“Nice guys finish last.”

This quote – which has been floating around since the 1940’s – has been attributed to legendary MLB manager Leo Durocher. Although this legendary quote was reportedly taken out of context, the phrase has become ingrained within US business culture where cutthroat tactics and ruthless competitiveness are frequently seen as the only way to the top.

A quick Google search shows that everyone seems to have a different answer to the question, “Do nice guys finish last?”. CareerBuilder and Newsweek say yes, whereas Forbes and Entrepreneur feel that’s rubbish.

Throughout human history there have existed both prosocial and less altruistic approaches to living. As this Forbes article illustrates, determining the strategy most advantageous to individual success is not straightforward.

Givers vs. Takers

Nice guys – AKA “givers” who selflessly give up their time and resources to help others are at risk of being taken advantage of by “takers”. However, when they manage to work collectively with others, the collaborative efforts of “givers” often produce superior outcomes to those achieved by the ruthless “takers” in isolation. Expanding evolutionary psychology to the business world, it appears that prosociality can work as both an asset and a liability, depending on social context or team dynamic.

Personality psychology has generally taken a more structured approach to answering this question. Accumulative research suggests that those who score low on the trait agreeableness (a proxy for what most would consider “niceness”) are more likely to experience job success for the following reasons:

– Negotiations: Disagreeable individuals reach more favorable individual settlements in hard-bargaining negotiations, as they are less likely to settle for unfavorable outcomes related to pay or career progression.

– Assertiveness: Although agreeable people engage in more altruistic behavior at work, they are less likely to voice their opinion if it constructively challenges existing practice. This need to avoid conflict may mean that their most innovative ideas are not voiced if they go against the grain.

– Stereotypes: Employers may actually favor people who are low in agreeableness. Alpha behavior is often valued above agreeableness and warmth, for the simple reason that aggressiveness and competitiveness are often seen as indicators of ability and competence.

– Career Progression: Disagreeable people are more likely to have been fired from a job. However, disagreeable people also tend to earn more on average. It appears that they use change as an opportunity to better their career, finding ways to use and market their past experiences to progress upwards.

Gender Differences

Research suggests that disagreeable men are likely to earn 18.31% (almost $10 000 a year) more than very agreeable men. (Tweet this!) This is partly a direct result of behavior associated with this trait – disagreeable men are more likely to:

Assert their ideas strongly / aggressively

Be considered competent and therefore more hirable or promotable

Successfully negotiate career opportunities and increases in salary

In addition to these advantages, disagreeableness is considered a more masculine behavior and therefore disagreeable men also benefit financially from the fact that their trait is consistent with gender norms.

On the other hand, less assertive / agreeable men are at a significant financial disadvantage and tend to be rated as less desirable potential leaders not only because they are likely to be overtaken by more aggressive co-workers, but also because their agreeableness is not consistent with the traditional gender stereotype that men are typically assertive / aggressive.

For women, it’s a no-win situation. While agreeableness is similarly associated with incompetence, the relative advantage of disagreeableness is offset by the fact that this trait goes against the gender stereotype that women are unassertive. Although disagreeable women tend to earn approximately 5.5 % more than agreeable women, this advantage is slight and reaps only 1/3 of the increase in earnings seen in men. (Tweet this!)

On average, disagreeable women will not earn as much as agreeable or disagreeable men. That being said, this trait does tend to make the average gender pay gap slightly smaller. So it appears that nice guys do finish last, but nice gals are no worse off than their disagreeable female co-workers.

How do “nice guys” hold up in a team setting?

Beyond asserting that agreeableness is an individual disadvantage to job progression, some experts have gone further to assert that niceness is actually damaging to team success. Specifically, they believe that highly agreeable people’s compliance and aversion to conflict can actually be damaging to team coherence. Why?

Conflict is necessary for teams to work effectively and solve problems collectively. Nice guys may refrain from voicing controversial or conflicting opinions as they are focused on not hurting other people’s feelings, which not only hurts the nice guy (whose valid opinions are not shared or rewarded) but is also dangerous to the team itself. In a team of “nice guys”, poor decisions are not flagged, as nobody wants to challenge each other. In this instance, employing strategies for conflict-averse nice guys is likely to benefit the entire team.

Disagreeableness does not equal rudeness

Although it appears that disagreeableness does seem to predict career success (at least in men), this does not mean that rudeness is beneficial to career success.

On average, people low in agreeableness are generally amicable – they are just more likely to aggressively advocate their position during conflicts, for example. This makes sense intuitively: it is unlikely that excessive rudeness is going to help you excel in your career. In other words, disagreeable people may be “nice”, but are more likely to make relationship sacrifices to better their career or behave in ways that advance their interests.

Disagreeableness doesn’t account for drive

Unfortunately, much of the research in this area is slightly limited due to the fact that most personality models do not consider drive or authority as separate factors. These traits are important in predicting real-life behavior in the workplace, which is why the Good.Co personality assessment model does assess these traits separately.

The difference is that drive and authority are assessed independently of agreeableness. These traits are said to be statistically independent – scoring highly on one trait does not allow you predict scores on the other. In other words, some people will be highly agreeable or friendly and highly competitive (e.g. Rock, Advocate, Go-Getter, Visionary) while others will be disagreeable yet non-competitive.

The implication here is that some nice guys are likely to be ambitious, goal driven and competitive – traits that make them likely to succeed in the business world – perhaps even more so than their more aggressive co-workers thanks to the fact that they can leverage their people skills to help them succeed.

Previous personality research has neglected to notice that agreeableness and competitiveness/ drive are not mutually exclusive. There are different types of “nice guys” – while some will be held back by their lack of assertiveness, others will use their people skills to propel themselves upwards.

So, do nice guys finish last at work?

It appears that being ‘too nice’ or letting other people jump ahead can stunt career progression in a competitive business environment. However, personality is more nuanced than just considering “nice” versus “not nice”. There is more than one type of “nice guy”, and driven individuals who have a good rapport with co-workers are perhaps likely to do best of all.

Want to find out what’s holding you back from progressing at work?

Click here to take Good.Co’s free personality assessment to gain deeper insight into your personality type.