10 of 10 Hero archetype
The Guardian
Alert and early-warning men, who feel the threat before it lands.
- Trait
- Nerve: Alert
- Read as
- Withdrawal or Volatility
- Day job
- Risk, compliance and audit, Quality assurance and testing, Safety and security
- Nemesis
- The Titan
- Allies
- Darwin, Kierkegaard, Pascal, Kafka
This is your archetype. Your answers are kept for ninety days.
TheGuardian
- Execution35
- Leadership31
- Teamwork50
- Adaptability18
- Negotiation50
- Vigilance74
Alert and early-warning men, who feel the threat before it lands.
Who is the Guardian?
The Guardian is dealt to a man whose nerve sits high against other men: how early a threat registers and how hard your mood is to hold.
Charles Darwin worried about everything, checked everything, and saw what nobody had.
1809–1882You see the threat before other men do. Doubt turns up early and your mood moves fast, which takes some sleep and gives you warning. Nothing gets past you, including the things that should.
What you bring, and what it costs.
Powers
- Early warningYou feel the threat early, so you prepare for it while other men are still asleep.
- You take it seriouslyWhat worries you gets checked, and things that get checked go wrong less.
- Nothing gets past youYou are the first to notice the change in the room, the tone, the number.
- Honesty about the costYou know what a bad week does to you, so you are the man who builds the guardrails.
Weaknesses
- The false alarmMost of the threats you felt did not land, and each one cost you sleep anyway.
- The mood runs the dayWhen it moves fast it takes the plan with it.
- Wearing it aloneYou carry more of this than you tell anyone.
Five traits deal the archetype.
Scored against other men. Nerve is the one that deals this card.
Base traits
The archetype's shape. Yours replaces it after the twenty.
NerveNRV
SteadyAlert
90Neuroticism
A threat registers with you early and your mood moves with it. It takes some sleep and gives you warning: you see the problem before the men who sleep through it.
EdgeEDG
BluntWarm
36Agreeableness
How much other people pull at you and how much you give way.
MethodMTD
ImprovSystem
37Conscientiousness
Whether you run a plan or run on the day.
PresencePRS
Low-keyOutgoing
34Extraversion
How much you go toward people and take the room.
RangeRNG
PracticalIdeas
41Openness
How much you go toward ideas and the new thing.
Your ten traits
Where the Guardian wins at work.
Neuroticism is the trait most tied to low job satisfaction and sits against leadership. It is also the trait that moves most with intervention.
The papers: J Appl Psychol, 2002, PubMed 12090610J Appl Psychol, 2002, PubMed 12184579Psychol Bull, 2017, PubMed 28054797
Roles
- Risk, compliance and auditSeeing what goes wrong before it does is the job.
- Quality assurance and testingNothing gets past you, and nothing should.
- Safety and securityThe alarm that rings early is the product.
- Editing and fact-checkingDoubt everything, check everything.
- Threat analysis and intelligenceThe threat registers with you first.
- Insurance and underwritingSizing up what could go wrong.
Skills
- Early warning
- Checking what worries you
- Noticing the change in the room
- Building the guardrail before it is needed
Your allies.
Worried about everything, checked everything, and saw what nobody had.
Called anxiety the dizziness of freedom, and wrote it down before anyone.
Felt the silence of the infinite spaces and built the wager on it.
Saw the machine coming a century early.
Your nemesis: the Titan.
TheGuardian
- Execution35
- Leadership31
- Teamwork50
- Adaptability18
- Negotiation50
- Vigilance74
Alert and early-warning men, who feel the threat before it lands.
VS
TheTitan
- Execution65
- Leadership69
- Teamwork50
- Adaptability82
- Negotiation50
- Vigilance26
Steady and unshakeable men, whose mood holds when the day does not.
You see it coming and he does not feel a thing. He sleeps, he holds, he underreacts, and half the time the thing you saw never arrived.
Know all ten.
The card reads five traits from twenty questions. Understand Yourself asks one hundred, scores all ten traits against other men, and confirms or corrects the card. It comes with New Heroes.
Join New Heroes →Browse the free records →Take the twenty questions again →
Twenty items from a public-domain instrument, scored against 892 men. The card says something about you. It does not say what to take.