15-07-2025
When Technical Brilliance Becomes A Liability
Diana Lowe, CEO of Blue Light Leadership , helps organizations transform employee engagement through Positive Psychology and Coaching. getty
Zara was a senior leader with a track record that turned heads. She delivered results, met every metric and outperformed peers in her technical domain. But behind the numbers was a mounting problem HR couldn't ignore: She dismissed input from peers, labeled colleagues as 'incompetent' and operated with a my-way-or-the-highway mindset.
To HR, coaching was a strategic intervention. To Zara, it felt like a punishment. For her team, it was the final hope.
This isn't a story about personality. It's about mindset—and how evidence-based coaching can help shift deeply entrenched attitudes, protect organizational culture and turn a high performer from a liability into an asset.
What often presents as a 'difficult personality' is, in truth, a set of cognitive and emotional patterns shaped over time. Zara hadn't become rigid overnight—her views on competence, control and value had been reinforced over decades. The problem wasn't capability. It was mindset—and that's where HR-led coaching interventions can have transformational power.
Here are three tools from positive psychology and behavioral coaching that helped shift Zara's perspective and her impact—and how they can help other leaders do the same. 1. Cognitive Reframing: Challenging The Internal Narrative
When Zara claimed, 'No one here knows what they're doing,' we paused to examine the thought beneath the thought. Was she feeling unsupported? Out of sync with the culture? Holding others to an impossible standard?
Using cognitive-behavioral techniques, we challenged absolutes and helped her develop a more accurate—and empowering—narrative: 'I hold high standards, and I'm learning to communicate them in a way that elevates others.'
The Takeaway: Use cognitive reframing to reduce interpersonal friction, shift conversations from confrontation to collaboration and enhance team psychological safety. 2. Strengths-Based Coaching: When Assets Become Liabilities
Through the VIA Character Strengths assessment, Zara identified her top strengths: leadership, prudence and fairness. While these traits had helped her rise, their overuse had a cost. Fairness became rigidity. Prudence morphed into micromanagement. Leadership leaned into control.
By connecting these strengths to emotional intelligence and self-regulation strategies, she began to use them more intentionally—and more effectively.
The Takeaway: Lean on strengths-based development to increase leader self-awareness and transform perceived weaknesses into refined leadership behaviors. 3. Visioning Exercises: Reconnecting To Intrinsic Motivation
Using the Best Possible Self exercise, we explored how Zara wanted to be described one year from now. Her answer was not 'the smartest in the room,' but 'respected, inspiring, someone people want to work with.'
That shift—from proving to inspiring—became her coaching North Star. Each week, she set micro-goals tied to this future version of herself.
The Takeaway: Work on visioning to build intrinsic motivation, align behavior with values and create internal accountability—often more powerful than external pressure. The Multiplier Effect: Why Coaching Relationships Matter
None of these tools matter without one essential ingredient: trust. In coaching, insight is just the beginning. Sustainable change happens when leaders feel safe enough to be honest—and challenged enough to grow.
In Zara's case, it wasn't one "aha" moment. It was a series of micro-adjustments, made possible by a strong coaching alliance and a safe space to evolve. Why This Matters To A Healthy Company Culture
When a high performer becomes a source of disengagement, the cost is steep—turnover, complaints and lost productivity. But writing someone off is often more expensive than investing in behavioral coaching. The ROI is improved retention, revitalized team morale and a transformed leader who becomes part of the culture solution, not the problem.
Positive psychology tools aren't soft. They're strategic. And when paired with a strong coaching relationship, they don't just inform behavior change—they make it possible.
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