as a child? What role did I slip into in certain situations, for example, in
confrontations with my father?
The inner script, also called the “inner drama,” has a decisive influence on
individual leadership style and thus, on the way you behave in conflicts, the way
you communicate, the way you deal with power, responsibility and change, and
how you approach others. If you know your beliefs and you know their origin, you
can take a step back in situations in which they come into play, and you can analyze
your behavior and your learned responses to similar situations. Thus, you are no
longer at risk of becoming a puppet for your life statements. We have to listen to our
life statements and look at our inner images; we have to accept our parts – and not
just the desirable ones – in order to really know ourselves and to be able to lead.
Here the greatest challenge lies in integrating all of the roles into our current
adult selves.
As a personality model, transactional analysis distinguishes between three sub-
personalities or ego-states: the parent, the child and the adult. Each of the different
types represents different kinds and qualities of messages being “expressed” inside
every person – whether employees or boss. If you can listen carefully, you will note
that there are repeated dialogues between these inner personalities. These dialogues
can be constructive or derogatory, can release energy or drain it.
The “parent” sub-personality stands for the values, norms and rules that influ-
ence a person. A distinction is made between the critical (moralistic, schoolmaster-
like, punitive) and the caring parent (pampering, helping, saving). The “child”
ego-state represents the feelings and impulses of the child in us, in short: our
emotional experience. It can manifest as the well-adjusted (polite, hesitant, defiant)
or free-rebellious child (boundless, spontaneous, playful), either consciously or
unconsciously. Lastly, the “adult” ego-state (analyzing, unfeeling, observing) pro-
cesses the information and is goal-oriented and solution-oriented, in short: reason-
able. This ego-state can choose to consciously integrate the “child” and “parent” –
or not to.
Starting from their own “ego-states,” in the next step the leader is able to better
understand their employees and adequately respond to them because he or she
knows that the employees’ behavior is also based on their respective life statements,
that they also play a role on their own stage and follow their own inner scripts.
And the manager then recognizes that the reaction of an employee is a partly
unconscious and learned response to the behavior of their superior, which somehow
triggered it. The leader can learn – at least to some extent – to decipher the behavior
demonstrated by employees, customers, superiors and partners and to translate
the messages behind that behavior.
In this way leadership can take place on another level, beyond personal
sensitivities, over-the-top “striking back,” wounded pride, unnecessary power
plays and mutual demoralization. Employee behavior that at first glance only
looks like confrontation, rejection or withdrawal can allow you to draw conclusions
about your own leadership behavior and be used synergistically for the work
process.
134 3 Systemic Leadership or: Designing a World That Others Want to Be Part Of