Self-confidence is an essential leadership quality. It lets people decide, take risks, rally teams and pursue ambitious objectives. But once it becomes excessive, it can gradually turn into arrogance and end up damaging working relationships and performance alike.
This article explores the Bold derailer identified by the Hogan Development Survey (HDS). It shows how certain qualities that feed leadership potential, assurance, ambition, optimism and a taste for competition, can become counterproductive when they are overused.
For executives, HR directors and talent management professionals, the issue is essential: building better self-knowledge preserves the benefits of confidence while limiting the behaviours liable to weaken collaboration, decision-making and long-term success.
"You are wrong. I am right," the leader says. Then, once the facts finally show otherwise, the line changes: "It was not my fault."
If you have ever worked with a leader unable to acknowledge their mistakes or unwilling to listen to feedback, you have probably seen some of the difficulties overconfidence can generate at work. In the most critical situations, arrogance can go as far as compromising objectives, careers and even whole organisations.
Self-confidence is a beneficial personality characteristic, right up to the moment it becomes excessive. In Hogan terms, confidence pushed as far as arrogance is described by the Bold derailer.
So how do you limit the difficulties tied to excessively confident leadership? To understand where the line between confidence and arrogance falls, it helps to look at the personality characteristics involved, at their potential consequences, and at the development strategies that let leaders regulate their behaviour better.
The three main Hogan inventories explore the strengths a leader displays day to day, their potentially counterproductive tendencies, and their values and motivations.
The Hogan Development Survey (HDS) measures 11 characteristics liable to become counterproductive when overused. Hogan calls them derailers, also known as characteristics of the dark side of personality.
One or more of these derailers frequently starts to create difficulty in situations of stress, anxiety, complacency or boredom.
The Bold derailer describes a continuum of behaviour running from relatively modest personal restraint to markedly assertive self-promotion.
Leaders with this characteristic are generally willing to defend their interests and put themselves forward. They pursue their objectives and ambitions with energy and determination.
They can also appear particularly confident in their abilities, or even feel that certain privileges are naturally their due. At the same time, they can find it hard to acknowledge mistakes or to accept advice and feedback.
Executives scoring high on the Bold scale often reach significant levels of success and power. Three examples:
But that assurance has a dark side too.
Confident and competitive on one hand, sometimes arrogant and demanding on the other, leaders whose Bold behaviours go unchecked can end up becoming an obstacle to their own success.
In the accompanying video, Erin Lazarus, MS, senior director of business development, sets out how the behaviours associated with the Bold derailer can shape leadership effectiveness.
The HDS measures behavioural patterns liable to become unproductive and hard to sustain over time, particularly when they are pushed to an extreme.
In leaders scoring high on the Bold derailer, believing in your own worth is a positive characteristic. But excessive confidence can have negative consequences once it starts to harm teamwork and collaboration.
Other expressions of the Bold derailer can include behaviour perceived as impulsive, a tendency towards self-promotion, or a markedly demanding manner.
These leaders may overestimate their talents and achievements, downplay their own weaknesses and attribute their mistakes to others.
That executive who behaves as though they are never wrong? They probably believe deeply that they fully deserve their leadership position, that they are destined for great things, and that success will necessarily keep following them.
However talented and high-performing these leaders may appear, their arrogant behaviour can make them hard to work alongside.
Feedback gets ignored, limits get tested, and colleagues end up feeling intimidated.
Without strategic self-awareness, leaders who attach excessive importance to their own ego can ramp up their risk-taking further and damage their professional relationships lastingly.
Within personality assessment and the development of leadership potential, then, the point is less to remove that confidence than to learn to regulate it. A characteristic that supports performance in some circumstances can become a genuine derailer when it is used without judgement.
Leaders scoring high on the Bold derailer can be particularly pleased with their own performance, which is one natural effect of their strong self-confidence.
But to avoid following a trajectory comparable to that of Sam Bankman-Fried, the entrepreneur convicted of criminal fraud, it can help to identify some behaviours to continue, others to start, and finally some to stop.
Bold leaders have every interest in holding on to their determination to accomplish great things.
Their capacity to treat setbacks as opportunities can generate an optimism that energises and carries teams along.
They should also keep directing their competitive spirit outside the organisation, while learning to temper the competition they maintain internally with their own people.
The distinction is essential. Competitive energy can be a powerful driver of performance when it is pointed at collective objectives. It becomes far more problematic when it turns internal relationships into a permanent contest.
Leaders scoring high on the Bold derailer should start looking more closely at how their communication style affects their team's performance.
An executive seen as aggressive, combative or arrogant can unintentionally push their people away and erode their engagement.
Building this awareness of one's impact is a major avenue in coaching and supporting leaders. It is not about asking them to give up their assurance, but about letting them understand how their behaviour is actually perceived by those around them.
Finally, these leaders should stop denying their mistakes.
That stance can give the impression that they are incapable of drawing lessons from experience.
Being able to acknowledge fault, apologise and change direction quickly is nonetheless crucial in leadership roles marked by volatility and high stakes.
Acknowledging a mistake does not diminish a leader's authority. In many contexts, that capacity can on the contrary encourage an organisational culture in which feedback, learning and adaptation become possible.
Self-confidence remains a valuable resource for leadership. The aim, then, is not to neutralise it, but to let leaders understand at what point that strength risks becoming excessive.
Personality assessment tools, such as the Hogan inventories, can help identify these watch-out areas and strengthen strategic self-awareness. Embedded in an approach to assessment and development, to talent management or to coaching, this information turns a potential behavioural risk into a genuine lever for development.
For organisations, this capacity to anticipate derailers is also an HR strategy issue. It helps develop leadership potential, strengthen the quality of relationships, support team transformation and build a culture in which ambition and accountability can coexist over time.
Sustainable management rests precisely on that balance: keeping the assurance needed to decide and carry others along, while building enough perspective to listen, learn and acknowledge mistakes.
Over the long term, it is this combination of self-knowledge, skills development and adaptability that lets leaders and organisations turn confidence into lasting performance.
Erin Lazarus, MS, senior director of business development, who leads corporate solutions consulting together with the commercial organisation at Hogan Assessments.
At Authentic Talent, we believe that objective assessment of talent and potential within organisations is a decisive factor in their future success. If you would like to discuss it with us, let's talk!
This article draws on an article published on the Hogan Assessments website: How Overconfidence in Leadership Can Sabotage Success
