Hostage at the Table E-Book

George Kohlrieser

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 565

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Discover how to boldly lead, address conflict and inspire others in your business and personal life

In the newly revised second edition of Hostage at the Table: How Leaders Can Overcome Conflict, Influence Others and Raise Performance, clinical psychologist, distinguished leadership professor, and veteran hostage negotiator George Kohlrieser comes together with his son Andrew Kohlrieser, an experienced leadership, negotiation and conflict resolution consultant, to deliver another incisive and practical discussion of how to use the proven psychological techniques used in hostage negotiations to enhance your leadership skills both professionally and personally. Step-by-step, the authors explain the seven key factors that anyone can use to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of resolving interpersonal, business and leadership issues.

You’ll:

●  Discover proven techniques for interpersonal and business conflict management

●  Become a secure base for your team, establish trust, and learn how to bond with anyone

●  Explore how to identify where you are holding yourself hostage in your life and learn how to reclaim your agency and move toward a more empowered future

A fascinating and hands-on presentation of how to take the lessons drawn from tense, high-stakes hostage situations and apply them to the interpersonal and leadership problems you face every day, Hostage at the Table is a must-read resource for managers, executives, entrepreneurs, founders, and other business leaders seeking the latest research, the most engrossing real-world negotiation examples, and the most effective solutions.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

The World Has Changed

The Origins of

Hostage at the Table

A New Model for Leadership

Making the World a Better Place

1 Are You Being Held Hostage Without Knowing It?

Controlling Our Brain is Essential

Powerlessness is Toxic

Stockholm Syndrome and Hostage Mentality

The Waco Siege: A Negotiator’s Perspective

Bonding is the Antidote

Summary

Notes

2 Finding Freedom Through Your Mind’s Eye

Focusing with the Mind’s Eye

Understanding the Mind’s Eye of Another Person

The Power of a State of Mind

Influencing Inner States and Outer States

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and the Mind’s Eye

Seeing with the Mind’s Eye

Summary

Notes

3 The Power of the Bonding Cycle

The Bonding Cycle

Attachment and Bonding

Separation and Grief

The Nine Stages of Grief

Grief Arises from the Loss of Deep-Seated Human Needs

Manifestations of Loss and Grief

Seven Manifestations of Broken Bonding and Unresolved Grief

Ingredients for Effective Organizational Bonding

Bonding and Change

Summary

Notes

4 The Strength of a Secure Base

What are Secure Bases?

Secure Bases and Success

How Secure Bases Influence the Mind’s Eye

People as Secure Bases

Goals as Secure Bases

Fear of Failure and Fear of Success

High Self-Esteem and Secure Bases

Secure Bases and Resilience

When a Secure Base is Missing

Styles of Attachment and Bonding

Summary

Notes

5 The Art of Conflict Management

The Nature and Roots of Conflict

Violence as an Extreme Response to Loss

Dealing with Conflict Avoidance

The Dynamics of a Healthy Relationship

Conflicts of Interest versus Conflicts of Need

Resolving Conflict

Applying Conflict-Resolution Techniques in Business

Summary

Notes

6 Effective Dialogue

Seeking a Greater Truth Through Dialogue

Internal and External Dialogue

Blocks to Dialogue

Tools to Remove Blocks to Dialogue

Principles of Dialogue

The Art of Listening

The Impact of Dialogue on Health

The Person Effect

Summary

Notes

7 The Power of Negotiation

Ten Steps in the Negotiation Process

Taking a Positive Approach to Negotiation

The Impact of Influence and the Power of Persuasion

Exercising Informal Authority

Communicate the Benefits of Pain

Summary

Notes

8 Mastering Our Emotions

How Emotions Work

Five Stages of Emotion

Understanding the Core Emotions

Motivation

The Value of Emotional Intelligence in Business

The Impact of Emotions on Mood

Dealing with Emotions

Summary

Notes

9 Living with a Hostage-Free State of Mind

High Self-Esteem

Low Self-Esteem

Boosting Self-Esteem

Empowered Humility

Helping Ourselves and Others Through Continuous Lifelong Learning

Finding Freedom Through Choice

Living in Flow

Summary

Notes

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Chapter 2

FIGURE 2.1 The mind’s eye determines results.

Chapter 3

FIGURE 3.1 The bonding cycle.

FIGURE 3.2 Country-level relationship between manager and non-manager engage...

FIGURE 3.3 The Kohlrieser Grief Model.

FIGURE 3.4 Grief arises from the loss of one or more deep-seated human needs...

Chapter 4

FIGURE 4.1 Secure base and self-esteem.

FIGURE 4.2 Examples of Secure Bases.

Chapter 5

FIGURE 5.1 Types of losses and their roots.

Chapter 6

FIGURE 6.1 Authentically engaged transactions.

FIGURE 6.2 The psychophysiology of talking.

Chapter 8

FIGURE 8.1 Five stages of emotion.

FIGURE 8.2 The amygdala hijack.

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Preface

Begin Reading

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Index

End User License Agreement

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HOSTAGE AT THE TABLE

HOW LEADERS CAN OVERCOME CONFLICT, INFLUENCE OTHERS AND RAISE PERFORMANCE

GEORGE KOHLRIESER

ANDREW KOHLRIESER

This edition first published 2025© 2025 by George Kohlrieser and Andrew Kohlrieser

Edition HistoryFirst edition copyright © 2006

 This book was produced in collaboration with Write Business Results Limited. For more information on their business book and marketing services, please visit www.writebusinessresults.com or contact the team via [e-mail].

