Hogan Dark Side (HDS): When Strengths Go Too Far - How Senior Leaders Can Manage Their Derailers
The Leadership Blind Spot
Senior leaders rise through capability, credibility, and the consistent use of strengths. Yet, under sustained pressure, those same strengths can turn against us. The behaviours that once drove success may begin to alienate colleagues, erode trust, and create risk.
Psychologists call this the “dark side” of personality - patterns of behaviour that emerge under stress, fatigue, or change. The Hogan Development Survey (HDS) helps leaders identify these tendencies early, so they can manage them before they derail performance or reputation (and they even get in the way of promotions).
Hogan Dark Side Personality Traits
The HDS measures 11 common derailers, grouped into three clusters that describe how people tend to behave when under stress or depleted. Each represents a strength taken too far.
1. Moving Away – Avoiding Pressure
These leaders cope by withdrawing or creating distance.
Excitable – passionate and driven, but prone to frustration and volatility
Sceptical – perceptive and alert, but mistrustful and defensive
Cautious – careful and risk-aware, but indecisive and fearful of mistakes
Reserved – independent and analytical, but detached and hard to read
Leisurely – agreeable on the surface, but privately resistant to control
2. Moving Against – Taking Control
Stress triggers dominance, control, or over-confidence.
Bold – confident and self-assured, but arrogant and dismissive of feedback
Mischievous – charming and persuasive, but reckless and manipulative
Colourful – energetic and engaging, but attention-seeking and unfocused
Imaginative – creative and visionary, but unrealistic and disconnected from reality
3. Moving Toward – Seeking Approval
These leaders cope by pleasing or over-controlling.
Diligent – thorough and reliable, but perfectionistic and micromanaging
Dutiful – loyal and considerate, but deferential and reluctant to challenge authority
These derailers are not “flaws”; they are strengths in overdrive. The bold risk-taker becomes over-confident, the diligent planner turns rigid, and the imaginative visionary loses touch with practicality.
Hogan Dark Side Personality Traits - Moving Away (Flight), Moving Against (Fight) and Moving Toward (the need to be right)
When Should Senior Leaders Care About Derailers?
Derailers can remain hidden until the environment changes - particularly during transformation, crisis, or cultural disruption.
Leaders should pay attention when:
Feedback mentions “tone”, “style”, or “impact” rather than capability
Decision-making slows because of risk aversion or conflict avoidance
High performers disengage from an overly dominant or perfectionistic leader
Communication breaks down under pressure
At senior levels, derailers damage not just personal reputation but strategic outcomes. In transformation programmes, for example, Cautious tendencies can stall momentum, while Bold patterns may create over-promise and under-delivery.
In senior leadership teams the pressure is always on and with it the potential for derailers to appear.
Why This Matters for Senior Leadership Teams
For senior leadership teams, derailers don’t just affect individual behaviour — they shape collective culture and decision quality. When several leaders share the same risk pattern (for example, Cautious or Bold), those tendencies can amplify across the group. Meetings become polarised, innovation stalls, or decisions get made without sufficient challenge.
Understanding derailers at a team level enables leaders to balance their collective risk profile. It creates space for candid dialogue, more thoughtful decision-making, and psychological safety in high-stakes environments - exactly what transformation work demands.
Why This Matters for Leaders Seeking Promotion
For high-potential leaders preparing to move into executive roles, derailers often surface precisely at the moment of greatest visibility. The behaviours that once helped them stand out - confidence, drive, or perfectionism - can suddenly be interpreted as arrogance, control, or rigidity.
By understanding their Hogan derailers early, aspiring executives can anticipate pressure points before they become performance risks. This level of self-management signals maturity, readiness for complex leadership, and the emotional intelligence boards and selection panels increasingly look for in senior appointments.
Why This Matters for Transformation Leaders
Transformation requires agility, collaboration, and sustained psychological safety. When derailers are active, they distort perception and decision-making precisely when clarity and trust are most needed.
A Sceptical or Reserved leader may inadvertently silence challenge.
A Colourful or Imaginative leader may lose credibility with operational teams.
A Dutiful leader may avoid necessary confrontation.
Understanding these dynamics allows leaders to stay adaptive under stress - responding intentionally rather than reactively.
