Going Beyond the Karpman Drama Triangle

A CEO transition is one of the highest-stakes passages in professional life. Identity, legacy, wealth, relationships, and power are all in motion at once - and when the stakes are this high, the conditions are perfect for drama. Boards second-guess. Successors push. Founders hold on. Even the people who love you most can get pulled into old patterns.

The patterns that arise during a CEO Transition and the conflicts that ensue are not random. In 1968, psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Karpman - trained under Eric Berne, the founder of Transactional Analysis - mapped them with remarkable precision in what became known as the Drama Triangle. The model earned Karpman the Eric Berne Memorial Scientific Award and has remained in continuous use for over five decades, crossing from the therapy room into executive coaching certifications, Fortune 500 leadership programs, mediation training, and family systems work. Few frameworks in applied psychology have proven this durable, and for good reason: once you see the three positions - Victim, Rescuer, Persecutor - you cannot unsee them. Leaders consistently report that the model gives them language for dynamics they have felt for years but could not name.

In a CEO Transition naming these patterns can help. In a transition, a single unexamined conflict habit can damage relationships, cloud judgment, and turn a well-planned succession into a saga.

That is why the most important move is also the simplest: pause and notice. Before you can change a habit, you have to see it. This complimentary workbook helps you assess honestly where you get caught, understand what keeps you there, and identify the specific work you need to do to navigate conflict cleanly. The goal is not to avoid conflict; transitions require hard conversations. The goal is to have those conversations from authenticity rather than drama - so the transition becomes an expression of your leadership, not an exception to it.