Heroes, Villains, and Victims - April 2024
Moira Kelly
May 24, 2024
It can begin innocently enough.
You see a colleague who looks a bit off and ask how they are doing. Or someone drops by your office or classroom. They are in a foul mood because of another colleague or supervisor. They confide their troubles. You’re empathetic. You let them know you see them. You see their anger, their sadness, their frustration. You let them know that what they experienced must have been difficult. They unburden themselves and twenty minutes later they leave in a much brighter mood. You have changed their day for the better. They are so grateful for your support.
You also feel better. You have helped another.
This colleague – who continues to have work challenges with another – drops by again, and you have essentially the same conversation. And this cycle continues with each visit ending with you being told how helpful you’ve been.
Your visitor finds your conversations so comforting, she suggests to another colleague that they chat with you – someone else who is having a problem with a supervisor or colleague. Before you know it, you have a small group of people – now friends – who confide in you about others at work. You look forward to their visits. Your conversations provide your visitors with a temporary reprieve from their challenging workplace relationships. You feel as though you are doing good and useful work.
But when you step back just a bit, a different dynamic emerges.
You are now part of a workplace drama triangle.
Your visitors are victims.
You are a hero.
Others in the school are villains.
Because you provide temporary respite for your victims, you do not empower them; but then, that’s not what this dynamic is about. Heroes need villains. Victims need villains.
And the strange thing is, it all began innocently enough.
There is a now a cancer in your school that masquerades as helping. It’s a cancer that metastasizes with each and every one of your “good work” conversations.