1. Do you think employers must choose between agreeable employees and top performers?

Why
or why not? (20 points)
No, it is a weak criteria to limit employer’s options between agreeable employees and top
performers. I believe that there are a lot of criteria need to be considered and it depends on what
the qualities are being demanded or the nature of the job. Not all top performers tend to be
disagreeable employees and not all agreeable employees tend to perform less.
Being agreeable is a personal trait of an employee, this means it’s a trait embeded to a
person and it is out of control of an employer. Being agreeable does not mean always agreeing
with another opinion but it’s about being in harmony working with others. Agreeable trait is
common to new employee as they are considered as beginners in a certain field. They tend to
listen, be kind, be collaborative and to always follow instructions which results to meeting the
expectations and allowing their skills to grow.
Being a top performer is a trait affected by external factors, this means that performance
of an employee is driven by the motivation, engagement and support provided from the leader.
Top performers are considered as experts, all experts started as beginners and all beginners has
been once agreeable to their masters.
Overall, an employer doesn’t necessarily need to choose from the two as these are stages
of an employee development. A leader/employer plays an important part on developing agreeable
employees into becoming performers and with combination of leader’s/management motivation
they can produce top performers.

2. Research seems to suggest that agreeable individuals make fairly poor managers and decision
makers. (30 points)

a.) Why might this be the case?

Based on the researches stated, it tries to imply that being agreeable translates into being
easily persuaded, non-negotiating, non- emerging and non- contributing. In other words, the
studies suggest that an employee who has a soft personality has small capability on being a good
leader. Possibly, this kind of thinking has been influenced on what we usually see and what has
been the talk of the town; that strong people are good leaders.
b.) What are the implications for organizations?
Ineffective manager with poor decision making can result into unorganized management.
However, being agreeable does not make the biggest impact on organizations which is just a
small percentage of a person’s trait. Focusing on how agreeable and disagreeable a leader is
only implying micromanaging.
On the other hand, we must deeply determine the root cause of being a poor manager. A
poor manager could possibly be weak in employer – employee relationship. Moreover, poor
decision making could greatly affect or weaken a company and its performance. In short,
managers can make or break an organization and it takes a lot of aspects to be considered to
impact organization not just on how agreeable a leader is.
c.) How does this affect their earning potential?
A personality is linked to potential earning, just like how college degrees are linked to their
target occupation. When a personality fits perfectly on a certain job then they tend to excel on
their career. Based on 2012 researches stated, agreeable people tend to bargain less on
compensation, tend to be in a low paying job and be settled on the position they’re currently in.
If so, then time and demands indeed affect agreeable employees’ earning potential. In
recent years, agreeable employees, which mostly are beginners, do not bargain on their pay but
their experience, skills and education attainment help them to attain quick compensation increase.
Also, due to labor force demand in education and health industries in other countries, occupation
related to this job starts to give a promising pay. Lastly, agreeable employees tend to develop as
top performers with proper training and support. Eventually agreeable employees are turned to
future leaders. Furthermore, what affects to agreeable employees earning potential can change
overtime.