Nutshell: How to know our strengths and weaknesses

Recognising that strengths and weaknesses are often two sides of the same coin and that even a strength – if overused – can threaten to derail us, is an important precursor for self-awareness.

Despite years of scientific focus and an estimated $366bn annual investment in effective leadership, up to half of leaders still fall short.

Why, we might wonder, might this be?

Psychologists believe that part of the answer can be found in our personality, which lies at the heart of how well we can forge effective relationships, and influences our success as a leader in a range of different situations.

After all, leadership is an interaction, rather than an action.

While personality influences, rather than dictates, behaviour, operating outside our natural preferences requires more conscious effort and energy.

And while innate strengths such as self-confidence, diligence and energy can enhance our performance, they also have a flip – or dark – side that can also derail it. 

At times of pressure, when we are in the grip of stress, aspects of our personality that otherwise serve us well can be the very traits that make us ineffective – and potentially toxic – leaders. 

We can, it seems, have too much of a good thing.

Personality and self-awareness

It stands to reason, then, that being aware of our personalities, our strengths and weaknesses and how they manifest themselves, is an important element of developing our self-awareness. And building self-awareness is the starting point for overcoming our dark traits.

As we face an uncertain and unpredictable world, it has never been more important to guard against our derailers. We face unprecedented challenges, from the need to pivot business strategy time and again, to managing a diverse and increasingly remote workforce – all while protecting our own – and others’ - emotional wellbeing.

When we understand how our personality might influence our behaviour, decision-making and approaches to leadership, we’re much better placed to anticipate, and tackle, any potential leadership derailers.  

What is leadership derailment?

In psychological terms, derailment refers to a pattern of behaviour which, if overplayed, can start to work against an individual so that their performance flatlines or declines.

Ironically, these qualities are often the same characteristics that initially helped the person to progress.

For example, being meticulous might have been a real advantage in our career to date. But now, when we have to balance the day job with leading others, it might be seen as setting unrealistic standards or being intolerant or critical.

With leadership derailment, the lines between strengths and weaknesses become blurred:

• Consider the bold, assertive and confident leader who begins to underestimate levels of risk.

• Or the sensitive, emotional leader who can be pessimistic and volatile when things aren’t going well.

The derailed leader is not necessarily lacking in competence, but untamed elements of their personality can threaten to limit their performance. 

So what can we do to anticipate all this, to know our strengths and acknowledge and mitigate potential derailers?

Self-awareness

Tackling leadership derailment starts with our old friend, self-awareness. We need to understand what comes more naturally to us and where we might need to put in more effort.

Insight

While personality testing is not to be taken lightly, a robust assessment model can provide us with detailed insight about how our personality preferences can become overplayed when the chips are down.

For example, Sova’s leadership derailment model is a tool to help us to be more mindful about of where our potential derailers might be lying in wait, ready to hijack us.

Strategies

Based on the insight, we can then put in place strategies to mitigate and master these preferences to avoid being derailed.

Sova’s leadership derailment model

The model is a personality assessment based on the six major dimensions of personality identified by the HEXACO model:

• Honest-humility

• Emotionality

• Extraversion

• Agreeableness

• Conscientiousness

• Openness to experience

The assessment focusses on behavioural preferences at work across these characteristics. People who take the assessment are invited to complete a short questionnaire which plots them on a spectrum for each personality dimension, scoring them on a five or 10-point scale. Individual results are benchmarked against people who have completed the test before, which improves its accuracy.

The resulting derailment report shows where people sit against 14 potential derailer characteristics:

A Sova development report provides the insight we need into our strengths and development areas, as well as useful questions to reflect on to support personal development. It offers us the insight we need to spot potential derailers.

There are no good or bad results; there are merely pros and cons to each preference

However, some personality preferences can be more or less helpful in a specific role or context.

The model does not ask us to suppress these personality traits: we have them, for good or ill. But it does give us the awareness we need to take a step back when the pressure is building and to learn how to mitigate them.

We may need to be intentional about this, as the mitigations will probably not come naturally to us.

For example:

The joy and challenge of leadership is that is involves us humans, with a whole range of unique characteristics and foibles – our own as well as others.

We might not be able to change our personality. But, through self-awareness and insight, we can learn how seemingly positive elements of our personality can derail our performance and leadership – and how to manage any unhelpful behaviour.

Test your understanding

• Identify your own definition of a leadership ‘derailer’.

• Outline five of the derailer characteristics highlighted in Sova's model.

What does it mean for you?

• Consider any 'derailer' traits you might see in yourself – particularly in times of pressure and stress.  Reflect on how you might address these.