Why Humble Guys Win at Work*

by Mike Darling

A new study reveals that personality traits like humility and honesty are the most valued among employers—and may lead to more raises and promotions.

(When he learned of said study, one high-level editor suggested I blog—honestly—about the state of my supervisor’s hair follicles. I declined, humbly, and will be watching my paycheck next week.)
In the study, researchers at Baylor University surveyed 269 employees and found that people who self-identified as humble and honest often received the most favorable remarks from their higher-ups. Specifically, those employees were known to display qualities like generosity, fairness, sincerity, modesty, and—we can safely assume—no blood relation to Dick Cheney.
“Our best guess is that some combination of personal integrity and being down-to-earth increases likeability,” says Wade Rowatt, Ph.D., of Baylor University, who supervised the study. “Arrogance and dishonesty, in contrast, is often socially repulsive and that could lead to negative job performance ratings.” On the other hand, it can be just the thing to score you millions of Twitter followers in just 24 hours. (Duh, winning.)
The Baylor team primarily studied people who worked in the health care field—and admitted that some fields (like social media) might actually be a good fit for more narcissistic types. “We believed that honesty and humility would be really important in jobs where people needed to play a care-giving role,” says Megan Johnson, the study’s lead author. “As such, health care workers, especially those working with difficult clientele, seemed to be great for examining this trait.”
With the notable exception of Dr. Gregory House, it’s easy to see why the most popular doctors also happen to be those who don’t convey the impression they might secretly want to play soccer with your spleen. But conclusions like these don’t just apply to hospital wards. They apply to everything. We crave authenticity from every person who wields a certain element of power and influence over our lives, whether it’s our doctor, our professor, or boss, or our senator, as we reported prior to the 2008 election.
We look for authenticity in a potential lover, and in our closest friends, too. It’s why we actually happy, in a twisted way, when John Krasinski blew us off a while back. His publicist could have made up an excuse—but she didn’t. Instead Krasinski called, apologizing up and down for leaving the writer hanging out to dry. His reason: The dude couldn’t miss his fantasy football draft. That’s honest—and ultimately, it just made us like an already likable guy even more.
For the same reasons, we listed humility among the traits every man should have—along with patience, respect, and open-mindedness. Know which ones aren’t on that list? Agreeableness and extroversion—two of the other links the Baylor researchers explored, but didn’t show a strong connection to good reviews.
Our bosses, consciously or not, are not just rewarding qualities like honesty and humility—they’re rewarding good character.
On that note, an open letter to my editor: Sorry this was late, boss. Your edits were graceful, perfectly timed, and well-executed—you know, unlike your jump shot. Plus, your fly is down.