Photo by Saneej Kallingal on Unsplash

George Kohlrieser has forty years of experience as a hostage negotiator and a psychologist. He’s the Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at one of the world’s leading business schools, the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland. 
Kohlrieser works internationally with companies and organizations, focusing on the role neuroscience plays in high performance leadership and teamwork, conflict and change management, dialogue, negotiations, stress management, fulfilling potential, and playing to win.

I talked to him years ago about situations when we became hostages without a weapon. "We can be hostages to our boss, colleagues, friends, situation, emotions", he said.
How can we get out of such situations?
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"You could be a hostage without a weapon. You can be a hostage to your boss, to employee, to a colleague, to a neighbor, to a situation.
How do we become such hostages?
Whenever you are powerless, you lose your ability to choose, you lose the ability to come back to the sense of where your mind's focused, what you need to do.

How we can get out of such a situation?
The number one thing is to know what you want, to control the emotions and get the emotions directed in a way that gets you to a positive outcome.
Now, even if you have a gun to your head, you don't have to feel like a hostage. Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison. He came out speaking reconciliation and forgiveness.
So not being a hostage psychologically doesn't mean you don't have the situation of someone trying to control you. But you don't allow yourself to feel hostage. It starts in the mindset and then it goes to talking and dialogue and it's a whole series of techniques that can be used".