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The business world has long been dominated by men and, as a result, by male characteristics. The consequences of this are long stretching, sometimes alienating feminine-presenting people from professional spaces, and creating barriers to progression.
However, a recent paper entitled Kill Chaos with Kindness from UCL suggests a shift from these characteristics, as it was found that kindness and agreeability have become more important in helping workers excel and progress in the workplace, dismantling the assumption that workers must be cutthroat, ruthless or non-emotional to succeed.
The study, which observed 3700 workers collaborating on group tasks over a 10-year period, looked at the adoption of five main personality traits, including neuroticism, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness. The research concluded that there has been a shift, presumably because of the pandemic, away from competitiveness within workers to kinder, more empathetic qualities.
For example, the authors of the research had previously described ‘agreeableness’ as having a “non-significant and highly variable” relationship with performance, with agreeable workers being described as “not helpful or potentially distracting”. Whereas “in this new world,” being kind and easy to get along with is deemed essential for professional success and progression.
