“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
Yesterday, running through a chunk from the Unboxing Leadership training felt a little like déjà vu, melding material back from when I was a pastor with 4 and a half years of recovery and education. The Arbinger Institute’s trilogy of leadership books, authors like Brené Brown, René Girard, and Mark Manson, as well as principles from AA, all helped deepen this material.
Leadership is a sacred art, one that is inherently messy because it involves humans leading other humans. Ultimately, leadership is about managing mindsets.
When the mindsets we are managing are off, the rest of the business is off. Our team’s problems often stem from how we do teams. We can complain about friction, drama, lack of ownership, and roadblocks on our teams. Often, the source of that friction is the way we’re choosing to see the people around us.
The Anatomy of “The Box”
To build healthy teams, we need to understand what it means to be “in the box.” The box is a state of mind where we actively resist others and deceive ourselves (self-deception). When we are in the box, we “self-sort” into smaller categories, separating ourselves from the humanity of the people we work with.
However, the box is comfortable, easy, and self-contained. Boxes can feel like security blankets and be baked into our organizational dynamics.
But while in the box, we cease to see people as human beings with valid needs, anxieties, and lives. Instead, we view them merely as objects. The Arbinger Institute outlines three main ways we turn people into Objects:
- Vehicles: We see the person only as a means to an end. We strip them of their humanity and view them purely for their utility. If they can help us achieve our goals, we use them. If they can’t, they are useless.
- Obstacles: We see the person as a threat or a barrier. This person is slowing us down, frustrating us, or threatening our status. Therefore, they are an enemy that needs to be managed or defeated.
- Irrelevancies: We see the person as a non-entity. Because they don’t immediately affect us or our goals, we completely ignore their existence.
The Act of Self-Betrayal
We don’t accidentally end up in the box. We put ourselves there through a specific act: self-betrayal. Self-betrayal happens when we violate our own values and personhood. It usually follows a three-step pattern:
- The Prompt: You have a basic, innate human sense or feeling that you should do something for someone else. You see a need.
- The Self-Betrayal: You consciously choose to act contrary to that feeling. You ignore the prompt.
- The Justification: The moment you betray yourself, you create deep psychological dissonance. To live with yourself, your brain immediately begins to skew your perception of reality to justify your selfish choice.
At this point, a person has entered the box of self-deception.
“When we betray our own sense of what’s right, we immediately begin to see the world in a way that justifies our betrayal. We make ourselves the victim and others the problem.“
— The Arbinger Institute, Leadership & Self-Deception
The State of Self-Deception: Blind Spots & Double-Mindedness
Once we have betrayed ourselves and justify it, we enter an active state of Self-Deception. We’re now officially in the “box,” shielded from reality and our role in the problem.
Self-deception is the behavior of causing the same problems you complain about, all while remaining oblivious to your own part. Søren Kierkegaard, the “Grandfather of Psychology,” warned, “Therefore do not deceive yourself! Of all deceivers fear most yourself!”
Because we are in the box, we develop blind spots. You don’t want to see yourself clearly, and therefore, you cannot see others clearly. To sustain this distorted reality and maintain your internal equilibrium, you must re-interrupt the truth—inflating your own strengths and their faults, while deflating your faults and their strengths.
Once we have a blind spot, Double-Mindedness sets in. Kierkegaard argued that “purity of heart is to will one thing.” Self-deception, however, creates double-mindedness, a state of willing two or more things at the same time. We desperately want to be seen as a “good leader” while simultaneously acting entirely out of self-interest.
“The double-minded person is not only in conflict with the world; he conflicts with himself.”
― Søren Kierkegaard
Organizational Survival & Scapegoats
“Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desire.“
— René Girard
René Girard’s Mimetic Theory explains the mechanics behind this friction. Mimetic theory, which drives a majority of modern marketing, observes that human desire is not original; it is imitative. We want what others want simply because they want it. In a team setting, this leads to Mimetic Rivalry: people engage in the unconscious, defensive mirroring of each other’s hostilities and desires. As boxes collide and rivalries intensify, the internal tension rises. Because we’re in the Box, we cannot look inward to resolve this pressure.
To relieve internal pressure without accountability, the group unconsciously identifies a Scapegoat to offload blame on.
