High Achiever Profile and Characteristics
People with high-achieving personalities often think they are completely normal, yet also feel like they don’t fit in. Some struggle to understand why the whole world seems incompetent.
When High Achievers have a better understanding of themselves, they feel more confident pursuing the strategies and outcomes that make sense for them rather than what everyone else is doing.
Below are common intellectual and personality traits of the High Achievers who work well with Dr. Groff. High Achievers may not identify with all traits, and not all successful people have a High Achiever personality.
Remember that the complexity of being a High Achiever can be challenging, but it can also be your greatest asset.
Personal Traits
INTELLECTUAL TRAITS
“Why am I the only one who sees this problem?”
- Thinks several moves ahead
- Assesses multiple variables and contingencies when making a decision
- Processes and synthesizes information quickly
- Makes connections among information and systems that others view as unconnected
- Tendency to think several layers deeper than the surface of a conversation
- Intellectually curious and willing to challenge own conclusions
- Able to quickly extrapolate concepts from minimal data points for fast pattern recognition
- Processes in parallel rather than sequentially
- Independent thinkers
- May be told that they are “over-thinking” when they are simply trying to account for all variables
How It Feels
- Sometimes boring or frustrating when one gets to the right answer quickly and waits for other people to catch up.
- Exciting when the ability to think creatively yields a novel solution to a problem.
- Sometimes isolating if High Achievers feel like they can’t be themselves or need to dumb down their thought processes in order to connect with others
- Rewarding when challenges bring opportunties for new learning and mastery
- Sometimes confusing when conclusions feel like “common sense” but others don’t see it or get it.
- Conventional advice rarely applies, which can be intermittently frustrating, lonely or scary as there are few templates to bounce an approach against.
- High Achievers often feel most satisfied when they are able to do deep work and strategic thinking.
PERSONALITY TRAITS
“I’m told I need ‘realistic expectations,’ but they make perfect sense to me.”
- Feels responsible for outcomes, even those that they don’t fully own
- Honest, sometimes to a fault
- Strong-willed but rational
- Action-oriented and impatient on the inside
- Kind but not touchy-feely
- Hates incompetence
- High expectations of self
- Tendency to view weakness as failure
- Internally competitive
- Open-minded and curious
- Humble – “I’m not that special.”
- Often, a dry or subtle sense of humor
- Many are introverted/need time alone to regroup.
How It Feels
- People tell High Achievers not to be hard on themselves, but that can be confusing when one doesn’t know what type of standards are realistic.
- Feeling responsible for failures–“I should have known better” can make High Achievers feel extra shame or doubt themselves.
- Confusing. The combination of being both humble and a High Achiever creates a juxtaposition where one is constantly driving for excellence and simultaneously trying to understand what is “normal.”
- Exhilarating when a High Achiever crushes their competition…however…
- The emotional high of achievement is short-lived because High Achievers quickly focus on their next goal.
- “Balance” is ever-elusive, and this can feel like they are addressing life incorrectly or that something is wrong with them.
- Secretly wants praise but usually uncomfortable with it.
Interpersonal Traits
INTERPERSONAL STRENGTHS
“Everyone relies on me!”
- Able to see others’ potential
- Cares deeply about people
- Loyalty and dedicated in important relationships
- Thoughtful consideration of others’ perspectives
- Genuine interest in others’ growth and development
- Appreciation for authentic interactions
- Values substance over social pretense
- Prefers straightforward communication
- Eager to help and problem-solve
- Perceived as very competent
- Natural leader
INTERPERSONAL CHALLENGES
“Everyone relies on me…”
- Difficulty finding true peers
- May come across as intimidating
- Tendency to overestimate others’ understanding
- Challenge: finding advisors who can add value
- Balancing directness with others’ emotional needs
- Finds small talk exhausting
- Hates disappointing others
- Dislikes asking for help and may lose relationship capital from unequal exchanges
- Thinks they should be able to change people
- May rely on logic to resolve emotional arguments
Organizational Leadership Traits
ORGANIZATIONAL STRENGTHS
“I can see exactly what needs to happen!”
