Are you more agreeable or disagreeable?
Dear EQuipped Leaders,
Are you more agreeable or disagreeable?
When we partner to EQuip schools, one of the first things we do is have leaders and teachers in the district take the EASEL. This helps the adults on campus grow in self-awareness, so they are better EQuipped to navigate the complex emotional landscape of schools.
The first component of the EASEL is OCEAN which places you on a continuum on the Big Five traits of personality, the most statistically validated personality framework.
The A in OCEAN is for Agreeableness.
If you want to learn more about the other components of the five traits of personality, you can also read about extroversion and conscientiousness.
But today I want to talk about agreeableness because I have so many thoughts and feelings about agreeableness, especially in the context of school. :)
If you scored closer to 5, you’re more agreeable, favoring cooperation.
If you scored closer to 1, you’re more disagreeable, favoring competition.
Here are the potential strengths of both high and low scores. This is why the world loves you:
Here are the potential liabilities of both high and low scores. This is why you drive the world crazy:
When I think about the ramifications of how this aspect of personality can play out for educators, I believe there is tremendous potential here for empowering teachers.
I can now look back and see how my agreeableness impacted my entire experience as a teacher.
My agreeableness helped me relate to students quickly and build the rapport I needed to create a trusting learning environment.
My agreeableness also made me too quick to say yes to every committee, event, task that was asked of me in faculty meetings.
I hadn’t learned yet that conflict was necessary for setting boundaries to avoid burnout.
I thought being a “good teacher” and “good person” meant meeting everyone else’s expectations of me. I didn’t realize that I was setting myself up for failure. Instead of reflecting and establishing my own core values and living by those, I lived by everyone else’s values and tried to meet all of their expectations of me.
I didn’t know I was worthy of setting boundaries–that my energy and time was valuable and worth spending intentionally. I was just running around as fast as I could, fooling myself into thinking I could make everyone else happy and achieve total consensus.
So, predictably, I burned out, hard.
Then, I over-corrected. I went from being too agreeable to being too disagreeable to try to compensate. Because finding balance is hard!
Now, I’m trying to find a happy medium. I’ve always fallen in the middle on the agreeableness scale, and I’m cultivating discernment around this quality–-when to tap into the different parts.
I’m learning that the fight in me is valuable and there is a time and place for it.
I’m also learning that the softness in me is valuable and there is a time and place for it.
I want to be both strong and soft. Now that I’ve grown in self-awareness around this aspect of personality, I believe I can be both. I now have space for all of it, contradictions and all. :)
Where does this land for you today?
When you took the EASEL, where did you land on agreeableness?
How do you see your agreeableness playing out in your relationships with students, parents, colleagues, and with your own friends and families?
Are there places in your life where you need to soften and build a bridge? Are there places where you need to take a stand and build a fence?
What is the cost of your agreeableness or of your disagreeableness?
