Taubman also noted that the former Soviet leader has a "sense of self-importance and self-righteousness" as well as a "need for attention and admiration" which grated on some of his colleagues. He was sensitive to personal criticism and easily took offense. Colleagues were often frustrated that he would leave tasks unfinished, and sometimes also felt underappreciated and discarded by him. Biographers Doder and Branson thought that Gorbachev was "a puritan" with "a proclivity for order in his personal life". Taubman noted that he was "capable of blowing up for calculated effect". He also thought that by 1990, when his domestic popularity was waning, Gorbachev become "psychologically dependent on being lionized abroad", a trait for which he was criticized in the Soviet Union. McCauley was of the view that "one of his weaknesses was an inability to foresee the consequences of his actions".