Do traits such as arrogance, selfishness and aggressive dominance help to achieve more professional success? Researchers have now investigated this in a long-term study. She reveals: Contrary to popular belief, unsympathetic people and egoists have no career advantage. They come to management positions just as often as people with more pleasant traits. The reason: Dominance and aggressive assertiveness are definitely an advantage when climbing the career ladder. But the often anti-social behavior and the reduced ability to make allies counteract the rise. On the other hand, people with extroverts are much more successful, as the scientists found out.
With people in positions of power – be they managers, CEOs or even top politicians – there seems to be no shortage of manipulative and rather unsympathetic contemporaries. “Even after a moment’s thought, most of us can think of a person who is tyrannical, selfish and arrogant – be it in business, in politics, in academia or in the arts,” say
Cameron Anderson from the University of California at Berkeley. In fact, some studies have found that people in management positions seem more likely to have a tendency towards unscrupulous, anti-social behavior – up to and including mildly psychopathic tendencies. “That begs the question: are such people more likely to gain power? Or, to put it more precisely: Do people who are unsympathetic at the beginning of their careers have a greater chance of advancement than more tolerable people? ” So far there have been only a few studies that not only recorded the status quo, but also accompanied the rise of people with these personality traits in a comparative way.
Are egoists more successful?
Anderson and his team have now made up for that. In their long-term study, they first recorded the personality types of around 670 graduates from several US universities using standardized tests and surveys. In addition to openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and extroversion, the five aspects of personality assessed in this context also included compatibility – the aspect that describes how we deal with others. People with poor tolerance tend to be contentious, self-centered, not very empathetic or altruistic and are more inclined to competition than to cooperation. “Such individuals tend to be hostile and exploitative of others and to deceive and manipulate people for their own benefit,” said Anderson. To see whether these traits would bring a career advantage, he and his team visited their test subjects again 10 to 14 years later and checked their professional success. The researchers recorded the position, corporate culture and hierarchical organization of their professional environment. With 214 participants, they also interviewed several work colleagues who were asked to evaluate the behavior, career position and power of the test subject from their point of view.
The evaluations showed: Contrary to expectations, self-serving, aggressive and manipulative behavior does not automatically lead to professional success. The test subjects who were classified as poorly tolerable at the time of their graduation had not made it to top positions more often than their more tolerable fellow students in the course of their careers. “I was surprised at the consistency of the results: Regardless of the individual or context, the low tolerance scores did not give individuals an advantage in the struggle for power – even in highly competitive ‘shark tank’ corporate cultures,” said Anderson. “That doesn’t mean that unsympaths don’t get to the top. But they don’t do it more often or faster than others. Obviously, being unsympathetic doesn’t help them. ” These relationships applied to women as well as men.
Lack of social skills as a stumbling block
Significantly more promising than the competitive, egoistic behavior, on the other hand, seems to be the trait of extroversion. The test subjects who achieved particularly high values in extraversion at graduation had later on average made a more successful career. Why this is so and what is behind it, revealed more in-depth analyzes. Accordingly, reaching a higher position in the professional hierarchy mainly depends on four behaviors: a certain aggressive dominance, the ability to act “politically”, for example by gaining influential allies, professional competence and effectiveness as well as social affinity towards colleagues. “People who are good at all of these behaviors have the greatest success,” said Anderson and his colleagues. According to the study, this was exactly the case for people with a high degree of extroversion: They were usually able to score in all areas.
On the other hand, people with rather low tolerance values - the unsympathetic ones – are different: “Although they show some behaviors that strengthen their power, such as dominant-aggressive behavior, they tend to harm themselves in other areas,” according to the researchers. Because the strategy of these personalities of “walking over dead bodies” prevents them from forging alliances and securing the support and backing of colleagues. “These two aspects cancel each other out, so there is no advantage left in the end,” explain Anderson and his team. “The bad news, however, is that people with toxic behaviors can still be promoted to the top just as often as people with more pleasant traits. And such people in positions of power can seriously damage their companies and organizations in the long term. “
Source: Cameron Anderson (University of California, Berkeley) et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doi: 10.1073 / pnas.2005088117
https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2005088117