If Nice Guys Finish Last, What about Nice Gals?

The news last week featured the results of an interesting research study from University of Ontario’s Ivey School of Business, Cornell University and University of Notre Dame. Basically, the study demonstrated that men who were “highly disagreeable” at work earned 18 per cent more (an average of $9,700 more a year) than men who scored “agreeable”. The headline in the press was that nice guys finish last, but is there more to it than that?

For the purpose of this study, “agreeableness” was defined as people who value relationships, altruism, and the good of the group over their own self-interest. This is typically seen as more feminine behavior, right? Those who were considered “disagreeable” were viewed as self-serving and aggressive.

Charlice Hurst, one of the co-authors says of the study says that we shouldn’t take all this literally, but it is important to note that the ability to stand up for yourself and advocate for your self-interests does get you noticed for promotion.

….. speaking up for yourself more often may make you more highly valued by your employer. It comes down to standing up for your interests and being more assertive in your negotiations based on what you know your value to be rather than making people happy your top priority.

She offers more food for thought. It could be that the high earning men are actually nice guys on a daily basis but are more aggressive and proficient at negotiating for a better salary. Interesting point! We can still be nice (if that comes naturally) and advance our careers by being more assertive when we need to be.

We all know that women who are aggressive and self-serving are already viewed negatively by most organizations. Being nice had less of an effect on women’s compensation with an average of 5 per cent gap in salary. The study concluded that women are already discriminated against in terms of salary and in fact, are expected to be nice, to be nurturing of others, and therefore, are not penalized further for this.

The important lesson for women, I think, is that we can still embrace our innate feminine style. We don’t need to mimic “disagreeable” behavior to get ahead. (This doesn’t really work for men either.) But what we do need to do is learn to speak up for ourselves if we want to advance our career. We can still be an advocate for our team, but we also need to know  when to advocate for ourselves. There is an appropriate time for both, and knowing when to stick up for yourself is vitally important to get noticed and get promoted.