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Are you costing your team a shot at greatness?
The other day, one of my employees casually said to me, “You should say no sometimes.” It was a playful interaction that wasn’t work-related, but it did make me think. Am I being too agreeable? Is it possible for a leader to be too agreeable?
I decided to dig into the data and share the findings, in case you’ve ever wondered the same thing. While most people would logically think that being agreeable is a positive trait in a leader (spoiler: it generally is), there can be situations where it leads to less-than-ideal team outcomes. It’s also important to understand the value most organizations place on being agreeable when it comes to promotions. Most organizations value agreeableness and promote agreeable employees.
A study by Wilmot and Ones (2022) found that “Agreeableness is characterized by positive contributions in face-to-face relationships with others (positive relations). These relationships, in turn, act as a source of mutual satisfaction and support (social support, low loneliness).” Basically, what we all think to be true is true. Being agreeable can help you form better relationships, which can lead to better overall team camaraderie, chemistry, and surface-level performance. This tends to be the reason agreeable employees are promoted to leaders. It’s also why a team led by an agreeable leader will often score higher on engagement surveys and overall workplace satisfaction metrics, but does this always translate to team performance?
Well, this is where it gets a little bit tricky to accurately measure. But it does appear that being too agreeable can have some negative consequences for leaders. The same study above by Wilmot and Ones (2022) also found negative aspects of agreeableness: “Agreeableness is also characterized by a lower drive to set and achieve goals (low achievement values and low goal-setting motivation), and, by extension, reduced individual output (productivity). Relatedly, it is associated with greater leniency in rating others. Agreeableness is characterized by more sanguine ratings of supervisory leadership (leadership perceptions) and more generous ratings of subordinate performance (leniency).”
Agreeable leaders tend to be less willing to set and demand lofty goals from their team; they also tend to shy away from setting those goals for themselves. This same mindset can carry over to feedback. Rather than challenging or demanding better outputs, agreeable leaders will see the positive aspects of things and deliver feedback that way. A study by Harvey and Green (2022) found that “feedback delivered by an agreeable individual will be higher in positive emotional tone, and that positive emotional tone is, itself, informational content from which recipient teams draw inferences about the need to adapt. As a result, we suggest that team leaders' agreeableness influences the effectiveness of the constructive feedback they provide.” Agreeable teams tend to perform good, but not great.
I’ve seen this play out in multiple organizations over the years. I describe it as the difference between coasting and striving for greatness. An agreeable leader will lead a coasting team. They produce good work, people are happy, but you’re not looking at that team as the one that will push your organization forward. They won’t break sales records, but they will steadily achieve their assigned targets. This is why agreeableness is seen as an overall positive leadership trait instead of one that carries caution. An agreeable leader won’t create a toxic team environment, they won’t drag overall performance down, and they will generally perform well. But taking a team to the next level of performance requires someone who will deliver challenging feedback, assign difficult work tasks, and push the team out of their comfort zone toward better performance.
Being an effective leader requires striking the right balance of agreeableness and willingness to challenge and push your employees. You can be satisfied with good work while asking for better work in the future. The challenge for all leaders is knowing when to push and when to give. The research shows that there is a detriment to being too agreeable, but there is also a lot to gain from being agreeable. As leaders, that means we need to be mindful of our actions and analyze whether or not we’re being too agreeable.
Are you pushing your team or allowing them to coast?
Until next time,
Rick
Sources:
Harvey, J.-F., & Green, P. (2022). Constructive feedback: When leader agreeableness stifles team reflexivity. Personality and Individual Differences, 194, 111624. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2022.111624
Wilmot, M. P., & Ones, D. S. (2022). Agreeableness and its consequences: A quantitative review of meta-analytic findings. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 26(3), 242–280. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683211073007
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