By Mike Clements
As a leader, you really want your firefighters to “own” their job. Employees with an ownership mindset can engage, solve problems, and get their work done. They are productive and pleasant to be around. Other high performers in your fire department want to work with them. But if you’re like most managers, you have at least one employee who is the opposite of that. I call them professional victims. If their behavior is left unaddressed, these “victims” become (at the very least) problem employees and (at worst) organizational “terrorists” who disrupt, undermine, and even sabotage everyone else.
- Seven Trust Busters That Damage Your Team
- Pride and Ownership: The Love for the Job: Have You Forgotten?
- Unit Cohesion: The Company Officer’s Guide to the Ultimate Killer of Low Morale
- How to Kill Morale
We all know who our professional victims are. They are those employees who constantly blame others for their circumstances. They feel (and often express) that they are helpless and powerless—perpetually at the mercy of a cruel universe that seems to be targeting them. Nothing is ever their fault. It’s all happening to them.
Often, the brightest red flags that signal a professional victim are their words. You’ll hear phrases like:
- “The boss doesn’t like me.”
- “I wasn’t given proper instructions.”
- “Why does no one care about me?”
- “I could have this fixed in no time if ‘they’ would just listen to me.”
- “It’s _____________’s fault!” (Insert the name of a manager, department, coworker, client, family member…it almost doesn’t matter, as long as the “victim” isn’t to blame.)
These are the people who complain, throw “pity parties,” and hold grudges. They exhibit lots of finger-pointing, rationalization, and negativity in general.
Most professional victims have a predictable and repeatable cycle: They embellish the truth, deny when they are called out, cast blame, justify their own behavior, and repeat. Another red flag is that professional victims find the ears of other victims, and they tend to form alliances out of necessity. It’s been my experience that they eventually will turn on each other as loyalty is only a one-way street with these personalities. You may not realize at first that you have a professional victim among your firefighters. In my experience, they are usually discovered within two or three years, depending on the size of your organization. Eventually, they will reveal themselves.
Why do people act this way? It’s unclear, but one theory is that the victim mindset is a coping mechanism that evolved from a childhood trauma; something bad happened to the person at a time when they really were helpless. Now, although they are an adult, they’re still stuck playing that helpless child role. Regardless of the cause and however unconscious it may be, people with this mindset are getting something out of their victimhood. They get to opt out of accountability. They get to avoid taking scary risks. They enjoy the attention they receive when they tell their tale of woe. Having others feel sorry for them perhaps fulfills some deeply buried need.
But professional victims don’t do themselves any favors. Their sense of powerlessness means they don’t solve problems or generate ideas. They’re unproductive and often rewarded (or not rewarded) accordingly. But their presence is deeply harmful to those around them. They’re terrible for morale. Coworkers resent having to pick up their slack. In some cases, they may even present a lawsuit risk, prone to claim they’ve been mistreated by the organization.
All this eats away at your fire department’s culture, and soon you get a reputation as a bad place to work. This, in turn, works against your efforts to recruit and retain the best talent.
It’s urgent that you deal with professional victims. There are three possible solutions. The first (and best) approach is prevention. Just as the best and safest way to “fight” a fire is to prevent it from happening in the first place, there are things you can do to keep the victim mentality from taking hold and spreading at your workplace.
Creating a Culture of Empowerment
There’s a lot you can do to create a culture that inherently empowers people and discourages victim-thinking. You can establish strong organizational mission, vision, and values (MVV) and live by them. You can insist on accountability. You can emphasize learning and development so people feel more confident in their abilities. You can encourage, teach, and model self-reflective behavior. As a leader, always ask, “What is my role in the conflict?” or, “What could I have done to decompress this situation before it blew up?” These approaches help develop the right habits in younger generations of employees.
Consider how you and the organization as a whole handle mistakes. Do you discourage risk-taking? Punish missteps? If so, it’s possible you are a) adding to people’s feelings of powerlessness and b) forcing them to shift the blame to others to avoid being the fall guy when something goes wrong. Both encourage victim-thinking.
Admittedly, with this approach, you are playing the long game. It will take a while to see results. So, what do you do with your current professional victims? This is where the second and third approaches come into play: Either work to get the person out of the victim mentality or accept that it will never happen and try to minimize the organizational damage.
Moving People Out of a Victim Mindset
If you can influence an employee to change, you should. As a leader, your highest and best role is helping people grow and improve. When people realize they, more than anyone else, are responsible for shaping their own lives, it creates an incredible level of freedom and paves their way to future success. A few suggestions:
First, make sure they really aren’t being victimized. It is possible an employee actually is being bullied or discriminated against. Thoroughly explore the person’s claims to make sure you don’t have a bigger problem in you organization.
Look in the mirror—are YOU displaying a victim mindset or playing the blame game? Be sure you are setting the right example. When leaders complain, shift blame, and point fingers, it gives employees permission to do the same.
Coach them by asking, “Did you help create the problem?” and, “How can you solve it?” When we constantly rescue people, we train them to rely on us, which keeps them in the role of helpless victim. Encourage self-reliance and problem-solving.
Invest in them by offering training and development. Maybe the person really isn’t being given what they need to be successful. With training, their skills will grow and so will their confidence.
Focus on team-building. The stronger the bonds between leaders and coworkers, the more likely the person will feel supported. Eventually, they may come to realize others actually aren’t out to get them.
Minimizing the Damage Done
If, despite your best efforts, the person seems to be a lost cause, it’s time to switch to the final approach to handling professional victims. You need to move from trying to “fix” the person to trying to contain their negativity and minimize the damage they cause. Here are some tips:
Don’t validate their victimhood. Our natural inclination is to show empathy, but be careful not to validate the person’s worldview. Let them know that while you accept and understand their feelings, you disagree with their perception of reality. “You felt attacked when Sadie disagreed with you in the meeting, but the way I see it, she was just introducing another point of view. This is the kind of thinking we encourage in our organization.” Who knows? You might help them shift their perspective.
Shut down blaming, venting, complaining, and other forms of negativity. Make it clear these are unacceptable behaviors.When you see them happening, immediately call them out and correct them. Narrate to the person what they are doing and why it is wrong. When someone is spreading negativity, immediately redirect the conversation. Don’t fan the flames. What you permit you get more of.
Set clear boundaries and firm deadlines. Make sure the person understands exactly what is expected of them. Have them repeat it back to you so you know they get it. This allows you to hold them accountable if they don’t live up to their end of the bargain.
Give them solo projects only. In team situations, professional victims can and will blame others. If they’re solely responsible for an outcome, you can hold them accountable when it isn’t met.
Put them on a performance improvement plan. Make sure the employee has input into the plan and agrees to it. Document carefully. The hope is that they truly will improve (and sometimes people do surprise you), but if not, you are building your case for the next and final step…
If all else fails, let them go. This is painful for both you and the employee. No one wants this. But sometimes it is the best course of action for all concerned. Remember, your first priority is to your team and your fire department.
Virtually nothing we do as leaders is as important as how we influence others. Rooting out the victim mentality and helping people grow benefits everyone: individual employees, the team who works with them, and the entire organization. It makes your life better, too. When you’re not worn down by dealing with professional victims, you’ll have the time and energy you need to focus on those high-impact tasks that move everyone forward.
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Mike Clements is the assistant chief of administration with the Cy-Fair Fire Department in Houston, Texas. Mike is a 19-year veteran of Cy-Fair. He also works as a battalion chief in the College Station Fire Department, College Station, Texas. He is a certified professional with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and specializes in human resources, relationship management, labor/management relations, and grant writing. He has a master’s degree in public administration from Stephen F. Austin State University and an undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University.