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ISBN 9781394278220 (Cloth)ISBN 9781394278244 (ePDF)ISBN 9781394278237 (epub)

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To all the attendees and students who have participated in the High Performance Leadership program at IMD and other trainings beyond, and gave constructive feedback of their experiences; to all the CEOs and executives who use this material to develop their organizations; to my friends and colleagues around the world who have been so supportive; to all the coaches over the years who have been so loyal and dedicated in implementing these concepts; to Frederick Wieder, my trusted advisor and research assistant, who has been with me for over 35 years; I thank you all. To my dear family – my brothers Jim, Fred, and Bob, and my sister Mary – who have always been there to support and encourage; to my son Paul and my grandkids Ben and Lily, and to my dear son, Andrew, who is a close confidant and an inspiration: thank you, from the bottom of my heart!

—George Kohlrieser

To my family – my mother, father, brothers, and sister – thank you for all the love, support, and kindness! And my dear friends, Haakön, Max, and Stephan, as well as all my secure bases, thank you for helping me become the person I am today.

—Andrew Kohlrieser

Foreword

Hostage at the Table is different from other leadership books you will read. George Kohlrieser has created a powerful metaphor born out of years of personal experience and insight as a hostage negotiator. He takes an original approach, drawing on emotional, and at times frightening, situations to underscore his thesis. The result is powerful, and the themes he presents – which guide the reader on a journey to a “hostage-free” state of mind – are relevant in both business and life.

His son Andrew has now joined him in his work and in this updated edition of Hostage at the Table, he brings a new perspective and his own stories to support the themes that George teaches, which are as relevant now as they ever have been.

I met George for the first time many years ago. He has been a core contributor to the Accenture Leadership Development Program, which has helped develop more than 3,000 of Accenture’s future leaders.

Through our program, I have had the privilege of seeing George in action. Over the years, I have realized the power of his hostage negotiation framework – which emphasizes areas such as conflict resolution, bonding, and dialogue – in helping people break through many of the roadblocks to effective leadership.

There are two things our people always remember from their time with George. The first is what he calls the “mind’s eye” – that our state of mind can propel us or limit us; it is an entirely individual choice. As George points out, in life, as in business, if we set the stage in our mind’s eye with the outcome we want to achieve, we set the stage for success. This is a message that Andrew also reinforces through his own work in leadership coaching and development.

In my more than 30 years in business – working directly with hundreds of different enterprises – I have become a firm believer that the highest performers (whether individuals or organizations) see possibilities, not limitations. That said, everyone experiences some very high points and some very low ones. In my view, the low points tend to separate the best leaders from the rest. Those who emerge from tough times are winners who make no excuses. They refuse to be seen as victims.

In fact, this way of thinking has had a profound impact on my own experience. Leaders have the power to influence, motivate, and inspire people to achieve extraordinary things. If there is one quality that defines an exceptional leader, it is optimism and a “can do” spirit. To me, that is a key element of living “hostage free.”

The second thing our people remember so vividly is how George approaches conflict resolution. As he demonstrates in our courses, leaders need to “put the fish on the table”: instead of dancing around a tough issue, one should acknowledge it, communicate honestly, and show mutual respect.

Perhaps not surprisingly, many leaders struggle to develop this behavior. George and Andrew offer help by encouraging leaders to view dialogue as a means to a greater truth. Most of us would agree that leaders need to excel at listening and at dialogue. However, George and Andrew show that leaders actually can block dialogue without even realizing it, or become a hostage when others block the dialogue. This is a critical point because when managed well, dialogue and conflict resolution can build stronger teams and help people feel a much greater sense of engagement.

Overall, the themes in this book echo a constant theme at Accenture about what it takes to achieve and sustain high performance. We believe that the highest-performing organizations have exceptional leaders who know how to get the best from their teams. They also have a “secret sauce” that is the essence of the organization and its people, which cannot be copied by competitors.

I believe George and Andrew would agree. They also recognize that the ongoing challenge for organizations of all sizes is how to get people to feel empowered, see beyond obstacles, and act like winners – not be held hostage. George and Andrew offer an answer: leaders can infuse their workforces with powerful mind-sets. They can help people step up and “will” themselves to what and where they want to be.

George and Andrew’s stories remind us that we are not victims of circumstance – we have the power to react. Our actions will always determine the outcome. That makes all the difference.

This book is certain to make a positive difference in leadership and business, and I want to thank George and Andrew for making their experiences available to all of us. Their insights are truly relevant to anyone or any organization seeking to perform at the highest level. This book will inspire you to raise your game.

April 2006, updated August 2024

JOE W. FOREHANDFORMER PRESIDENTAND CEO, ACCENTURE

Preface

What happened to you? It is a powerful question and each of you reading this will have a different answer. When we ask that question, we do not mean that you need to have a remarkable story, although you may. What we want to encourage you to do as you read this book is to think about how what has happened to you throughout your life, both positive and negative, has helped you develop as a leader. We encourage you to apply a personal lens to the theory and stories you read in the following pages to enable you to apply the lessons in your own life.

This self-awareness is the first step toward breaking free of any hostage mentality you may be trapped in, both in your business and personal lives, and it is a concept that we will come back to as we move through the chapters.

