When High Potential Becomes High Risk: Identifying Derailers Early

2026-01-07

Hiring a new team member with stellar credentials and apparent high potential is every manager’s dream. 

But what happens when that high potential quietly turns into high risk? 

In HR and organizational psychology, derailers describe personality traits or behavioral patterns that can derail one’s career in the wrong direction due to overlooked or overused traits that are overshadowed by high potential; these often surface only after hiring or promotion. Importantly, these derailers are not obvious early on – they tend to appear under pressure, increased responsibility, or authority. 

Longitudinal leadership research has shown that a substantial proportion of high-potential employees and executives fail to meet expectations over time, a phenomenon commonly referred to as career derailment (McCall & Lombardo, 1983; Hogan & Hogan, 2001). 

In this article, we will explore: 

• What derailers are? 

• Why are high-potential individuals especially vulnerable? 

• How to identify these risks early in the hiring process? 

Understanding Derailers and Why They Matter 

What is a “derailer”? 

A derailer is a counterproductive trait or behavior that can stall or reverse career progression, particularly in more demanding roles. 

Key characteristics of derailers: 

• They often originate from strengths, not weaknesses. 

• They remain invisible in low-pressure contexts. 

• They become problematic when overused or poorly regulated. 

For example, confidence turning into arrogance, drive turning into impatience, or control, creativity turning into impracticality 

In short, derailers can be “too much of a good thing”.  

But this doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Derailers are individual. Derailment is interactive.  

Research shows that career derailment often emerges from the interaction between individual traits, follower behavior, and organizational context. This is known as the toxic triangle (Padilla et al., 2007), in which: 

• Destructive leader characteristics (e.g., dominance, narcissism, ethical blind spots) 

• Susceptible followers (e.g., compliance, fear, dependency) 

• Conducive environments (e.g., pressure, ambiguity, weak oversight) 

…together combine to create conditions in which derailment can escalate and persist. 

This framework helps explain why derailers often go unnoticed early: strong performance discourages challenge, followers adapt rather than confront, and organizational pressures reward short-term results over behavioral reflection. 

Why High-Potential Employees Are Especially at Risk 

It may seem counterintuitive, but high-potential employees are more prone to derailment, not less. 

Common reasons include: 

• Rapid advancement, which exposes them to complexity before their self-regulation skills fully develop. 

• Limited corrective feedback, because strong results discourage managers from challenging behavior. 

• Protection by past success, reinforcing the belief that current behavior is “working.” 

• Sustained pressure, which amplifies automatic and unregulated responses. 

A lack of self-awareness is a recurring factor. Many talented individuals simply do not see how their behavior affects others. 

Typical examples: 

• A highly driven manager whose perfectionism becomes micromanagement, gradually demotivating the team. 

• A brilliant specialist whose blunt communication style (very low agreeableness) erodes trust and collaboration. 

Longitudinal leadership research consistently shows that high-performing and high-potential individuals frequently derail due to interpersonal insensitivity, poor self-regulation, and resistance to feedback, rather than lack of intelligence or technical competence (McCall & Lombardo, 1983; Hogan & Hogan, 2001; Harms et al., 2011). 

The Big Five Personality Traits and Their “Dark Sides” 

Personality in the workplace is commonly understood through the Big Five traits: 

• Openness 

• Conscientiousness 

• Extraversion 

• Agreeableness 

• Neuroticism (Emotional Stability) 

Each trait exists on a continuum, and extreme scores in either direction may signal some risk (Le et al., 2011). 

Excessive Conscientiousness – The Perfectionist Trap 

Conscientiousness is one of the strongest predictors of job performance – up to a point. 

When excessively high, it may lead to: 

• Rigid standards and perfectionism 

• Difficulty delegating 

• Slow decision-making 

• Resistance to change 

Research suggests an inverse U-shaped relationship between conscientiousness and performance. Moderate to high levels enhance performance, whereas very high levels increase stress, inflexibility, and counterproductive behavior (Coleman et al., 2023). In practice, this often looks like high performers who insist on doing everything themselves, teams slowed down by excessive attention to detail, and burnout masked as “commitment”. 

Low Agreeableness – The “Brilliant yet Difficult to Co-Work with” Colleague Syndrome 

Low agreeableness can be useful and supportive in certain situations, especially in environments where assertiveness, competitive drive, and tough decision-making are needed.  

However! Extremely low agreeableness often manifests as arrogance, poor empathy, dismissiveness toward feedback, and interpersonal conflict. Such individuals may deliver strong short-term results while simultaneously damaging trust and collaboration.  

Leadership derailment research consistently identifies overconfidence, dominance, and hypersensitivity to criticism as key risk factors, particularly when combined with low agreeableness and high self-focus (Hogan & Hogan, 2001; Harms et al., 2011). 

Extreme Openness – Visionary or…? 

High openness supports creativity and innovation, but at extreme levels, it can lead to constant idea switching, boredom with routine, and difficulty executing long-term plans. 

