Scapegoating in times of liminality

Throughout history, scapegoating has been an all-too-human response to periods of crisis, uncertainty and transition – almost a built-in feature of liminality.   

The consequences are serious: Whether it’s being done by a society, an organisation or an individual, scapegoating allows us to ignore the root causes of rapid and uncomfortable change and limits our potential to find creative solutions.

What is scapegoating and why do we do it?

The term scapegoating comes from the Book of Leviticus in the Bible and refers to the ritual release into the wilderness of a goat symbolically bearing the sins of the community. In modern terms, it often describes situations where one group wrongly blames an innocent individual or sub-group when things go wrong. By painting the scapegoats as ‘villains,’ the scapegoaters can view themselves as ‘heroes,’ and wash their hands of responsibility or accountability.

From a psychological perspective, scapegoating can be thought of as a form of displacement: Instead of directing my anger or upset at its source – my boss, say, or a difficult colleague – I wrongly take it out on my partner or our children once home.

This sort of emotional deflection carries a long-term cost: It does nothing to address the underlying cause of the problem – my situation at work, say, or my relations with my colleagues – and it corrodes my relationship with my family.

Scapegoating provides a release for frustration, anger and uncertainty, often pitting one group in society against another. The identities of these groups are important and – all too often – predictable. Typically, the scapegoaters are a dominant group while the scapegoats are an ‘outside’ group – ethnic, religious or sexual minorities or immigrants against whom there may already be a long history of discrimination.

In many cases, scapegoating against such ‘outgroups’ is whipped up by politicians and other leaders to divert attention away from their own failings or from the reality that they don’t have the solutions – or the power – to fix the problems facing their communities. In a world where communities are facing rising threats from global climate change, it’s not hard to imagine we could be seeing more and more cases of such scapegoating in societies facing climate stress.

Why scapegoating matters

Scapegoating harms societies, organisations and individuals in numerous ways. One of the most important is the way in which it can prevent us from finding effective solutions to social and economic challenges. Instead of identifying the actual causes of the problem – which may be systemic and rooted in complex structural forces – the issue is instead foisted on to the shoulders of ‘the other’.

For example, we’ve repeatedly seen economic decline in some communities in high-income countries blamed not on abstract economic forces like globalisation and automation but rather on very tangible and visible groups like immigrants.  

While immigrants do have important economic and social impacts on economies and societies, blanket scapegoating of them can prevent us from fully understanding the complexity of these impacts. So, scapegoating can also foster narrow mindedness – i.e. “the problem isn’t complicated, it’s simply their fault.” This can allow societies – and organisations and individuals – to avoid the work of reflecting on themselves and their own responsibilities.

Finally, scapegoating also fuels – and, in many cases, reinforces – prejudice against minority groups. Such divisions can erode trust in societies. They can also have a highly detrimental effect on minority groups’ mental health and well-being.

Scapegoating within an organization

While the parallels aren’t exact, organizations going through major change can also see forms of scapegoating. Anger, uncertainty and doubt can pit one group against another – younger vs. older colleagues, country and regional offices vs. headquarters, and so on.

At a time when many senior leaders are focused on the nuts and bolts of reform, it can be easy to dismiss such finger pointing and resentment as unhelpful or inappropriate. But simply ignoring them would be unwise. They should instead be seen as a signal of staff distress – concern over both the future for staff’s own careers and – in UNICEF’s case – for our ability as an organization to go on serving our 80-year mission of fighting for children’s rights and serving every child.

There’s no simple solution to these problems. But what can help is for those of us in leadership position to frankly recognise that, in a period of great uncertainty, our teams’ feelings of fear and resistance to change are, in many respects, quite rational responses.

Confronting these fears must involve recognising the unique nature of this liminal period. This is a period of transition – we are letting go of how we did things in the past but have not yet decided how to do things in the future. In such a situation, there can be a temptation to hold off on communication until we’ve come up with “a solution”.

However, we need to communicate and engage effectively with our teams throughout this period of transition.

As noted earlier in this series, effective communication needs to talk about accountability, strategy and what success looks like. We need to present a clear and accurate picture of where we are, why change is needed, and where we want to end up.

Failure to fully engage with our teams throughout this liminal period also risks a missed opportunity to learn from colleagues’ unique perspectives on what our future should look like. While a period of transition like this can surface fear, resentment and scapegoating, it can also be uniquely powerful in surfacing transformative ideas and experience.

As the change management analyst Susan Bridges has written, “The essence of life takes place in the neutral zone phase of transition. It is in that interim spaciousness that all possibilities, creativity and innovative ideas can come to life and flourish.”