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Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

1–10 of 131 posts

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#3

Interesting. It's counter-intuitive. I feel like those are the kind of people that need to have the least amount of talent to rise to the top. And even that doesn't help them? I'm glad it's like that, it's just a bit off for me a bit.

I think it might be an instance of you tend to really remember the exceptions so they stand out, and also in some cases if they root themselves in enough you tend to also end up with an org of that personality so it can be all you see.

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#5

Interesting. It's counter-intuitive. I feel like those are the kind of people that need to have the least amount of talent to rise to the top. And even that doesn't help them? I'm glad it's like that, it's just a bit off for me a bit.

I think it might be an instance of you tend to really remember the exceptions so they stand out, and also in some cases if they root themselves in enough you tend to also end up with an org of that personality so it can be all you see.

Totally agreed. That's why it's nice to have studies like these

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#6
> If disagreeableness does not help individuals attain power, why do so many people believe that nice guys (and gals) finish last? Given our studies focused on the attainment of power, does disagreeableness help people maintain power once they possess it?

This study seems like common sense. Extroverted people who are agreeable climb the fastest.

People confuse disagreeable with “asshole”. Most assholes can be agreeable, just how they play the game is disagreeable. Political assholes take credit for others work and never take risk. Controlling assholes micromanage and suggest everything was their idea. Most disagreeable people hardly get promoted. It seems rather obvious that being liked tends to serve you well regardless of your expertise. Of course the Peter principle and Dilbert principle can kick in because of this.

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#7

> If disagreeableness does not help individuals attain power, why do so many people believe that nice guys (and gals) finish last? Given our studies focused on the attainment of power, does disagreeableness help people maintain power once they possess it? This study seems like common sense. Extroverted people who are agreeable climb the fastest. People confuse disagreeable with “asshole”. Most assholes can be agreeab…

Let's take it a step further: agreeable people don't care about good engineering. They can't, by definition.

Standing up for an idea or principle makes one disagreeable. An engineer who is just "going with the flow" is not bringing any expertise to the table.

To be clear, there are limits to how much and when one should stand-up for an idea or principle (i.e. pick your battles). Someone who fights every battle is, once again, entering asshole territory. But if being agreeable means picking no battles, then what are you even doing?

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#8
post #7

> If disagreeableness does not help individuals attain power, why do so many people believe that nice guys (and gals) finish last? Given our studies focused on the attainment of power, does disagreeableness help people maintain power once they possess it? This study seems like common sense. Extroverted people who are agreeable climb the fastest. People confuse disagreeable with “asshole”. Most assholes can be agreeab…

Let's take it a step further: agreeable people don't care about good engineering. They can't, by definition. Standing up for an idea or principle makes one disagreeable. An engineer who is just "going with the flow" is not bringing any expertise to the table. To be clear, there are limits to how much and when one should stand-up for an idea or principle (i.e. pick your battles). Someone who fights every battle is, on…

>But if being agreeable means picking no battles, then what are you even doing?

Usually other people's bidding

Re: Disagreeable personalities do not have an advantage in power at work (2020)

#10
> They engaged in more dominant-aggressive behavior, which positively predicted attaining higher power, but also engaged in less communal and generous behavior, which predicted attaining less power.

So it's openly disagreeable personalities who have the disadvantage. I would think that successful manipulative (trait the study assigns to disagreeable) persons would engage in "communal and generous behavior" as tactic and generally hide their disagreeableness.

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