The World Has Changed

It is almost 20 years since the first edition of Hostage at the Table was published. In that time, life has changed and the world as we know it has changed considerably. The COVID-19 pandemic led to particularly significant changes in both the way people choose to lead and in how we manage conflict. Through this new and expanded edition, we are sharing updated stories, bringing the theory applied up to date, and introducing a new generational perspective through Andrew, George’s son, who has co-authored this book with him.

When George was a child, he often traveled with his father to buy chickens for their poultry business from the Amish farmers in Indiana. He watched as his father negotiated with people from the Amish community and was struck by how they always trusted his dad, even though they were not known for trusting those from outside their communities easily. As he grew older, George realized the reason they trusted his father was because he could negotiate fair deals for a common goal. This started his education in how to build strong relationships and negotiate.

As the eldest male child, George was honored to enter a Catholic seminary at age 13 with the goal of becoming a priest. This experience brought with it many benefits: learning to live in a community; periods of intense study, education, and play; the forming of values and character; and learning about meditation and spirituality. One negative aspect was the loss of a “normal” adolescence. After some eight years, what had been a positive experience slowly became a negative ordeal when George could not face the truth that he wanted to leave. He had, in fact, become what he now understands to be a hostage to his own conflicting emotions about being in the seminary.

George was fortunate enough to know a wise, extraordinary man, Father Edward Maziarz, who became a confidant. During one earthshaking dialogue, Father Ed looked right into George’s eyes and, with the wisdom of ages, calmly said, “George, you are free. You have the right to choose to do whatever you want.” It was like a lightning bolt coming out of the sky that forever changed George’s destiny. His words and his authenticity touched the depths of George’s soul. The ensuing silence was sweet as George’s mind reorganized itself to accept that as a fundamental truth. As he burst into tears of relief, he asked Father Ed to repeat those beautiful words. They unlocked a prison door that George himself had created. At that moment, he understood one of the basic truths of life – what Warren Bennis calls the “crucibles of leadership” – those defining moments in one’s life that are a severe test of patience and beliefs, a trial that influences, shapes, and changes one’s life forever. George was 21 at the time. It took another year to complete the process for him to actually leave the seminary.

In thinking back to that time, he has realized that in becoming a hostage to his emotions, he stayed in that situation long after it was time to leave. George was hostage to his grief about leaving what was familiar and all the benefits and security it brought. He also felt sad about not meeting the expectations of himself and others. He is eternally grateful to Father Ed, whose words rewired his brain and influenced his mind’s eye (a concept you will read more about), thus reshaping his focus. Father Ed also represents another concept you will learn about in this book – that of secure bases, which are the anchors and supports you have in life in the form of people or goals that become major sources of empowerment. You will have the opportunity to see how important secure bases are for all of us.

Andrew followed a somewhat different path to his father – although he too traveled with his dad from an early age and saw George interacting and building relationships with people from around the world. People always told him that his dad was so influential because of the way in which he connected with people and how he made them feel, which always resonated with Andrew.

Andrew took the approach and skills he had observed through spending time with his father to Capitol Hill, where he worked as a legislative correspondent for eight years. During this time, he produced strategic communications and worked as a policy advisor in areas as varied as international affairs, foreign policy, small business, and technology. Andrew quickly recognized that the “traditional” command and control approach to leadership and conflict management that was often employed here wasn’t effective because it didn’t speak to how people are motivated. He turned to the concepts his father had used successfully for years as first a clinical psychologist, then a hostage negotiator, and then a distinguished leadership professor with great success.

The Origins of Hostage at the Table

The seeds of this book were sown after a defining moment in George’s life in a hospital emergency room in Dayton, Ohio. As a young psychologist working for the Dayton Police Department, George accompanied the police to the hospital to deal with an agitated, violent man who was brought to the hospital with injuries resulting from a stab wound inflicted by his girlfriend. While George talked with this man in a treatment room, he suddenly grabbed a large pair of scissors and took both George and a nurse hostage, saying he would kill both of them. For two hours we pursued a dialogue focused on him, his life-threatening injuries, and the care required to keep him alive. The turning point in the crisis came when George asked, “Do you want to live, or do you want to die?” “I don’t care,” was his answer. George then asked, “What about your children losing their father?” He visibly changed mental states and began to talk about his children rather than his anger at his girlfriend and the police. In the end, he agreed to put the scissors down voluntarily and allowed the nurse and a surgical team to treat him. In an even more surprising moment, after putting the scissors down, this very “violent” man then approached George, with tears in his eyes, gave him a hug, and said, “Thank you, George. I forgot how much I love my kids.” His words of gratitude wired George’s brain forever to believe in the power of emotional bonding, dialogue, and negotiation with even the most dangerous person. George also surprised himself with the power he had to regulate his own emotions, from sudden terror to calm, focused resolve.

The lessons he learned on that evening in 1968 are just as valuable to him now as a professor of leadership and organizational behavior as they were in his earlier careers as a clinical psychologist, a police psychologist, a hostage negotiator, an organizational psychologist, and a radio talk-show host. George discovered that his learnings as a hostage negotiator could be applied successfully to situations of powerlessness and entrapment, in which a person is a metaphorical hostage rather than a physical hostage. In fact, such potential “hostage” situations occur every day, both professionally and personally.

Our goal in this book is to offer what we have learned as a hostage negotiator and through experience in various leadership roles for you to apply to situations in which you may be a metaphorical “hostage” in your life. Any time you feel trapped, powerless, and helpless, you are, in fact, a “hostage.” While this book especially addresses leaders in organizations, it can be helpful to everyone in all walks of life.

