Stockholm syndrome isn’t just a hostage story.
It’s a boardroom story. A leadership story. A culture story.
The leader who built the company keeps the team loyal to an idea that stopped working three years ago. Not through force. Through familiarity. Through dependence. Through the slow, quiet conditioning of “this is just how we do things here.”
And the team? They protect it. They defend it. They explain it to new hires with pride.
That’s the syndrome at work.
The captor doesn’t have to be a person. It can be a process. A belief. A pricing model. A reporting structure. Anything that once served you, that you’ve now started serving.
The most dangerous loyalty isn’t the kind that’s demanded.
It’s the kind that feels earned.
Ask yourself: What are you defending that you’d never choose fresh, with fresh eyes, today?