A real-world example: a visionary employee who initiates multiple projects but rarely finishes them. 

Research shows that individuals extremely high in openness are more likely to seek novelty and stimulation, shift attention rapidly between ideas, and generate unconventional or insufficiently grounded solutions, particularly in unstructured environments (George & Zhou, 2001; DeYoung, 2015). 

Without sufficient structure and follow-through, these tendencies are associated with reduced execution quality, strategic drift, and decreased team effectiveness (Le et al., 2011; Baer, 2012). 

Other risky extremes 

Every Big Five trait has a potential downside, for example: 

High extraversion is associated with dominance, sensation seeking, and impulsive behavior, particularly in leadership and high-stimulation environments (Depue & Collins, 1999; Judge et al., 2002). 

High neuroticism is linked to heightened emotional reactivity, increased stress sensitivity, and maladaptive coping under pressure (Bolger & Schilling, 1991; Judge et al., 2002). 

Conversely, extremely low neuroticism may reduce threat sensitivity and vigilance, which in detail-oriented or high-reliability environments can manifest as complacency, insufficient urgency, or delayed error detection, particularly when tasks require sustained monitoring and anticipatory risk management (Matthews et al., 2003; Le et al., 2011). 

The key insight: 

Extreme trait levels are not strengths – they are starting points for a conversation. 

Intelligence and the “Too-Smart” Trap 

Cognitive ability (IQ) strongly predicts learning and job performance – but high intelligence is not protective against derailment. 

Research shows that higher IQ is often negatively correlated with conscientiousness (Moutafi et al., 2004). Highly intelligent individuals may resist structure and rules, become disengaged if under-challenged, and overestimate their own judgment.  

Perceived overqualification is linked to  withdrawal, counterproductive work behavior, and reduced engagement (Liu et al., 2015) 

In short: intelligence accelerates careers – but it also accelerates risk when humility and self-regulation are lacking. 

Derailers at Different Career Levels 

Mid-Level Professionals 

At this level, common derailers include poor feedback reception, low adaptability, and weak collaboration skills. 

An individual’s technical expertise often masks these issues until roles require influence rather than execution. 

Example: a software engineer consistently delivers high-quality work independently and is promoted to a team lead role; however, once the position requires influencing priorities, giving feedback, and coordinating others’ work, difficulties emerge in accepting input, adapting to differing viewpoints, and building collaboration – issues that were previously masked by strong individual technical performance. 

Senior Leaders 

At leadership levels, derailers become more noticeable because power amplifies personality and behavior cascades through teams and culture. 

Common leadership derailers: 

• Overconfidence – excessively relying on their own judgment, underestimating risks, and assuming past success guarantees future correctness. 

• Excessive control – centralized decisions, closely monitoring execution, and struggling to delegate, even to capable experts. 

• Ignoring dissent – discourages, dismisses, or filters out opinions that challenge their preferred direction, reducing psychological safety. 

• Ethical blind spots – justifies questionable decisions as necessary, urgent, or standard practice, failing to recognize the ethical implications. 

Leadership is not just correlated with outcomes; it causes measurable changes – especially through behavior and cognition. This matters because derailers are behavioral expressions, not abstract traits. 

Experimental and quasi-experimental evidence demonstrates that leadership behavior causally influences follower behavior, cognition, and performance, meaning that unregulated leader traits can scale rapidly into system-level effects (Avolio et al., 2009). 

Example: a senior leader known for decisive crisis management begins bypassing established review processes to “move fast”. Team members notice that concerns about compliance, long-term risk, or customer impact are brushed aside as obstacles. Over time, people stop raising issues early, assuming they will be ignored or penalized. Decisions continue to be made quickly, but unnoticed risks accumulate, and when problems finally surface, they do so at a much larger and more costly scale. 

Spotting Derailers Early in the Hiring Process 

Career derailers can be identified during the hiring process by using structured behavioral interviews. Ask about failure, conflict, and difficult feedback, watch for blame-shifting or lack of reflection. Inability to name weaknesses often signals low self-awareness. 

Use assessments to identify extremes. Personality tests should highlight risk zones, not just strengths. Extreme Big Five scores should be the base for deeper questioning, not automatic rejection. 

Observe behavior, not just answers – notice reactions to challenge or ambiguity, pay attention to dominance, defensiveness, or disengagement. Mild interview stress often reveals future behavior, as suggested by Trait Activation Theory (Tett & Burnett, 2003). 

Use references strategically. Ask about feedback reactions and teamwork, listen for qualified praise (“He/she had great results, but…”). Patterns matter more than isolated incidents. 

Conclusion: Hire for Strengths, Manage the Risks 

Derailers do not mean someone is a bad hire! They mean someone needs awareness, context, and support. The goal is not to eliminate risk – it is to recognize it early. 

High potential becomes an asset only when paired with self-awareness and behavioral regulation. 

Hiring for strengths while ignoring their shadows is not optimism – it is risk exposure.