Throughout our careers, working with individuals, leaders, teams, and organizations, we have found many people held hostage by others, by situations, or even by their own emotions. They responded similarly to someone physically held hostage when there was no real “gun to their head.” They behaved like hostages even though they didn’t realize it and, in fact, had the power to do something about it. We also discovered people who could easily have been held “hostage” by a person or situation and yet were not. In fact, the hostage metaphor is a powerful model to understand behavior, and the hostage negotiation framework can help anyone who is a metaphorical hostage.

A New Model for Leadership

Over time, George moved from his work in clinical psychology and hostage negotiation to the world of executive education with business leaders. In the clinical world, dialogue and conflict resolution were a central focus of his work. Simultaneously, his work in organizations involved a similar focus in a different context. Dialogue and conflict resolution build strong teams, and great leaders must be able to deal effectively with people. In his work, and now Andrew’s, the hostage metaphor is a recurring theme for individuals, teams, and organizations that are blocked, lacking empowerment, or trapped in internal or external conflicts. The resolution always comes when personal power, team power, and organizational power bring an escape from the hostage mentality and the establishing of a mind-set of choice and freedom.

Following the loss of his oldest son Douglas, George closed his practice in the United States and moved to Switzerland. He was offered an opportunity to teach conflict management at IMD in 1998, and by 2000 he had been given a full-time position and asked to start an advanced leadership program. This became High Performance Leadership (HPL), which has gone on to become IMD’s most successful leadership program. As we write this, HPL has been run over 175 times with more than 10,000 graduates benefiting from its teachings. The pillars that are covered in this course – emotional bonding, the importance of secure bases, emotions and how to manage them, negotiation and conflict management – are also shared in detail in this book.

George and Andrew have since established the Kohlrieser Leadership Institute, where they both teach and share this knowledge with executive teams and leaders around the world.

Making the World a Better Place

The twenty-first century has begun with a number of disturbing trends, including the upsurge in terrorism and wars, the swing toward political and religious fundamentalism, widespread natural disasters, often caused or exacerbated by global climate change, and the phenomenon of globalization. During his time on Capitol Hill, Andrew worked through impeachments, government shutdowns, and trade wars, and witnessed first-hand how the environment in which we live and work has become more hostile. George has faced both the best and worst of humanity in his time as a hostage negotiator and is a firm believer in the power of emotional bonding to resolve conflict peacefully.

What we have noticed throughout our work is that, whether domestically or internationally, we all have more in common than we think. We want to help leaders at every level to leverage that common ground to make the world a better place, one negotiation, one conflict resolution, one dialogue at a time.

We need to be able to manage our emotions so that we can still find joy in life over and over again, regardless of what we experience. It is our personal vision and mission that, one day, every woman, man, and child in every country around the world can live their lives with a hostage-free state of mind and appreciate the greatest gift of all – experiencing the joy of being alive. It is our hope that reading this book will be much more than an intellectual exercise for you. Through engaging in a dialogue with us, we hope that you will have an emotional experience that will stimulate your heart, mind, and spirit to take you to new places in your personal and professional life.

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour

Excerpt from Auguries of Innocence,William Blake

1Are You Being Held Hostage Without Knowing It?

A nine-year-old girl was spending time with her grandparents in Kansas. The grandfather was away, so she was sleeping with her grandmother. Suddenly, she awoke in the middle of the night to see her elderly grandmother sitting up in bed and a man standing over her, dripping with rain and with a wooden club in his hand, ready to strike. The little girl felt a scream rising, and then her grandmother touched her hand and she felt a flood of calm wash over her. The grandmother said to the man, “I am glad you found our house. You’ve come to the right place. You are welcome here. It is a bad night to be out. You are cold, wet, and hungry. Take the firewood you have there and go stir up the kitchen stove. Let me put some clothes on, and I will find you some dry clothes, fix you a good hot meal, and make a place for you to sleep behind the stove where it is good and warm.” She said no more but waited calmly. After a long pause, the man lowered the club and said, “I won’t hurt you.” She then met him in the kitchen and cooked him a meal, gave him the dry clothes, and made up a bed for him behind the stove. The grandmother then went back to her bed and she and her granddaughter went back to sleep. They awoke in the morning to find the man gone.

At about 10 a.m., the police arrived with a canine unit that had followed the man’s scent to the house. They were shocked to find the grandmother and granddaughter still alive. The man was a psychopathic murderer who had escaped from prison the night before and had brutally slaughtered the family who were the nearest neighbors.

This amazing grandmother had created so much emotional bonding with the intruder that he could not kill her. She had treated him with a kindness and respect that had disarmed him both literally and figuratively. The fact is, people do not kill people; they kill things or objects.

This remarkable story is summarized from Joseph Chilton Pearce’s book Magical Child.1 Think for a moment. What would you do if you were taken hostage? Imagine that you suddenly found yourself in a hostage situation where you are held with a gun against your will. How would you react? How would you feel? What would you do? What would you say to the hostage taker(s)?

Fortunately, the likelihood of physically being taken hostage is slim. However, all of us can be taken hostage metaphorically – that is, made to feel threatened, manipulated, and victimized – every day; by bosses, colleagues, customers, family members, or virtually anyone with whom we interact. We can also become hostage to events or circumstances happening in our lives. We can even become hostages to ourselves, our own mind-sets, our emotions, and our habits.

