Who wants to reach the top? The interactive effect of HEXACO Honesty-Humility and Extraversion on workplace hierarchy advancement motivation

The combination of low HEXACO honesty-humility and high extraversion is associated with negative workplace outcomes, yet individuals with this profile appear to be overrepresented in higher-level positions. We propose that advancement motivation may function as an explanatory mechanism for the advancement of employees with this personality profile. We first examined the relations between HEXACO personality traits and advancement motivation, as well as the interactive effect of honesty-humility and extraversion on advancement motivation, in a student sample and two working adult samples. We then explored a moderated mediation model in the two working adult samples, wherein honesty-humility and extraversion interact to predict advancement motivation, and advancement motivation, in turn, mediates the interactive effect on hierarchical level. Results indicate that advancement motivation was consistently negatively related to honesty-humility and positively related to extraversion. Extraversion attenuated the negative relationship between honesty-humility and advancement motivation. However, advancement motivation did not mediate the interactive effect of honesty-humility and extraversion on hierarchical level, likely due to low statistical power. Despite this, the study underscores the importance of supplementing assessments of advancement motivation with complementary tools–such as multi-source personality measures, integrity tests, and structured interviews–to support sound promotion decisions.