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Saboteur Catalog

7 min read

Saboteur Catalog

Dimension: Mindset · Type: Foundation

A reference for the ten saboteur patterns from the Positive Intelligence framework: one master saboteur (the Judge) plus nine accomplices, each with an inner-voice signature and a specific counter-move.

Introduced collectively by Mirka Packard (IMO), Lucia Carrera (WFP), and Katarina Posa (IOM) at the Managing Your Saboteurs session of the UN Inter-Agency Career Week 2026, on 6 May 2026. The ten saboteurs come directly from the Positive Intelligence framework by Shirzad Chamine, drawn from a research base of roughly one million participants. The free Positive Intelligence self-assessment identifies your top accomplices.

The catalog

This page is the lookup table for step one of Notice, Pause, Shift, Act. It is a reference, not a sequence: read the entry that matches what is talking, apply the counter-move, return.

When to use it

  • The first time you run the Notice, Pause, Shift, Act routine and need a vocabulary for naming what is talking.
  • When a recurring negative pattern is showing up at work and you cannot name it cleanly.
  • As a one-off self-diagnostic, ideally paired with the free Positive Intelligence assessment.

How to read this catalog

Everyone has the Judge. Most people have two or three dominant accomplice saboteurs. The aim is not to fit yourself into a single label; it is to recognise which one or two patterns activate most often when you are under pressure. Read each entry and rate it: one if it does not really sound like you, two if it sometimes does, three if it absolutely does.

The master, the Judge

Inner voices. “Why am I always like this.” “What is wrong with you.” “They will see right through me.” Constant fault-finding, in yourself and others.

Career impact. Drives over-criticism of your own applications, makes feedback feel devastating, calls in the other saboteurs depending on context. Underlies imposter feelings.

Counter-move. Label it in the moment (“that is my Judge talking”). Naming creates distance. Build a daily habit of writing down three things you did well. Reframe mistakes as data, not verdicts.

The nine accomplices

The Avoider

Inner voices. “I would rather not deal with this right now.” “It will sort itself out.” “If I address this, I will upset somebody.”

Career impact. Delays applications, sidesteps difficult career conversations, avoids feedback that would actually help. Closes doors slowly.

Counter-move. The five-minute rule, drawn from CBT: just start, for five minutes, on the avoided task. Do not wait until you feel ready. Naming the underlying fear (“am I avoiding because I fear embarrassment?”) is also useful.

The Controller

Inner voices. “If I do not take charge, things will go wrong.” “People need me to step in.” “It just gets done faster if I do it.”

Career impact. Over-managing collaborators, refusing delegation, micromanaging deliverables that other people own. Builds up resentment in teams; bottlenecks growth opportunities for others.

Counter-move. List what is realistically within your control versus what is not. Practise small acts of delegation on low-risk tasks and observe the outcome. Pair with the Circle of Control.

The Hyperachiever

Inner voices. “To feel good about myself I need to win.” “If I am not outstanding, I am failing.” “I cannot slow down. There is so much more to do.”

Career impact. Overworks, struggles to celebrate completions, treats every milestone as a launchpad to the next thing. High burnout risk. Often co-occurs with the Stickler.

Counter-move. Before starting the next task, ask: “Am I choosing this intentionally, or am I proving something?” Build completion rituals (what went well, what did I enjoy, what did I learn). Schedule recovery deliberately. Set goals that include how you achieved them, not just what you achieved.

The Hyper-Rational

Inner voices. “Emotions are just messy.” “Logic is superior.” “People are sloppy in their thinking.”

Career impact. Discounts emotional signals from yourself and others. Reads as cold or arrogant. Misses information that does not arrive in numerical form. Tends to over-analyse decisions to the point of paralysis.

Counter-move. When you have looked at a decision from every angle and started over, name it. Ask: “What would I decide right now if I could not spend more time on this?” Add an explicit emotional dimension: “Beyond the logically optimal answer, what do I value here?” Set a time budget for analysis in advance.

The Hypervigilant

Inner voices. “The world is full of risks.” “I have to stay alert.” “What could go wrong here?”

Career impact. Generates chronic anxiety, makes high-uncertainty career moves feel impossible, sees threats in routine situations. Exhausting to maintain.

Counter-move. Ground physically when anxiety rises (feet on the floor, slow breath cycle). Then challenge the fear with evidence: “What actually supports this? What is a more probable scenario?” Set a worry-time boundary (fifteen minutes max), then redirect. Build tolerance to uncertainty gradually.

The Pleaser

Inner voices. “If I do not rescue this, who will?” “I need to be helpful.” “They will not approve of me if I say no.”

Career impact. Over-commits, says yes to everything, prioritises others’ needs over career investment. Resentment builds quietly. Was the most-cited saboteur in the live poll of around 700 IACW participants.

Counter-move. Train yourself to buy time before saying yes. “Let me get back to you on that” is enough. Clarify your priorities explicitly: where do you genuinely want to contribute, where are you saying yes from habit or fear of disapproval?

The Restless

Inner voices. “There is always something better.” “This is not exciting enough.” “I should move on.”

Career impact. Constant context-switching, opening new tabs, losing focus before a task delivers value. Dislikes routine. Pairs with FOMO around career moves.

Counter-move. Catch the urge to switch tasks without acting on it. Make a small commitment to stay with the current task for ten more minutes. Use focused 25-minute blocks (Pomodoro) with five-minute breaks. Make sure the current task connects to a meaningful goal.

The Stickler

Inner voices. “There is a right way.” “If you cannot do it perfectly, do not do it at all.” “I hate mistakes.”

Career impact. Will not apply for roles where you do not tick every box. Polishes documents past returns. Procrastinates by perfectionism. Closes doors that did not need to close.

Counter-move. Adopt the 80 Bucket System: pre-decide which tasks deserve 110% and which are good-enough. Set version limits (“I will stop at version 1.0”). Try sharing something unfinished with a trusted reader. For applications, use the Seventy Percent Fit Threshold.

The Victim

Inner voices. “Life is harder for me than for others.” “Terrible things always happen to me.” “I am uniquely disadvantaged.”

Career impact. Reduces sense of agency, narrates a story in which the system is fully at fault, makes constructive moves feel pointless. The risk is that the narrative becomes self-fulfilling.

Counter-move. Reclaim agency through language: shift internal phrasing from “I have to” to “I choose to”. Use the Circle of Control to redirect energy from outer-circle concerns to inner-circle actions. The Victim deserves empathy; this is genuinely painful. The work is gentle and incremental.

Pitfalls in using the catalog

  • Trying to fit yourself into one saboteur. Most people are two or three. Look for the dominant patterns under pressure, not the exact match.
  • Treating saboteurs as personality traits. They are stress responses, not who you are. Personality is more stable; saboteurs are situational.
  • Trying to abolish them. They were once protective. The aim is awareness and choice, not silence.
  • Pathologising others. The catalog is for self-knowledge. Using it to label colleagues’ behaviour is rarely helpful and often dismissive.

A note on the source

The ten saboteurs and their inner-voice patterns come directly from the Positive Intelligence framework by Shirzad Chamine, drawn from a research base of roughly one million participants. The counter-moves combine PQ’s standard recommendations with the speaker-specific tactics shared in the session (the five-minute rule, the 20-80 system, the intent-checking question, the buy-time technique).

How I use it

Personal note pending. Davide to fill.

Notes compiled by Davide Piga. Last updated 2026-05-09.

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