Charismatic, expressive and able to hold a room, some leaders have a natural gift for drawing attention and winning support. But what happens when this ability to take centre stage goes too far?
The need for recognition and visibility can then turn into a real brake on managerial effectiveness, on collaboration and on collective performance.
Through the Colorful derailer, identified by Hogan's personality assessments, this article examines how the need for attention works in senior leaders, what it does to their teams, and which development levers can turn this tendency into an asset for more conscious, balanced and lasting leadership.
Picture a leader you work with who talks a great deal, and loudly. Their stories run long and are often theatrical. Their voice usually fills the meeting room, and they seem especially drawn to drama in the workplace.
Admittedly, this person has a genuine talent for entertaining and captivating the people around them. But their constant need for the spotlight can also become frustrating for colleagues. Worse still, the same behaviour can leave them easily sidetracked and stop them from finishing what they start.
This way of operating, which Hogan calls Colorful, carries both benefits and risks.
Leaders who are particularly talkative, expressive and fond of a stage can excel at rallying others and exerting a positive influence. Their infectious energy and social ease are real strengths.
When these tendencies become excessive, however, they can also make the person look boastful, easily distracted and forever hungry for attention.
The whole challenge, then, is to keep the benefits of charisma without sliding into the excesses of theatricality.
Hogan's personality assessments look at three complementary dimensions of personality:
The Hogan Development Survey (HDS) focuses specifically on the dark side characteristics of personality, those that can trigger professional derailment when they are not kept sufficiently in check.
Among the 11 derailers this inventory identifies, the Colorful scale covers behaviour ranging from restraint and discretion at one end to self-display and the urge to stand out at the other.
Using social skills to captivate an audience is an obvious strength for a leader with a Colorful tendency.
Yet this quality can stop being an asset once it is overused, particularly under stress, in moments of boredom or when the leader drifts into a certain complacency.
A leader whose Colorful behaviour goes unregulated may then become flamboyant and showy, rather like Moira Rose, the eccentric matriarch and former soap opera star of the series Schitt's Creek.
This need to keep every eye on themselves can damage their professional reputation and hold back their productivity.
That is why building strategic self-awareness is such an important lever: it allows leaders to adapt or tone down their behaviour according to circumstances, expectations and their surroundings.
In a video devoted to this dimension of personality, Erin Lazarus, who holds a master's degree (MS) and serves as Senior Director of Business Development at Hogan Assessments, describes how behaviour linked to the Colorful derailer can shape a leader's effectiveness.
Her insight helps to explain why a social quality that starts out as positive can, when pushed to the extreme, become an obstacle to effective leadership.
Speaking loudly, expressively, quickly and confidently can suit certain professional situations perfectly well. In many settings, this behaviour even helps to persuade, motivate and build collective momentum.
But when a leader regularly cuts people off, repeats themselves, wastes other people's time or seems to feed on the attention they receive, tension inevitably builds.
Such behaviour can then harm their own effectiveness as much as their team's.
A leader scoring high on Colorful may expect others to find their public contributions especially compelling.
To draw the eye, they may adopt a striking dress sense or particularly expressive body language.
At work, their extraversion and social skills can also give the impression that they are easily sidetracked or in constant need of stimulation.
They may also fail to notice, or choose to disregard, the cues signalling that it is time to give others more room.
If these tendencies are left unmanaged, this leader risks coming across as scattered: permanently busy, yet ultimately not very productive.
This gap between visibility, activity and real effectiveness is one of the main risks of the Colorful derailer.
As a derailer, Colorful is more complex than it first appears.
People with a high Colorful tendency often mistake the attention they receive for a form of personal validation.
Their demonstrative behaviour can therefore conceal a deeper insecurity or doubts about their own worth.
Pinpointing the need that lies beneath this search for attention is therefore an important step in learning to regulate the behaviour effectively.
To support this growing awareness, a leader can draw on the Stop, Start, Continue method, which involves identifying the behaviours to drop, to build and to keep.
STOP
Stop reading every silence as an invitation to keep talking. Learn to recognise the moments when it is better to leave room for others.
START
Identify the situations and triggers that turn a natural strength into a potential derailer. Stay especially alert to the circumstances that encourage excessive behaviour.
CONTINUE
Use social skills to engage others, spark their interest and exert a positive influence. The aim is not to give up one's charisma, but to learn to use it with judgement.
A leader with strong interpersonal skills always takes their audience into account.
Leaders with a Colorful tendency would therefore do well to admit openly to the people they work with that they tend to talk a great deal and sometimes need time to get to the point.
They should also keep an eye on how often and for how long they speak.
Leaders who develop genuine strategic self-awareness learn to observe their own behaviour and the effect it has on those around them.
Little by little, they become able to spot the moments when their expressiveness and energy are assets, and also those when it is wiser to rein them in.
The goal, then, is not to erase a personality trait, but to learn to adjust it to what the situation requires.
The need for attention is not necessarily a flaw. When it is under control, it can feed a leader's presence, influence and ability to mobilise people.
When it becomes excessive, on the other hand, it can weaken trust, disrupt group interactions and pull attention away from the real priorities.
The Colorful derailer thus illustrates a fundamental principle of leadership development: a strength, once overused, can become a risk to performance.
From a talent management and skills development perspective, personality assessment makes it easier to identify these tendencies, anticipate their consequences and help senior leaders regulate their behaviour more effectively.
Combined with suitable coaching and support, this approach fosters the strategic self-awareness that sustainable management cannot do without.
For organisations, the stakes go beyond individual progress: the aim is to bring forward leaders who can combine influence and listening, visibility and humility, personal energy and collective effectiveness.
Because truly effective leadership is not about capturing all the attention, but about knowing how to direct it towards what moves teams and the organisation forward.
Erin Lazarus, MS, is Senior Director of Business Development within the Talent Solutions team at Hogan Assessments.
The 11 derailers series: Excitable · Skeptical · Cautious · Reserved (coming soon) · Leisurely · Bold · Mischievous · Colorful · Imaginative · Diligent · Dutiful
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: Attention-Seeking Behavior in Leaders: The Cost of Performance