- Excellent at seeing gaps in vision
- Able to identify system inefficiencies
- Seeks progress; hates stagnation
- Values organizational success over ego
- Stressed by political maneuvering that drains energy or detracts from optimal outcomes
- Focuses on innovation and growth
- Fueled by strategic thinking; drained by operational tedium
ORGANIZATIONAL CHALLENGES
“I can see exactly what needs to happen…”
- Frustration when others can’t execute on vision
- Others don’t follow conceptual leaps, resulting in communication gaps.
- Impatience with implementation delays
- Difficulty delegating when others don’t meet standards
- Overestimating team members’ capabilities or understanding
- Balancing desire for excellence with pragmatic timelines
- Finding advisors and board members who add value
- Managing the tension between innovation and operational stability
- Experiencing isolation at the top of the organization
- Frustrated with employee incompetence
- Struggles with determining reasonable expectations
The Unique Challenges High Achievers Face
These challenges aren’t just more intense versions of what everyone faces—they’re qualitatively different because of the intersecting traits of high achievers.
The Optimization Paradox:
High achievers constantly strive to optimize their performance, but strategies that yield short-term excellence often undermine long-term sustainability. For example, the relentless tenacity and focus that achieve incredible results can slowly burn out recovery systems needed for continued success.
The Responsibility Trap:
High Achievers’ natural tendency to take ownership often means they carry responsibility for outcomes beyond their direct control, creating stress patterns and decision fatigue that accumulate over time.
The Authenticity Challenge:
Most High Achievers have learned to modulate their intensity and complexity to work effectively with others. This adaptation can create distance from their authentic selves and the very qualities that make them exceptional. The disconnect can feel like a double-sided failure, both in being true to oneself and also failing to fit in with others.
The Support Scarcity:
High Achievers are known for being reliable and are often sought after for support. At the same time, they often struggle to ask for help. Sometimes they want help but have difficulty finding advisors, friends, or partners who operate at the same level of intellectual and emotional complexity. This disconnect makes it hard for them fully disclose or trust the quality of help. Together, these factors create a situation in which more energy flows out as High Achievers support others, without an equal amount of energy flowing in.
BUT
These challenges are not insurmountable. In fact, with awareness, honing and support, High Achievers can sharpen the positive edges and acquire skills to mitigate the negative ones. The first step is to be aware that they exist, as this awareness allows for proactive approaches to address them.
Responsible - A Double Edged Sword
One of the best characteristics of High Achievers is their high integrity. They take responsibility for their actions and outcomes. This trait helps them develop strong relationships and a good reputation. At the same time, it can create emotional difficulty because High Achievers tend to take responsibility for things that are not their fault. The tendency to take all blame on themselves creates an emotional drain and can also inhibit problem-solving. A solution to help sort through the variables that contribute to less than desirable outcomes is to draw a pie and assign the responsibility across multiple variables. This visual representation provides a more accurate view of what they need to change versus relationships that may need to change or situational variables that were outside their control.
Reframe - The Shadow Side of a High Achieving Mindset
Many High Achievers are hard on themselves when they encounter an area of “weakness.” Carl Jung was a psychoanalyst who use the term “shadow side” to describe the parts of people’s personalities that they try to repress compared to those aspects of which a person is consciously aware. While Jung used the term to focus on subconscious areas of personality, I’ve borrowed and repurposed it to represent the flip side of our strengths.
1. The shadow side exists because of strength.
Most strengths have a cost attached, a shadow side if you will. For example, a generous High Achiever may struggle with setting boundaries about how much to give others. Alternately, a High Achiever who wants to see the best in people may have difficulty knowing when to fire an employee. High Achievers who are very responsible may take responsibility for things that are outside of their control. Finally, the High Achievers with high standards of execution may have difficulty recognizing what “good enough” looks like, for both themselves and for others.
2. High Achievers can reframe their perception of weaknesses by assessing their strengths.
High Achievers can learn to give themselves grace if they are able to identify the strengths that are associated with areas of struggle. This identification often reduces feelings of failure and shame because the shadow side is linked to strength. It’s a ‘side effect’ of strength rather than a separate area of deficit.
3. High Achievers can begin reframing perceived weaknesses by making a list.
High Achievers can gain insight by making a list of their “weaknesses.” After they’ve made the list, they can think about whether those “weaknesses” are a byproduct or linked to areas of strength. The linkage to strength allows High Achievers to focus on and celebrate the upside while continuing to grow in their skills at managing the shadow side.
