Shifting from drama to teamwork
- mayadolgin
- Sep 17
- 3 min read
(September 16, 2025 Newsletter)
I had the pleasure of spending some time last week with a team that readily admits that they can be high drama at times. Their request: help us work better as a team.
By giving them some resources from The Conscious Leadership Group in advance of our workshop, my message before we even met was this:
Each of you has to look in the mirror and be honest about how you’re contributing to the drama. No finger pointing. Start by noticing how your own mood is impacting those around you. (Don’t worry, we kept it humorous…)
Why it matters
I once heard a saying, “Culture is set by the worst behavior you tolerate.”
As a leader, you are responsible for setting the tone in your team and for cultivating the culture you believe will bring out the best in people to produce excellent outcomes.
You can’t do that if you’re tolerating poor behavior, even subtly on the margins.
It’s even worse if you’re participating or perpetuating the poor behavior.
And no matter how many leadership development programs you’ve been to, there’s a good chance that you’re contributing to the drama in some way.
Enter Stage Left, The Drama Triangle
So, we ask everyone to examine their role in the Karpman Drama Triangle.
When you’re feeling stressed, when something goes wrong, when you’re under
The Hero: Loves saving, fixing, rescuing situations. Thrives on feeling needed.
The Villain: Relishes getting to the bottom of what’s wrong and who did it.
The Victim: Avoids responsibility.
Even with a default mode, we can each switch between these roles multiple times a day. They are not immutable character traits, so the good news is that when you
become conscious of slipping into them, you can choose to get out of the drama by just not playing the game.
Instead, The Teamwork Triangle
Each of these roles has an inverse – a way of acting in the same situation from a place of openness, curiosity, and willingness to learn.
The Coach: empowers others with compassion to solve situations themselves.
The Challenger: brings loving pressure to align on solutions to challenges.
The Creator: takes an active role in creating whatever needs to be created.
Practicing healthy communication
Start with yourself: Share a thought by starting with “I’m thinking that...” Share an emotion by starting with “I’m feeling…” (Angry? Excited? Frustrated?) Share an observation of a bodily sensation with “I’m noticing…” (a pit in my stomach) or a curiosity “I’m wondering how/what if/whether...”
Name that it’s just your perspective: “This is how it looks from my vantage point.”
Open conversation: Remind them you’re on the same team. “I want to come up with a solution together. What do you think?”
Final thought
If you’re reading this and thinking about how others could use this, start with yourself.
Get impeccable at practicing it. Invite others along a journey that you’re on. Don’t slide this across the table and expect anyone else to start first.
If you need me…
I just summarized a whole philosophy in the briefest newsletter I could think of. If you’re interested in leading your team through this kind of exploration and resetting norms of how you work together, reply and let me know how I can help.
The Coaching Corner
Develop a tracking system with each person
If you have multiple team members who think/process/work differently, you might need to develop different systems with each for tracking their work.
If you’re going to go this route, stay organized by keeping your own list or save the tabs in one place.
And make it clear to them that it’s their responsibility to keep it updated (and stay on top of them about it). Don’t let it become another chore that you do for them.
Recommendations
Two great articles in this month’s HBR magazine that I haven’t posted yet:
Every Team Needs a Super Facilitator – what I basically teach my clients to be
Why Aren’t I Better at Delegating? – it will become a must-read for many future
clients and program participants!
Thanks to my good friend Yuval who flagged this Mel Robbins episode for me – I enjoyed it very much: How to Design Your Life (A Full Step-by-Step Process)
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