When Being Easy to Work With Starts Limiting Your Influence
While being agreeable is generally positive, it can subtly diminish an employee's influence over time. Research indicates that those who avoid conflict may achieve less favorable outcomes and have less say in decisions. Maintaining a balance betwe...
Being “easy to work with” is considered an unquestionable positive characteristic because it reflects positive traits, such as cooperation and flexibility. It is considered an advantage in a team environment because it helps avoid conflicts and maintain efficiency. There are, however, certain instances where this characteristic starts to affect the employee’s image, though not always obviously. Agreeable people are often found to be more popular, though they are considered less dominant, according to research published by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Judge, Livingston, & Hurst, 2012.
The process is extremely gradual. The employee may be liked and trusted because they accommodate other people’s needs, but is not necessarily approached for guidance. This is because they are accommodating but not necessarily because they have a point of view, which changes them over time from influencing an outcome to supporting it. There is also a negotiation dimension to this. People who avoid conflict tend to achieve worse outcomes than those who do not, as found in studies conducted by Harvard University’s Program on Negotiation. The aim is to get along with people and to avoid conflict, but it also means they have less say in decisions that affect them. It is often those with more dominant views that set the agenda in a discussion in a collaborative environment. Those who seek agreement may not necessarily be contributing to these moments in a discussion.
Image Credit: Gemini
The experience of change is not always dramatic, since there is no single instance where the level of influence is diminished. Instead, it is an ongoing process where agreement becomes expected. What once made someone an asset now starts to hold them back in their ability to relate to others’ perspectives. Trying to understand this does not necessarily mean stopping the process of working together; it means recognizing the need for balance. It is good to be agreeable for group dynamics, but having influence sometimes means having conflict. Contribution is not absent without it; it is simply not visible.
