leadership

Victim Mentality and Playing Small 103

lost the moment you believe your interpretation is the truth. When you
slant the story to make yourself or your group the victim, you abandon per-
sonal accountability and surrender your power to others. Once you place
yourself in the victim role—consciously or unconsciously—you will
behave in a way that undermines and sabotages. You will play small, be
right, and be petty.

How Victim Mentality Drives a Wedge between Groups
A conspiracy in one part of the organization can corrupt the entire system
when groups take sides and fight against one another. We encountered this
situation while working with an exploration group in a gold mining com-
pany. The head of exploration was a strong but frustrated leader who per-
ceived corporate and senior leaders as the persecutors. Members of the
exploration department were co-conspirators and gathered evidence to
prove they were the victims of an unfair senior management team. They
affirmed their victim mentality in comments such as “They always cut our
group’s budget first; no wonder we can’t succeed.”
Senior leaders became increasingly frustrated with the constant com-
plaining and battle that never seemed to end with the exploration group.
The victim triangle between exploration and senior leaders left people
embittered, and it contaminated other parts of the organization. An either-
or question emerged, and people asked each other, “Whom do you sup-
port—exploration or corporate?”
The victim triangle is another example of automatic behavior, but it
does not have to end in “divorce.” When teams and organizations learn
how to build committed partnerships and work together in an extraordi-
nary way, they break out of the victim triangle and find new solutions. This
is what occurred during an acquisition in which the CEOs of the two com-
panies demonstrated fearless leadership.

Breaking Up the Victim Triangle and Building Trust
during a Merger
We were working with a company in the oil and gas industry that
was acquired by a company seven times its size. While going through
the acquisition, leaders and employees in the smaller company felt
they were not being listened to or valued.