“What is your greatest weakness?” Most people respond to this common interview question by naming a weakness in the form of an exaggerated strength (e.g., “I care too much about my clients”). Yet this kind of claim may be more accurate than they realize. Our greatest strengths can indeed become our greatest weaknesses when overused.
What seem to be personality strengths early in someone’s career can hinder potential at higher levels of leadership. A top individual contributor used to independence might lean into their autonomy too much as a first-time manager. They could then seem distant and aloof when their team expects guidance and support. As leaders advance, the stakes get higher—and so do the consequences of these overused strengths.
By taking steps to address derailing behaviors, organizations can help leaders leverage their greatest strength without succumbing to their greatest weakness.
What Are Derailers?
Derailers are part of the dark side of personality. Under everyday circumstances, dark-side personality characteristics can be strengths. However, these characteristics can become career obstacles when someone is stressed, bored, or complacent. For example, being outgoing and socially skilled can become attention-seeking or self-promoting behavior if not managed.
Everyone has derailers because everyone has a dark side. When we talk about the dark side, we don’t mean the Dark Triad or clinical personality disorders. We mean characteristics measured by the Hogan Development Survey that can become overused whenever someone isn’t monitoring their behavior. They can activate at work or in any other sphere of our lives. For example, the charisma that helps someone emerge as a leader may cause them to seem narcissistic or grandiose in high-stakes situations.
Implications of Derailers in the Workplace
The most common way leaders fail is with flawed interpersonal behavior that hinders their ability to build and maintain functional teams. Derailers can be hard to identify because they tend to emerge in specific circumstances when the leader isn’t paying attention. Those same characteristics that manifested as strengths in early-career positions can become overused, damaging their professional reputation and derailing their chances of success.
“When leaders are unaware of their derailing behaviors, they risk negatively impacting their own careers, their teams’ success, and ultimately organizational outcomes,” observed Erin Lazarus, senior director of business development at Hogan. “They may fail to be present or communicate in crucial moments, miss critical feedback about the need for change, or experience analysis paralysis instead of taking action.”
The implications of the dark side for organizations can be extensive. “Dark-side behaviors lead to many negative outcomes—duplicative work, misalignment between tasks and objectives, failure to pivot, and disengagement,” Lazarus said. Early intervention helps people learn to mitigate their derailers before they affect team performance and the bottom line. Before someone can address these behaviors, they need to be aware of what their dark-side personality characteristics are.
How to Identify Dark Personality Characteristics
The Hogan Development Survey (HDS) is part of a suite of three core Hogan personality assessments, which paint a holistic portrait of strengths, potential derailers, and values when used together. The HDS is distinct from clinical assessments, such as those used to assess personality disorders. Instead, the HDS measures 11 behavioral tendencies that are linked to poor leadership. It is rooted in the personality theory of psychoanalyst Karen Horney and sources about managerial failure.
Dark-side personality characteristics are not automatically negative, however. They are often advantageous, but they may become problematic when taken to the extreme. For instance, highly conscientious behavior is usually beneficial, but it can turn into perfectionism, obsession with work, or micromanaging.
Because the HDS describes performance risks in the workplace, it can be used to predict leadership performance and guide development efforts.
Three Categories of Derailers
Dark-side personality characteristics fall into three broad categories based on how someone tends to react or respond to others when they stop self-monitoring. At Hogan, we follow Horney in calling these categories (1) Moving Away from Others, (2) Moving Against Others, and (3) Moving Toward Others.
- Moving Away - People in this group tend to be alert for signs of criticism, rejection, betrayal, or hostility. When they think they detect a threat, they react by maintaining their distance or pushing others away. This manager stereotypically keeps their office door closed.
- Moving Against - People in this category expect to be liked, admired, and respected. They typically resist acknowledging their mistakes and are often unable to learn from experience. They tend to manage their anxiety by manipulating or controlling others, such as yelling at team members.
- Moving Toward - People in this group want to please those with authority. In conflict, they tend to side with authority figures rather than supporting their subordinates. Imagine a manager who is ingratiating toward their boss at the expense of their team members.
Balancing Your Greatest Strength and Greatest Weakness
Personality is best defined from two perspectives: (1) identity and (2) reputation. Identity is your personality from the inside, or how you see yourself. Reputation is your personality from the outside, or how others see you. Unlike identity, which changes as our self-perception changes, reputation tends to be stable over time. Most people experience some degree of disparity between how they view themselves and how others view them. Having a large gap between identity and reputation can cause leaders to miss feedback messages, deny their shortcomings, resist change, and stall or derail their careers.
Strategic self-awareness empowers leaders to recognize the need to adapt their behavior to increase their effectiveness. In the context of leadership development, it refers to understanding opportunity for change and growth. It's about knowing when one is overusing strengths.
“Behavior change is hard,” Lazarus said. “It requires intentionality, accountability, and measurement over time. The good news is that with strategic self-awareness and intentional effort, leaders can grow.”
Derailers and Leadership Development
An effective leader needs to continually adapt and improve throughout every career stage. Establishing development goals for leaders to manage derailers is an essential part of effective talent strategy.
Lazarus explained that the first step is to identify dark-side behaviors through precise psychometric tools, such as the Hogan personality assessments, and 360 reviews. Data from these assessments should be presented to the leader and contextualized in terms of their role, objectives, and aspirations. Then, in collaboration with a coach, the leader should create a personalized development plan targeting relevant behaviors. Addressing derailers equips leaders to develop more effective interpersonal skills and improve their team’s performance.
“Most organizations stop here,” Lazarus said. But to help leaders achieve their long-term development goals, organizations should provide an accountability system grounded in assessment-based coaching to facilitate meaningful reputational change. “Without these personalized, one-on-one efforts, most people lack the resources and ability to change,” she added.
So, what can organizations do? Building a talent strategy that acknowledges the dark side of personality will help organizations more effectively maximize leadership potential and provide developmental support. “What got you here won’t get you there” is an expression that speaks to the need for leaders to avoid exaggerating their strengths as they advance within an organization. By identifying and taking steps to mitigate leaders’ derailers early in their careers, organizations equip leaders to adapt their behavioral approach. Leaders can learn to keep the greatest strength that made them rise from turning into the greatest weakness that makes them fall.
Expert Contributor
Erin Lazarus, MS, senior director of business development at Hogan Assessments