How to work with someone low in agreeableness

By Selfcarta Research Team. Last updated 2026-11-06.

Work with someone low in agreeableness by being direct, bringing evidence, and treating their challenges as input about the work and not as attacks on you. They tend to care more about getting it right than keeping it pleasant, and many are comfortable with open disagreement. Teams often need one person like this, particularly when everybody else has stopped asking hard questions.

Decoding a blunt message

Suppose you share a draft strategy, and this arrives within minutes: "Section 3 doesn't work. The numbers assume we keep all our current clients. We won't."

It stings. You may imagine a tone of contempt that isn't there. So read it a second time, slowly, as if it came from someone who had taken your work seriously enough to read to section 3, and found a real gap. Quite often, that is exactly what happened. People lower in agreeableness may leave out the social padding that others use by habit. It is rarely a judgment of you as a person, and they might be startled to learn you took it that way.

Of course, some comments are simply rude, and you don't have to pretend otherwise. We'll get to that.

How to get along day to day

Lose the padding when you write to them. Three paragraphs of preamble could read to them as evasive. Lead with the point: "I need a decision on the vendor by Friday. I recommend option B. Here's why."

Bring data. Warm appeals like "the team feels strongly" may do little. "Support tickets doubled after the last change" may do a lot.

Disagree back. They tend to respect people who hold their ground. A firm "I don't agree, and here's my reasoning" often improves the relationship. Caving, then complaining to someone else, usually doesn't.

Ask them to play to the strength. Invite them in early as the person who stress-tests the plan. "Where will this fall over?" is a question they are likely to answer brilliantly, and it's much better to hear the answer before launch than after.

Setting the terms

Candour and contempt are different things, and you can ask for one without the other. If someone tears into a junior colleague in a meeting, it's reasonable to say so, directly and soon. Since they tend to value plain speaking, they may take a plain request well:

"Your point about the budget was right, and I want you to keep making points like it. The way you said it in front of the grads shut the room down, and now nobody will raise the next problem. Tell them what's wrong with the idea, not what's wrong with them. Can you do that?"

The aim here is an agreement on behaviour, not a change of personality. You aren't asking them to become gentle. They just need to attack the plan and leave the person out of it.

Pitfalls for the rest of the team

Talking around them. Others may avoid raising things with them directly. This usually makes things worse, so try to bring disagreements into the open.
Over-interpreting silence. They may not offer praise much, but it could still be there. You can ask directly: "Did that work for you?"
Mistaking them for unkind. Plenty of people low on this trait will quietly fight hard for a colleague who has been treated unfairly. They just don't necessarily use soft words while doing so.

Where they shine

Negotiations, audits, tough vendor calls and turnaround projects often go better with someone who won't flinch. They may also be the person who says what the rest of the room is privately thinking: "This project should be cancelled." Later, you may be very glad somebody said it.