Why is Agreeableness Important?

Personal attributes are often labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ and the Big Five personality traits are no exception.

Agreeableness is one trait that is generally seen in a positive light. However, that begs a question: In being considered  ‘good,’ does that make agreeableness important?

Agreeableness displays particular importance in various scenarios, but not everyone is in agreement over just how beneficial this personality trait is.

Research shows that while agreeableness may be important in jobs requiring interpersonal interactions, agreeable people don’t always make for the best leaders.

Why Is Agreeableness Important? A Closer Look

Agreeableness is regarded as highly important within the working world. It can have various benefits for a team, making it a sought-after quality among employers.

But that’s not to say that this quality doesn’t have drawbacks.

Research into agreeableness has demonstrated that agreeable individuals face difficulties when they step into the professional world like anyone else.

Agreeableness In the Workplace

Agreeable people’s cooperative and interpersonal qualities would suggest promise within the workplace environment. But is this idea backed up by science?

According to the research, high agreeableness does seem to have several benefits within the professional world:

Benefits

• Team Players: Research on job performance and personality suggests that agreeable individuals may perform better in jobs where interpersonal interactions are necessary due to the trait’s positive relationship with interpersonal facilitation.

• Prosocial Workplace Behavior: Agreeable workers are also less likely to engage in workplace bullying and counterproductive work behaviors, including harming individuals within the workplace as well as the organization as a whole.

• Moderate Antisocial Workplace Behavior: High agreeableness has also been shown to moderate the relationship between neuroticism and counterproductive work behaviors, suggesting that agreeable individuals make neurotic people less likely to engage in harmful workplace acts.

• Less Reactive to Antisocial Behavior: Agreeable individuals are less susceptible to negative responses from others within the workplace. This may be due to their encouraging, supportive nature and ability to manage conflict.

• Social Care Career Choices: Agreeable individuals have also been shown to be generally more attracted to social care roles such as counselling, teaching, child development, and social services.

Disadvantages

• Lower Occupational Status: Evidence suggests that agreeable individuals may have a lower occupational status than people scoring high on other personality traits.
  
• Lower Earnings: Men scoring high on agreeableness may also earn significantly less, although this finding wasn’t replicated in women.

• Poor Wage Bargaining Skills: Gensowski, in her 2018 study on personality, IQ, and lifetime earnings, proposed that agreeable people may earn less due to their naturally less aggressive wage bargaining tactics.
  
  However, it is worth noting that social work has a lower average annual salary than many other professions. So, this finding may be due to professional choice rather than workplace progression.

The evidence is clear: from a workplace-perspective, agreeableness as a personality trait seems to have well-documented advantages and disadvantages.

But what about in managerial and leadership roles?

Agreeableness in Leadership

While much of the research into agreeableness in the workplace favors the trait, the same can’t be said when focusing on leadership specifically.

In fact, the research on the relationship between agreeableness and leadership is largely ambiguous.

Some research suggests that agreeableness is a beneficial trait in leaders, as these individuals prioritize the affiliation and inclusion of all and promote support and cooperation, creating a fair and enjoyable work environment.

In contrast, research has also shown that agreeable leaders actively avoid conflict, showing high sensitivity to others’ wants and emotions, potentially leading to indecision.

Are Agreeable People More Successful?

While agreeableness can predict team performance, it may have the weakest relationship with individual-level job performance of all of the Big Five personality traits.

Agreeable individuals may sacrifice their own success to please others, which demonstrates a negative relationship between agreeability and extrinsic success.

Further research has also shown that while agreeableness was a strong predictor of interpersonal facilitation, it wasn’t correlated with proficiency in professional tasks (task performance).

And these aren’t the only studies to argue that agreeability doesn’t necessarily lead to success. In a 1991 meta-analysis, Barrick and Mount found that agreeableness wasn’t a significant predictor of job performance, but conscientiousness and emotional stability were.

This being said, it isn’t all bad.

Disagreeable people are more likely to lose their jobs than their agreeable counterparts. Markman, in his 2013 book, “The Habits of Effective Leadership,” proposed that this may be because they’re less liked among their colleagues or because they are more prone to getting into trouble.

Conclusion

Although often considered inherently ‘good,’ agreeableness doesn’t prove important in all aspects of professional life.

Agreeable people are particularly drawn to and are highly impactful in the social care setting. However, an agreeable individual’s interpersonal motivations may leave them indecisive when it comes to leadership.

And while agreeability benefits the team as a whole, possessing this trait doesn’t necessarily mean personal or financial success.