Consider the following everyday situations in which people allow themselves to be taken hostage.

While you are in your car on your way to work, another driver cuts you off. Immediately you feel angry and hostile toward the “idiot” in the other vehicle. This feeling can linger, keeping you in a negative state of mind for the rest of the day.

Your boss criticizes you, and in response, you defend yourself or even attack, causing the situation to escalate. The conflict stays in your mind, resulting in a feeling of distrust between the two of you.

You are going on a business trip and because you are leaving, your child cries. You then rush out the door feeling guilty and telling yourself that you are a terrible parent. For the remainder of the trip, you feel down and even depressed.

You say hello to a colleague as you walk by, but get no response. You begin complaining to others about your colleague, your work, and the company. Soon you start thinking, “Nobody cares about people around here.”

People enraged by another person, a traffic jam, missing luggage, a lost job, a delayed flight, or even the weather – any set of external circumstances beyond their control – are allowing themselves to be taken hostage. Without realizing it, how many of us let an external event control our lives? Have you ever been upset because your holiday was ruined by bad weather? Have you ever been put into a bad mood by someone else’s negative attitude? Have you ever said to someone, “You make me so upset!” If so, you have allowed yourself to be taken hostage.

Many business people we work with have high intellectual intelligence (IQ) and yet have an underdeveloped sense of emotional intelligence (EQ). They concern themselves with facts, figures, and details at the expense of the emotions, feelings, and motivations of their coworkers. Even the terms hard facts and soft skills used in business imply that data are somehow real and strong, while emotions are weak and less important. That could neither be further from the truth nor from what the research supports. In fact, those who master their own emotions and are comfortable engaging with the emotions of others are the most effective leaders! We have seen examples of over-domineering leaders and micro-managers inflicting untold pain and misery on employees through their need to control both people and situations. Employees can also take their bosses hostage, minimizing success and making work a misery. Both are very frequent scenarios caused by toxic leaders allowing, enabling, and facilitating toxic work environments to brew.

This doesn’t just lead to employees leaving. Gallup research from 2022 found that at least 50% of the US workforce are “quiet quitters.”2 These are people who have actively disengaged from their work, but have not actually left their jobs. Not only did disengaged workers cost businesses an estimated $7.8 trillion in lost productivity in 2022, but there is a personal cost. Quiet quitters are unwittingly allowing themselves to be held hostage. They stay in jobs they dislike because they feel they have no other choice. In doing so, they experience more stress, worry, and negative emotions than their more engaged counterparts.

A 2024 Gallup study found that global employee engagement was only at 23%.3 Moreover, the same study found that engagement has 3.8 times more influence on an employee’s stress compared to where they work. This means that what people feel about their jobs and how leaders impact those feelings are far more significant than previously thought. This requires a new responsibility and awareness for modern leaders in the contemporary work environment. Unfortunately, this is so often neglected as a high-performing leadership characteristic.

The competitive nature of many business leaders can result in situations in which they compete with their own people and other teams rather than collaborate. Issues may then be driven under the table, and conflicts can go unresolved, creating an atmosphere of discomfort, hostility, or even fear. This is the “old-school” philosophy of leadership, which we call “command and control.”

We meet many business leaders who misunderstand the role of power in leadership. Through an inability to face their own personal fears or concerns, they are driven to use power, control, and formal authority as the ways to manage their people. It is easy either to take others hostage or to take yourself hostage in the work environment, to avoid those difficult conversations. In contrast, open and honest dialogue is necessary to build a sustainable and high-performing team environment. By identifying a common agenda, using ongoing dialogue, and creating a climate of trust, leaders can empower their people to perform at their full potential. Harnessing the competitive instincts of the individual into a drive toward a common goal can bring out the best in every team.

Authentic leaders learn to manage their competitive nature and find that, ironically, through helping others to grow and develop, they actually have greater success than if they concentrate only on themselves.

The American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed.) definition of a hostage is “one that is manipulated by the demands of another.” In the workplace, managers or staff can sometimes feel like hostages caught in the crossfire between the boss, customers, and colleagues. Entrepreneurs who must, for example, fire 25 employees can be held hostage to their own emotions and feelings of pain at the action they know they must take. In today’s business world, the global accessibility created by technology can intrude on family and personal lives to the extent that people feel hostage to their jobs, causing profound pain to others and themselves. Bosses facing employees who are not motivated or colleagues who are cynical may begin to feel their work has no value. The result is that they become hostage to their staff’s low motivation and the cynicism of colleagues.

While the likelihood of literally having a gun to our heads is thankfully small, the real concern is the endless number of situations in which we feel controlled, attacked, and compelled to respond. These situations can lead to an escalation and a sense of helplessness and feeling like a hostage.

The feeling of being held hostage is particularly apparent in interpersonal relationships when power, authority, or position are abused or unduly feared. On the one hand, the person in authority may misuse power while, on the other hand, the person subject to that authority may be unduly afraid. The question is: Why do so many people endure unhappy situations? Why do they stay in abusive relationships, either with a partner, at work, or with a friend? The reasons are complex, but, essentially, they are no longer leading themselves. As a result, they lose their ability to establish boundaries, control their focus, and use personal power to pursue what they actually seek.

Leadership starts by leading oneself and never being a hostage to internal barriers. Simply put, you cannot sustainably or effectively lead others if you cannot lead yourself. This process starts by freeing yourself from what is holding you hostage.

