Vidya By Pia & Bart

We explore agreeableness, the third of the Big Five personality traits we've discussed, following our previous episodes on openness and extraversion/introversion. Agreeableness represents the tendency to prioritise others' needs over one's own—highly agreeable people are sympathetic, cooperative, and accommodating, whilst those lower in agreeableness are more competitive, self-interested, and direct. We share personal examples of how high agreeableness manifests: difficulty knowing what you want for dinner, crying when others cry, and the challenge of maintaining boundaries with less agreeable individuals. We discuss how highly agreeable people can be taken advantage of and the importance of developing what we call "toughness muscles" to push back when necessary. We examine agreeableness in leadership contexts, particularly the challenge of holding people accountable and managing healthy conflict when you naturally want to be liked and avoid discomfort. Through client examples, we explore how highly agreeable