It's not likely to win you any popularity contests, but it seems being selfish at work can be good for your career.

New research has found that those with more selfless, kind personalities were the most well-liked, but were simultaneously seen as less attractive candidates for leadership and were overlooked for promotion.

It found that aggression implied strength, while altruistic tendencies were perceived as a sign of weakness.

The study, from the Kellogg School of Management, Stanford Graduate School of Business and Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, aimed to discover the personality types we associate with leadership.

In a series of three experiments, participants were placed into groups. Researchers then analysed their behaviour as they managed tokens representing money; how some chose to keep them, and others contributed them to a group pool.

The results showed that those with the kinder personalities were the most popular in the groups, but they were also considered weak or gullible.

Those with more dominant and aggressive behaviour were seen as 'alpha' personalities.

Co-author Robert Livingston, of the Kellogg School, told Today.com: 'As humans we are wired to respond to dominance.'

He explained: 'Being selfish makes you seem more dominant and being dominant makes you seem more attractive as a leader, especially when there’s competition.

'On a subconscious level this is the conclusion people are coming to: Kindness equals weakness.'

Dr Livingston believes that this tendency to associate aggression with leadership' is an explanation on why we get corruption.

'People who are more likely to be moral, kind and pro-social are least likely to be elected to these leadership roles,' he said.

'That increases the likelihood of corruption and malfeasance because we’ve got the wrong people in positions of leadership.'

(Read by Christine Mallari. Christine Mallari is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)