A scapegoat can be anything—a person, a specific department, a market circumstance, or even the “dog that ate the homework“—as long as it successfully shifts the tension away from the boxes in the moment. The scapegoat serves as a functional necessity for the Box; it’s an “object” for collective blame that allows the team to feel a temporary, fake sense of unity and peace. In time, it’ll need another excuse (a “sacrifice“). When we’re in the Box, we need scapegoats to sustain self-justification. As long as there is an Obstacle to blame, we never have to confront our own role in the problem.
Just in case we think this is merely an interesting psychological concept, or that our leadership style doesn’t matter, this dynamic is identical to a core principle taught in recovery: The Triangle of Self-Obsession.
In NA and AA literature, the same breakdown of our psyche is explained clearly. When we fail to find internal self-sufficiency, our normal wants and needs rapidly mutate into demands. We reach a point where contentment is impossible. Because people, jobs, and circumstances around us cannot possibly fill the emptiness inside, we react to the world from the points of that triangle:
- Resentment: We obsess over the past, keeping a scorecard of how we’ve been wronged.
- Anger: We lash out in the present.
- Fear: We obsess over the future, terrified of losing control.
“Resentment,” “anger,” and “fear” are all thoroughly covered in the source material for this training, from leadership to social research and psychology. This is not a substance, work ethic, or systems issue: it’s a human one. When we’re in the Box, our natural responses are forms of these three emotions.
When an entire team is locked in this collusive cycle of self-obsession, the tension is unbearable. To relieve the pressure without solving the root problem and taking any personal accountability, the group unconsciously unites against a target: a Scapegoat. The scapegoat provides a convenient vessel for the group’s collective blame, allowing the team to spend its energy avoiding accountability rather than actually doing the work.
The constant energy and time spent maintaining boxes is unsustainable. Eventually, the organization will collapse under its internal decay.
Breaking Down Boxes: The Shift to Accountability
“Dehumanizing and holding people accountable are mutually exclusive.”
– Brené Brown
We cannot simply fake or fix our way out of the Box. Changing your external actions while maintaining your internal self-justification is not leadership; it is manipulation.
As Brené Brown powerfully states, “Dehumanizing and holding people accountable are mutually exclusive.” You cannot hold someone to a standard of excellence while simultaneously treating them like an object.
To escape the Box, clear your blind spots, and shift your organizational culture to one of genuine human accountability, you have to do the actual work:
- Recognize the Cues: Learn to identify your internal signals. Are you feeling defensive? Are you keeping score? Are you adopting a “victim” or “master” narrative? Investigate your own double-mindedness and blind spots.
- Drop the Armor: Daring greatly means giving up the comfort of being “right.” If you have been treating a team member or client as an object, own it. Go first and lead by example.
- Move In Close: True psychological safety requires seeing the humanity in the person across from you. As Brown notes, “People are hard to hate close up. Move in.” Stop making assumptions and start asking better questions.
- Normalize Accountability: Shift the team culture away from a cycle of blame and excuses, and move toward genuine human accountability.
- Brave the Wilderness: Navigate uncomfortable conversations with understanding and transparency. Treat these moments as normal elements of authentic belonging.
Lastly, learn to let your work keep you accountable.
When our means and ends match, when there are no more elephants in the room that people have to dance around, everything works better because people work better.
“When the culture of any organization mandates that it is more important to protect the reputation of a system and those in power than it is to protect the basic human dignity of the individuals who serve that system or who are served by that system, you can be certain that the shame is systemic, the money is driving ethics, and the accountability is all but dead.”
– Brené Brown
Bring Unboxing Leadership to Your Team
Breaking down boxes breaks down barriers in mindsets and relationships that actively hold organizations back. If your team is stuck in a culture of blame, scapegoating, and friction, it might be time to rethink how you lead.
The full Unboxing Leadership training is a 3-hour, hands-on team workshop that integrates life, work, and purpose. We expose the mechanics of self-betrayal and self-deception, dismantle toxic team dynamics, and learn how to build healthy teams rooted in authentic cooperation.
It’s time to think beyond the box, because there never was a box.
“To have an outward mindset is to see that others matter like we matter. It is to move from a focus on ‘my’ results to a focus on ‘our’ impact.”
— The Arbinger Institute, Leadership & Self-Deception