Controlling Our Brain is Essential

Contemporary neuroscience has reshaped our understanding of how the brain functions, revealing it to be a highly interconnected system that dynamically constructs both our experiences and our responses. As noted by Lisa Feldman Barrett, the traditional notion of the brain being divided into three distinct regions – the reptilian brain, the limbic system, and the neocortex – is outdated. Instead, the brain operates through a complex integration of its various parts, including those responsible for instinct, emotion, and rational thought.4

At its core, the human brain is designed to promote survival through intricate neural networks. The fight-or-flight response, once attributed solely to primitive brain structures, is now understood as involving multiple brain areas, including the amygdala and hypothalamus. These regions collaborate to regulate bodily responses to perceived threats, emphasizing that survival instincts arise from a distributed system rather than isolated “primitive” centers.

While certain brain regions are more evolutionarily ancient, such as those involved in basic survival, these areas do not function independently. For instance, emotional processing, including fear responses managed by the amygdala, is not separate from cognitive evaluation. The prefrontal cortex works alongside the amygdala to assess potential dangers and plan responses, demonstrating the interconnected nature of emotion and rationality.

Emotions, once thought to be confined to the limbic system, are now understood as constructed by the brain through the integration of sensory data, past experiences, and contextual factors. This aligns with Antonio Damasio’s influential perspective that “human beings are not thinking machines that feel, but are feeling machines that think.” Our thoughts are inextricably linked to emotional experiences, showing that cognitive processes are rooted in emotion.5

The neocortex (particularly the prefrontal cortex), responsible for higher-order reasoning, does not operate in isolation from these emotional and instinctual circuits. Rational thought and emotion are intertwined, co-creating our responses to the world. Understanding this interconnectedness highlights that controlling our brain is not about separating rationality from emotion but about recognizing the dynamic interplay between the two.

In summary, controlling our brain involves an awareness of its integrated nature – emotions, instincts, and cognition all contribute to our actions and decisions. Recognizing that we are “feeling machines that think” is central to understanding how emotions influence our behavior. For leaders, understanding this concept is the first step in cultivating emotional awareness and availability, a topic that is further explored in Chapter 2 under the section “Becoming Emotionally Available.” There, the practical implications of emotional availability in leadership are discussed, offering tools for integrating these insights into daily practice.

Enhancing Executive Function for Effective Leadership

Leaders must master control over the brain’s executive functions – primarily governed by the prefrontal cortex – if they are to navigate complex decision-making and manage emotional challenges. Executive functions such as impulse control, strategic planning, and emotional regulation are vital for leading effectively, particularly under stress.

However, when faced with emotional overload, fatigue, or heightened stress, the prefrontal cortex’s capacity can be compromised. This is where cultivating emotional availability becomes critical. Emotional availability involves being open to and present with one’s emotions, as well as those of others, transforming emotional challenges into opportunities for deeper connection and understanding. This ability, when combined with techniques for stress management and overall brain health, allows leaders to maintain clarity and foresight in difficult circumstances.

A failure to do so can lead to what Daniel Goleman calls an “amygdala hijack,” where emotional overreaction takes control, driven by the amygdala – a key player in the limbic system. (For a more detailed discussion of the amygdala’s role in emotional regulation, see Chapter 8.) When an amygdala hijack occurs, the individual’s prefrontal cortex is effectively bypassed, leading to impulsive, unregulated reactions. The neocortex, however, has the capacity to override these emotional surges if engaged, allowing us to choose a more measured, thoughtful response.

The phrase “going postal” refers to one kind of situation in which the limbic system takes over and leads to serious consequences. The term was coined after a postal worker was fired in 1984 and returned to the post office in Edmond, Oklahoma with a gun, killing 14 colleagues before committing suicide. This cascaded into a series of other high-profile tragedies at post offices across the United States, notably the 1991 Royal Oak Post Office shooting in Michigan and the 1994 killings at a San Francisco postal facility. Today, “going postal” is used in general when someone goes into a rage, deliberately causing harm to others and self without explanation. Such incidents of rage happen all over the world, though more typically with words and emotions rather than physical violence. When operating at the level of primitive brain responses, people can get themselves into situations in which they repeat the same pattern and experience the same problems over and over.

However, by using the executive brain state, people can overcome the emotions that are hijacking them and choose to give a different meaning to a circumstance rather than complying with a set pattern that repeats a negative situation. We can learn to manage emotions and to regulate their discharge. For example, when you lose your luggage at the airport, rather than yelling at the person behind the lost luggage counter, it is better to control your anger and work with that person to find your luggage.

The point is that all humans are feeling beings who happen to think, not thinking beings who happen to feel. Unfortunately, the amygdala hijack takes charge without us even realizing it. Leaders must learn to think and feel at the same time. Our brain is hardwired to have safety and emotional needs met before we can engage in productive, practical, and potent behaviors.

Powerlessness is Toxic

Feeling powerless is one of the first signs of being taken hostage. Powerlessness poisons the person through feelings of helplessness or entrapment. The poison creates a cycle that provokes continuous negative interpretations of reality. Those identified as quiet quitters in the workplace are an example of this kind of cycle. They don’t feel empowered to change their situation and this sense of powerlessness can tip them into a negative mind-set.

Over the span of our careers, working with executives all over the world, we have heard so many statements which clearly identify that someone is a hostage in one form or another. What are some of the most common phrases that accompany this feeling of being a hostage?