Understanding derailers at a team level enables leaders to balance risk and decision quality - critical in transformation and matrix environments.
The Neuroscience of Derailment
When the brain perceives threat, it shifts from executive control to defensive survival patterns. The amygdala activates, narrowing focus and pushing habitual responses to the surface.
Under this stress state:
Empathy drops
Risk tolerance shrinks or inflates
Communication becomes reactive
Decision quality declines
Awareness is the first step to regulation. When leaders can recognise physiological and emotional cues - a rising sense of urgency, irritation, or withdrawal - they can pause and choose a different response.
How to Manage Hogan Dark Side Derailers (Step-by-Step)
Get objective data. Tools like the Hogan Development Survey® (HDS) provide reliable, research-based insights into your unique risk patterns.
Name your triggers. Identify when each derailer shows up. “I become overly controlling when timelines slip” is far more powerful than vague self-critique.
Design counter-moves. Build new habits: invite challenge, delegate early, ask for reflection before reaction.
Work with a coach.
Understanding your derailers is one thing - managing them under pressure is another.
A qualified executive coach trained in Hogan interpretation helps translate insight into real-world leadership shifts. Through feedback, behavioural experiments and accountability, coaching turns awareness into sustainable change.
Learn more about the benefits of understanding and controlling your derailers with a coach
📞 → Book a 30-minute consultation →Link back to context. A behaviour only becomes a derailer when it clashes with the environment. Awareness allows you to adapt to context rather than being driven by habit.
Using Hogan in Executive and Team Coaching
The HDS forms part of a wider Hogan suite that includes the HPI (bright side) and MVPI (values) assessments. For individuals, the HDS provides a confidential exploration of leadership risk; for teams, aggregated data reveals collective derailers that may shape culture and performance.
In group or transformation settings, integrating Hogan insights with group dynamics coaching allows teams to notice and interrupt shared patterns - for example, a collective Cautiousness slowing innovation, or Boldness overpowering inclusion.
For teams, aggregated HDS data (via the Take a look at our article on Hogan Coaching for Teams → ) can reveal shared derailers that collectively influence performance.
Conclusion: Strengths in Balance
Great leadership isn’t about removing the dark side - it’s about recognising it early and regulating it well. When senior leaders learn to identify their derailers, they recover faster from stress, maintain credibility under scrutiny, and model self-awareness for their teams.
The same drive that fuels success can, if unmanaged, undermine it. The difference lies in awareness, reflection, and deliberate practice - often guided by a skilled coach who can hold up the mirror when pressure makes it hardest to see clearly (and knows evidence based psychology approaches to overcome derailers).
FAQ
Q. What are Hogan Dark Side traits?
They’re 11 personality tendencies measured by the Hogan Development Survey® (HDS) that can derail performance when strengths are overused, particularly under stress. Hogan Dark Side traits (HDS) are 11 personality risks that emerge under stress when strengths are overused. They can damage trust, slow decisions, and derail performance. Naming triggers and building counter-moves—often with a coach—helps leaders regulate these patterns in high-pressure roles.
Q. Are derailers permanent?
No. They’re enduring tendencies, but awareness and professional coaching can help leaders regulate them effectively.
Q. Why should senior leaders care about derailers?
Because derailers erode trust and effectiveness precisely when visibility and stakes are highest - during change, crisis, or culture shifts.
Q. Can team coaching address derailers?
Yes. Aggregated HDS data helps teams recognise shared stress responses and design new behavioural norms for collaboration under pressure.
Call to Action
Curious about how your own “dark side” might affect your leadership impact?
I work with senior leaders to interpret their Hogan Development Survey® results and design practical strategies to manage derailers under pressure.
Book a 30-minute consultation →
Not quite ready to talk? - take a look at our Hogan Assessment and Coaching service →
Internal Links
The ROI of Executive Coaching → for linking diagnostics to measurable outcomes
Team Psychology Experiments → for behavioural experiment design
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Hogan Personality Inventory®, Hogan Development Survey®, Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory®, and Hogan Team Report® are registered trademarks, and Domino Derailer™ is a trademark of Hogan Assessment Systems, Inc. This article is an independent discussion of evidence-based team coaching practices and is not endorsed by or affiliated with Hogan Assessment Systems.
