Want to get ahead at work? Stop being selfish

THE old saying ‘nice guys always finish last’ is not true – and being ruthless does not get always you ahead, a study has found.

It seems selfishly ambitious people’s lack of social skills actually puts them at a disadvantage, scientists reckon.

The study reached its conclusiuons after asking 450 university students to complete personality assessments.

The same people were then surveyed again 14 years later to find out their power and rank in their workplace, as well as their organisation’s corporate culture.

‘Disagreeableness does not give people an advantage in the competition for power – even in more cut-throat, dog-eat-dog organisational cultures,’ concluded the study’s co-author, Professor Cameron Anderson of the University of California, Berkeley.

While the research established that being nasty did not give you advantage it did find that extroverts are more likely to get ahead, as people who are outgoing and assertive tend to climb the ladder.

The study’s findings were published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.