“I have no choice.”

“I can’t trust anyone!”

“I am trapped.”

“I have to.”

“I can’t stand this.”

“It’s going to be another one of those days!”

“This always happens to me.”

Think about your own experiences: What expressions do you say to hold yourself hostage? Are there common phrases you say to yourself when you feel like a hostage?

Such phrases are negative self-talk that comes from our inner mind-set and perceptions. The dialogue we have with ourselves inside our heads can either keep us in a hostage state or help us to control it. The hostage feeling starts with the mind-set of being forced to do something we do not want to do and then continues with a negative attitude. We can understand the poison in our state of mind by listening to the words we use. The hostage mentality focuses on the negative by repeatedly telling us what we cannot do, how helpless we are, and that we will never get what we want. Interestingly, research by Robert Schrauf, an applied linguistics expert, shows that regardless of culture or age, we have far more words that express negative emotions than positive ones. In studies of 37 languages, researchers found seven words related to emotions that have similar meanings in all these languages: joy, fear, anger, sadness, disgust, shame, and guilt. Of these seven words, only one is positive – joy.6 This research is significant because it helps us to understand the importance of finding positive ways of describing emotional experiences.

It is a combination of self-talk and the management of our emotions that determines whether or not we are a hostage. So, the solution to some of the common phrases mentioned earlier would be:

“I have a choice and I make my own decisions.”

“You can stand anything; you’ve overcome challenges before and you have the power to do it again!”

“What is something new I can try today? Let’s experiment.”

“I don’t have to do anything; I choose to do.”

Reframing and managing your emotional responses – especially when talking to yourself – gives you a sense of power. Even if you have a gun to your head, you do not have to feel like a hostage… you can still breathe, bond, feel, think, and speak! So when others provoke a negative reaction within you or make you feel upset, irritated, frustrated, and so on, you can determine your sense of internal power and decide how YOU want to act.

Mary confronts her manager, James, because of a negative exchange between the two of them in a meeting during which Mary felt embarrassed in front of their colleagues. Mary says, “I think you were really over the top attacking me like that.” James responds, “Look, I was just telling the truth, and if you don’t like it you can always leave the team.”

James reveals that he has been taken hostage because of his defensive-aggressive response. What is the alternative? Ask a question. Engage in a dialogue to clarify intentions. Make a concession or even an apology. For example, he could say, “Mary, help me to understand what you did not like about what I said” or “Would you like to know what my intentions were?” or “I apologize for saying you can always leave the team; that was over the top.”

The two most common things leaders do that lead to them being held hostage is not listening or giving space for others to speak, and not apologizing for causing a strain in the bond.

In this kind of situation, a true leader will work to keep the relationship intact and manage any desire to retaliate by focusing on the needs of the employee, the team, and themselves. Successful leaders are able to take this approach instinctively and automatically. Others lack the knowledge or the skill to deal effectively with such situations, and they can learn a great deal from hostage negotiation techniques.

As we saw with James and Mary, if someone provokes a reaction from us when we are not in control, we can easily become metaphorical hostages. This is a problem because it creates a block in the bond in the social relationship and drags us into a negative emotional reaction that can lead to a state of cynicism and detachment. Ultimately, negative states are a problem because they may interrupt social bonding and affect a person’s physical health in many ways. We will discuss this as an emotional trigger later on in the book.

Maintain Internal Control

The goal is to maintain a sense of control through the mind-sets we have and the words we use. This is how hostage negotiators succeed. The challenge is to remain both authentic and spontaneous at the same time. The following example shows how our mind-sets are critical in controlling focus and attention.

If you are walking down the street and someone comes up behind you, puts a gun to your head, and says, “I am going to kill you,” you do not have to feel like a hostage. While it is true that physically you are indeed a hostage, you do not have to feel like one because you still have the power to think, feel, breathe, and speak. You can ask the hostage taker a question. “Will you please put the gun down and let me help you get what you want?” If the response is, “No, I am going to kill you right now,” change the goal, and with another question you can say, “Please, will you just give me five minutes so you can tell me what you want? I am George and I have four children.” The gunman says, “No, I am going to kill you right now.” Ask again. “Will you give me just four minutes, then? I really want to help you get what you want.” The gunman says, “No, I am going to kill you right now!”

Now, when we share this story we ask if this is a good negotiation, and most people say no. Actually, it is a good negotiation. You are still alive! Controlling one’s state, managing one’s feelings, and using words – to ask questions and seek a solution – is what hostage negotiation is all about. “Will you give me three minutes?” “No.” “Will you at least give me two minutes?” “Okay, you’ve got 30 seconds.” In those 30 seconds, you had better bond and engage in dialogue as you have never done before in your life! In a subtle way, the answer “no” is a concession and must be seen with a positive mind-set. As we will see later (in Chapter 7), concessions are part of the fundamental process of creating and maintaining bonds. If we could measure the blood pressure and state of arousal of the person holding the gun, it would be lowered with each concession. Of course, if you have the opportunity to escape safely, you should take it. If you cannot escape, your best bet is to talk. Hostage negotiators use questions to find out what is motivating the other person and to lead the focus of the dialogue. This requires both a strict discipline of prioritizing listening, and the courage to actively engage in emotional awareness – both with yourself and others. As mentioned before, we have seen so many cases where the absence of just these two characteristics alone catalyzes underperforming and ineffective leadership.

