In Karpman’s Drama Triangle, the Rescuer plays alongside two other roles: the Victim and the Persecutor. It’s a cycle that begins with good intentions and ends with exhaustion or resentment. When we leap in to rescue, we unconsciously affirm someone’s helplessness. We remove their chance to find their own strength. We may even create the very drama we hoped to dissolve. 

 

Earlier this month, before a day of team coaching, I found myself looking out at a quiet swimming pool. The Lifesaver ring stood out. Ready, waiting. I thought about the ring’s real purpose. It’s there just in case. Not to prevent swimming, but to make it possible. Its presence allows people to go deeper, knowing safety is near, not certain, but near enough.

 

Over time, our help can turn heavy. The Victim resents our control. The Persecutor feels provoked by our interference. And we, the Rescuer, end up frustrated that the team doesn’t seem to learn or appreciate our effort. That’s when we realize: we’ve stopped managing/coaching and started saving.

 

The best leaders and team coaches offer: psychological safety, not rescue. When we stop trying to save, we make room for others to swim. We trust that the water will hold them, that struggle is part of the learning, that discovery comes with discomfort. We remain watchful not because we expect disaster, but because we care.

 

This is the last Coach Yourself of 2025. I wish you a happy and restful year end break. It's also an ideal time to reflect, reset your focus and design your 2026 career strategy. In appreciation of your questions and feedback this year, I’m offering Coach Yourself subscribers a 20% discount on all Executive Coaching and Career Coaching packages booked before 5th January.

Use the coupon code YEAREND20 at checkout.

Every team sends subtle signals of standing out and fitting in. What gets noticed. What gets rewarded. What gets quietly ignored. In every workplace culture, people are reading those cues; trying to work out how much difference is welcome, and how much sameness is required to belong.

This weekend, I was back on campus to teach the Leadership & Cross-Cultural Management course. Surrounded by natural reminders of standing out, fitting in and adjustment in action, we shared rich, challenging discussions:

Strong cultures help us know how to work, speak, and succeed together. They give comfort and rhythm. But they can also harden into habits, into language, rituals and norms that define who belongs and who does not. As a manager, it’s worth pausing to notice:

What signals does your team send?
Are your rituals and in-jokes part of your team’s identity or barriers that keep others out?
Is your culture porous enough for new people and new ideas to join, or has the strength you enjoy begun to hold you back?

Leaders, at their best, keep that boundary alive and flexible, helping people both fit in and stand out, so the team keeps learning and belonging grows stronger with every new voice.
 

In November I launched my new LinkedIn Newsletter, Professional Effectiveness. The first edition explored Handling Interruptions Without Losing Your Composure: practical strategies for staying calm, credible, and effective in demanding workplaces.

What is blocking your professional effectiveness?

Some reflections on recent career strategy conversations:

One part of you knows how to stay safe, how to play the game, deliver, rise. Another part longs to feel alive in what you do, not just successful at it.

Leadership begins when you stop choosing between the two. When you accept that growth is never safe, and safety rarely helps you grow. Every meaningful step in your career will feel dangerous at first because it asks you to become someone you have not yet been. To step beyond your competence into presence; beyond control into connection.

If you follow only the keep out sign, you may reach the top and find it empty. If you chase only happiness here and now, you may drift without building anything that lasts.

The art of becoming a leader is learning to stand between those signs to sense which fear signals danger, and which fear signals discovery. That is where leadership begins. Not when you know the way but when you’re willing to walk it, awake.

When your next step feels risky, can you tell whether it’s danger you sense, or possibility calling?

 

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