Humility and Honesty Best Predictors of Job Performance
What is the key to high job performance? The answer might shock you. Try honesty and humility.
A new study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences is the first to link honesty and humility to better job performance. Researchers from Baylor University found that honesty and humility are positively related to high ratings of job performance from the employee’s supervisor.
The researchers along with a business consultant surveyed 269 employees from 25 different companies across 20 different states. The study focused on employees in the health care industry who care for challenging clients. Additionally the supervisors of each employee assessed the employee’s job performance across 35 different job skills. The researchers were interested in assessing which personality variables were associated with job performance ratings.
The researchers discovered that employees who reported high on honesty and humility were significantly higher performers according to the ratings from their supervisor. Honesty and humility was defined in the study by high levels of fairness, greed-avoidance, sincerity and modesty.
“Researchers already know that integrity can predict job performance and what we are saying here is that humility and honesty are also major components in that,” said Dr. Wade Rowatt, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor, co-author of the study. “This study shows that those who possess the combination of honesty and humility have better job performance. In fact, we found that humility and honesty not only correspond with job performance, but it predicted job performance above and beyond any of the other five personality traits like agreeableness and conscientiousness.”
“This study has implications for hiring personnel in that we suggest more attention should be paid to honesty and humility in applicants and employees, particularly those in care-giving roles,” said Megan Johnson, a Baylor doctoral candidate who conducted the study. “Honest and humble people could be a good fit for occupations and organizations that require special attention and care for products or clients. Narcissists, on the other hand, who generally lack humility and are exploitative and selfish, would probably be better at jobs that require self-promotion.”
Reference:
A new trait on the market: Honesty–Humility as a unique predictor of job performance ratings