An Easier Way to Consider Character Flaws

Your strengths are your weaknesses. It’s a phrase that speaks to a fundamental truth - too much of a good thing can become a bad thing!

Strengths and weaknesses are two sides of the same coin, inherent in all of us. They are not about something being ‘wrong’ with you, rather, they serve as an entry point to explore what we might call your “character flaws.” Think of them as a set of lenses through which to dial up your self-awareness.

Renowned personality psychologist Robert Hogan pointed out that poor leadership often isn’t about the absence of some essential trait but rather an overabundance of a less desirable one. In Hogan’s view, leaders are more often derailed by profound weaknesses than by missing strengths. These counterproductive weaknesses tend to amplify in times of stress or complacency. 

The implication is powerful. By understanding the personality traits that can derail a leader—you can work toward turning these potentially career-limiting qualities into minor, manageable weaknesses.

Management consultant Daniel Ofman takes Hogan’s insight a step further with his Core Quadrant Model. The model offers a simple yet profound framework:

1. Core Qualities: These are your innate strengths

2. Pitfalls: These are what happens when you overplay your strengths

3. Challenges: These are the areas you need to develop to counterbalance your pitfalls

4. Allergies: This is where it gets interesting. Your allergy represents something you react strongly against, often due to an overemphasis on your challenge area. It usually relates to ways of being you developed in childhood.

When your ‘allergy’ gets triggered, it often leads to pitfalls. Herein lies the real genius of the model, and the real career derailers. If you can understand your allergies at a deeper level, you gain the capacity to manage them when they manifest in unhelpful behaviours.

In leadership, how others experience you is their reality. And that reality shapes how they talk about you to others. It also influences how they show up and what they are prepared to contribute. Let me share a story from my coaching practice to illustrate.

A client of mine received some difficult feedback from a 360-degree review. His team reported feeling ignored and unconsulted, believing he didn’t care about their input. Ironically, this couldn’t have been further from the truth, he cared deeply. When we examined his situation through the lens of the Core Quadrant Model, here’s what we found:

• Core Quality: Ability to absorb pressure

• Pitfall: Appearing closed off

• Challenge: Open sharing

• Allergy: Honest emotional expression

In his case, his strength—his ability to absorb pressure, led him to withhold information in an effort to shield his team from uncertainty and internal politics. However, this well-intentioned behaviour resulted in the pitfall of appearing distant and unapproachable. To bridge the gap, he needed to lean into his vulnerability by opening up and embracing the discomfort of not having all the answers.

By exploring this deeper aspect of himself and where it came from, he unlocked more constructive choices for how he communicated with his team. The outcome? More collaboration, possible ways forward, and better relationships.

When left unchecked, career derailers can hijack how leaders think, act, and respond. The key isn’t to deny that you have them, because we all do. The key is to become conscious of them. Awareness allows you to process, regulate and moderate these traits. It allows you to integrate the split off parts of your whole.

Remember, a leadership derailer is never just a weakness. It's a personality extreme related to an ‘allergy’ that can easily run the show if you’re not aware of it.

If you’re not yet aware of your derailers, start by taking one of the many online assessments available. They’re a great starting point for self-reflection. Once you have clarity, commit to doing the work on minimising the impact these derailers could have on your success. 

I have found these derailers will turn up in your leadership and life, so there’s double the reward for doing the work. Leadership is not about being flawless - it’s about being aware. In that awareness lies the opportunity to transform potential derailers into stepping stones for growth.