Over 2,500 years ago, the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu wrote that the biggest problem in the world was that individuals experienced themselves as powerless.7 A hostage mind-set makes people feel negative, trapped, powerless, disconnected, and unable to influence and persuade. That negative state can easily persist, poisoning their minds, emotions, bodies, and souls. The hostage mentality can lead to an embittered or resentful attitude over major losses such as death, divorce, or loss of a job, and even over relatively “small” things such as the loss of an office, an argument with a neighbor over noise, or a disagreement between partners over household chores.

Sadly, much of everyday life for many people is built around negative states. When this happens, the negativity takes root, festers, and poisons the mind so that reactions tend to be out of proportion to the actual event itself. Maintaining internal focus grants you access to your internal power whenever you feel like a hostage. That is an integral part of self-leadership.

Avoid Learned Helplessness

According to psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Sauter, the less control a person feels he or she has over a stressful situation, the more traumatic it will become.8 The person who feels like a hostage may be displaying what Seligman calls “an attitude of learned helplessness.” This is characteristic of people who have no sense of “controllability,” or, in other words, those who lack a feeling of control over persons, things, and events.9

In his studies of the relationship between fear and learning, Seligman accidentally discovered an unexpected phenomenon while doing experiments on dogs using Pavlovian techniques (classical conditioning). The Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov had discovered that when dogs are presented with food, they will salivate. He then found that if a ringing bell is repeatedly paired with the presentation of food, the dog salivates. Then, if the bell is rung and there is no food present, the dog still salivates. The dog has learned to associate the bell with food.10

In Seligman’s experiment, instead of pairing the bell with food, he paired the bell with a harmless shock, restraining the dog in a hammock during the learning phase. The idea was that after the dog had learned the association, it would then feel fear when it heard the bell and run away, or display some other avoidant behavior. Seligman then put the conditioned dog into a cage that consisted of a low fence dividing the box into two compartments. The dog could easily see the fence and jump over it if it wished. When the bell rang, Seligman was amazed when the dog did nothing. He then decided to shock the conditioned dog another time and, again, nothing happened. The dog just lay in the box. Then, when Seligman put an unconditioned dog into the box, as expected, it immediately jumped to the other side. What the conditioned dog learned during the period it was in the hammock was that escape was futile, and therefore it did not try to escape even when the circumstances made it possible to do so. The dog had learned to be helpless and passive – in other words, to be a hostage.11

The theory of learned helplessness was then extended to human behavior and provided a model to explain depression, a state characterized by a lack of control over one’s life, a state of indifference, and a lack of feeling. It was discovered that depressed people learned to be helpless and believed that, whatever they did, any action was futile. Researchers have discovered a great deal about depression from learned helplessness. They have also found exceptions – people who do not get depressed even after many difficult life experiences. Seligman’s research revealed that a depressed person thinks about negative events in more pessimistic ways than does a non-depressed person.

Those people who allow their thoughts to drift toward the negative are more likely to feel that their situation is hopeless than those people who have a positive mind-set. Unfortunately, many of us can become hostages through our own passivity, enduring pain, like Seligman’s dogs, and failing to understand that we do have the power to do something about it, even if there is a real gun at our head. There are people who are held hostage with a gun to their head who do speak, think, and act. And yet, there are people with no gun to their head who spend their lives feeling like a hostage to their boss, colleague, spouse, friend, or anyone who has power over them.

The question for leaders is, “To whom or to what do you feel like a hostage? And what about it makes you feel helpless?”

Stockholm Syndrome and Hostage Mentality

The term “hostage” typically conjures up images of extreme situations where individuals or groups, often seen as terrorists, seize control and detain others against their will to achieve specific objectives. A curious psychological phenomenon that can emerge in such scenarios is when the hostage develops an emotional bond with the captor, a situation exemplified by several notable cases.

One such case involved Randolf Dial, who was arrested in April 2005 after living with Bobbi Parker for 11 years following his escape from an Oklahoma jail in 1994. Parker, the wife of the assistant warden and mother of two young daughters, was reportedly manipulated by Dial. He confessed, “I had worked on her for a year trying to get her mind right. I convinced her that the friend was the enemy and the enemy was the friend.” Parker, despite sometimes being able to move freely, remained captive due to fear and a sense of powerlessness, aiming to protect her family. This scenario highlights how an emotional bond can form in response to severe emotional shock, such as the fear of death or harm to loved ones.

This involuntary emotional attachment is known as Stockholm Syndrome, named after a 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. During this incident, two robbers held four hostages in a bank vault for 131 hours. The hostages, strapped with dynamite, eventually began to see the police as the enemy and the captors as their protectors. Even after their rescue, the hostages exhibited surprising loyalty to their captors, with one woman becoming engaged to one of the robbers and another establishing a defense fund for them.

Patty Hearst’s case is another famous instance of Stockholm Syndrome. Kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974, Hearst not only sympathized with her captors but also participated in their criminal activities. Her actions were later understood within the context of Stockholm Syndrome, leading to her release from prison.

Stockholm Syndrome is a profound example of how severe emotional stress and survival instincts can reshape attachment and bonding behaviors. Hostages, grateful for being kept alive and for basic provisions like food and water, may begin to see their captors in a positive light. Acts of kindness, such as allowing basic dignities, can further deepen this bond. Over time, hostages might identify with their captors’ cause, sometimes even acting on their behalf, as seen in Hearst’s case.