Am I Normal?
“I often wonder if I’m getting it right. I think I’m right, but maybe I’m the crazy one.”
What High Achievers Fundamentally Seek
To feel understood
Specific tools and strategies
To not feel alone
To be respected
Results
Progress
To feel confident about decisions
Meaning and fulfillment
To be authentic
Confidence
Peace and reconciliation within oneself
THE MAN IN THE ARENA
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” – T. Roosevelt
Why Traditional Approaches Often Underserve High Achievers
We’re obviously biased toward our integrated approach – we developed it because we kept seeing the same gaps. Here’s what we’ve observed about why High Achievers often feel underserved by traditional methods.
,Most personal development, leadership coaching, and business consulting programs are designed for the general population. The personality and intellectual traits of High Achievers create unique patterns that generic approaches often fail to address. Sometimes the advice is wrong and harmful; sometimes it’s simply not helpful. Often High Achievers, juggling multiple demands, don’t have the bandwidth to start over with a resource, so they remain underserved or wait without support, until they’re ready to try again.
Observed Gaps:
Pop Psychology Platitudes and Generic Life Coaching:
Tells high achievers to “just relax” or “find balance” without understanding that High Achievers usually don’t relax in traditional ways and that traditional “balance” is a vague and elusive concept that doesn’t fit their style. Often provides surface-level reassurance or direction without data to substantiate the guidance. Often skips over the research or over-generalizes the findings.
Standard Leadership Coaching:
Focuses on basic communication, relational, and motivation skills without integrating root cause analysis and first principles. Many High Achievers don’t “buy it” when they are given thin rationale or the application strategies feel too incongruent with who they are. Often, there is simply missing information. For example, if a leader is dealing with a difficult employee who likely has a personality disorder, the communication protocol of being transparent and straightforward actually creates risk for the business.
Generic Business Consulting:
Addresses strategy and operations without considering how psychological patterns, energy management, and personal complexity directly impact business outcomes. As in each field of speciality, business has a series of best practices and assumed truths, that may or may not be appropriate for the intersecting variables at hand.
Traditional Counseling:
Usually focuses on remediating pain, which is obviously important. However, sometimes pain for High Achievers is a shadow-side of their strengths. For example, anxiety is common for High Achieving entrepreneurs. Similarly, “perfectionism” is a standard of thought. Hence, traditional counseling needs to account for the High Achiever personality, goal profile, and the action-orientation they prefer.
Dr. Tricia’s Rant:
Early in my training, I was taught the concept of “resistance.” In clinical psychology, a “resistant” client-patient is one who does not take the actions that will help them succeed. I remember thinking, “what if it is the provider’s fault? Maybe they suck. What if they didn’t ensure that they understood the client’s needs? Maybe they didn’t give appropriate rationale.” I hated the pejorative language and client-blaming instead of the fit assessment. What exactly does the person need? How do they think? What is important to them? What are they trying to achieve?
I’ve seen the same mistake across types of counseling, coaching and consulting for both personal and business goals. The protocols don’t accommodate the full variable set, so High Achievers and their organizations are provided with options that don’t completely fit or decrease the return on their investment.
Specific Tailoring within the Integrated Approach to Support High Achievers
The integrated approach is designed to both optimize outcomes and address the multi-faceted and multi-dimensional thought processes of High Achievers. All problem-solving integrates the intellectual, emotional, and achievement drive for high achievers instead of treating them as separate items. Further, while High Achievers have patterns, each person has a different arrangement of capabilities. For example, one High Achiever may excel at processes complex information quickly (speed edge) while another High Achiever may excel at processes complex information more deeply (depth edge).
Further, each person’s background impact the expression of their skillset. For example, many High Achievers are deeply emotional on the inside, but some have been trained to mask, protect, or subvert the emotion while others express it but struggle to channel it.
Here are a few ways the integrated approach specifically addresses the gaps we identified in traditional approaches:
Pattern Recognition
Pattern recognition is a cognitive strength that provides a strategic advantage. High Achievers are adept at seeing patterns or incorporating the knowledge if someone else points them out. Solving individual problems without assessing the potential pattern wastes time and emotion. All aspects of the integrated approach rests on pattern recognition to optimize long-term outcomes.
