Victors and Victims

9th May 2013

For those you who are regular readers of my blog you will have seen previous references to Victors and Victims. By this I mean that some people are always willing to put themselves forward, and be prepared to be held responsible and accountable, whilst others tend to wait for others, and hold back frightened that they might be found wanting. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are not capable of doing things, or that they don’t want to take on these roles, but they do need to be pushed so they can realise their true potential.

I saw this exact scenario with my 17 year old son, over the weekend, when we got into an argument over something which matters a lot to him. He wanted to take on a role in his school, but as is his character he wasn’t prepared to put himself forward. He had given himself the excuse that he assumed that people must know he wanted it, and therefore there was no need to tell people and thereby risk people saying he isn’t up to it. This attitude has meant that he has been overlooked on a number of occasions for things he is more than capable of doing, but he just allows himself to become the “Victim” yet again, claiming that the world is against him. As his parents, whilst the easy path would be to agree with him that it is just bad luck and to let him off the hook, it is important that we challenged him, and got him to therefore see that he would have to do something that made him very uncomfortable if he really wants this role.

The same thing applies in business coaching and for business owners. We need to recognise those people who need to be pushed, and get them out of their comfort zone, so that we can help the more retiring and shyer people to reach the levels that they are eminently capable of.

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