High Standards
The integrated approach supports high standards. It focuses on education, strategies and reframes to help High Achievers understand why their standards are different from that of the general population and how to cope with those differences. In terms of High Achievers internalized standards, the approach focuses on helping to sustain excellence while buffering against burn-out. (Many high achievers may not identify with the phrase “burn-out” but more with a lack of enthusiasm and energy. It’s a sense of being in a funk and each day feeling the same).
Normalizing High Achiever Experience
Since High Achievers often feel different, it can be difficult for them to assess what is “normal” and what is unique. Using both the statistical bell curve and references to other High Achiever clients, the approach constantly seeks to help High Achievers feel less alone and simultaneously understand where and why they are different than the general population. Mitigation of emotional drag and self-doubt frees up energy.
Intellectual Complexity and Decision-Making
The integrated approach does not seek to falsely simplify high stakes decisions. Rather, it focuses on capturing as many angles as possible of a situation, then integrating emotion, situational valence, and the primary, secondary and tertiary impact of actions. Capturing these areas helps High Achievers feel at ease that they are not “missing something” and that the conclusion fits the need of the situation. High Achievers will never be told that they are “overthinking” something.
Emotions
Emotions are data. High Achievers often struggle with how to integrate them with logic. Thus, the integrated approach focuses on increases High Achievers’ own sense of comfort and competence in accounting for emotion as part of strategy.
Prioritization and Delegation
High Achievers have multi-faceted capabilities, so the process of delegation and prioritization is different. For High Achievers who CAN do almost everything, discerning what to do, what to delegate and how to do this looks different and feels different than the standardized advice to have people do what you can’t do or what you don’t like to do. It becomes a critical conversation for High Achievers in executive positions who are already carry a High Achiever sense of responsibility for everyone around them.
Where High Achievement Meets Personal Excellence
Personal Excellence Integration addresses the full spectrum of high achiever optimization: performance systems that sustain rather than deplete, leadership identity that feels authentic rather than performed, and life architecture that supports rather than competes with achievements.
When high achievers work on confidence alongside energy management, when they develop boundaries while maintaining their natural responsibility, when they integrate their intellectual and emotional complexity with their achievement drive, sustainable excellence becomes possible.
The complexity that makes traditional approaches ineffective is exactly what makes integrated approaches powerful. High Achievers don’t have to choose between false dichotomies or fit themselves into boxes.
Explore Personal Excellence Integration →
Discover how performance optimization, leadership identity development, and life architecture integration create sustainable excellence for high achievers.
Learn More about the Integrated Genius Approach →
The Integrated Approach addresses both the Personal Excellence of High Achievers and the Organizational challenges they face as owners or leaders. This page provides additional information about the overall framework.
Profiles of High Achiever Clients
(Names Have Been Changed to Protect the Innocent)
ANGIE is a founder and owner of several companies. She is a visionary who builds and creates. As a human, she is warm, honest, and unwilling to settle for the status quo in any facet of life. She leads with both intellect and passion, always seeking to empower others’ success.
JOHN is the owner of a rapidly growing business that is in the teenage phase. He is funny, easy-going, and whip-smart. John is strong-minded and open-minded, so he’ll consider new paths if the argument is solid. He continuously strives for business and personal excellence.
KYLE is a founder and executive of a VC backed company that is rapidly expanding its territory. He quickly implements new strategies, and he embodies the commitment to whole-person excellence. Kyle sometimes spices up a serious conversation with sarcasm that leaves one laughing for hours.
BRENT is a specialist and leader in the health industry. He is brilliantly logical and prefers any explanation of human behavior to be translated into a flowchart with supporting rationale and applicable examples. Brent is funny, willing to tolerate extreme discomfort, and remains uncompromising in his dedication to excellence.
AL is a C-suite executive who synthesizes information at the speed of light and is an early adopter of all good ideas. He is an amazing human, who seeks peak performance in himself and his team. He works hard to balance high expectations with compassion and flexibility.
Lisa is a senior executive in a company that innovates at warp speed. She sees connections and patterns that others don’t see; so she constantly works to contain chaos without slowing the growth. Her dedication to excellence in unrelenting, which usually means that she’s hard on herself.
