Are you a likable employee? How much does it matter to you if your boss is a kind woman? Would you rather work with someone who knows what he is doing but is a jerk? Or would you rather be on a project with someone who might be a bit clueless but really nice?

According to research on this topic, a person's likability is an important factor when it comes to being hired, promoted or able to rally workplace troops.

According to a Harvard Business School study released last summer, people choose work partners based on, naturally, their competence on the job but, more notably, on their likability.

The study, which surveyed both managers and regular employees, broke these criteria into four categories of people: the competent jerk, who knows a lot but is unpleasant to deal with; the lovable fool, who doesn't know much but is great to have around; the lovable star, who's both smart and likable; and the incompetent jerk (do I even need to describe that one for you?).

The majority of respondents, of course, said they wanted to work with the lovable star, according to the research. When managers were asked which choice they would make in hiring and promotion, they said competence always trumps likability.

But the research showed the opposite was true. "We found that if someone is strongly disliked, it's almost irrelevant whether or not she is competent; people won't want to work with her anyway," said the authors, Tiziana Casciaro and Miguel Sousa Lobo, in their research paper. "By contrast, if someone is liked, his colleagues will seek out every little bit of competence he has to offer."

Admitting that you would rather work with someone who is charming and kind than someone who is competent but jerky might feel as if you're admitting to playing along with a high school popularity contest. It might feel as if your priorities are screwed up. This is the real world, after all.

But think about it. Likability can translate into skills that jerks will never have.

"All of us don't want to admit that likability is a factor, especially when it comes to hiring," said Lucy Cherkasets, the human resources director with LaForce & Stevens, a New York marketing firm. "We always look at candidates' qualifications, but at the end of the day, you have two top candidates, and they are neck in neck, the decision turns into who would you like to work with."

Likability is so important that Tim Sanders, a former tech executive turned author, has built the latter part of his life on preaching its necessity. In his book "The Likeability Factor," he writes about — with the support of research — how boosting friendliness can help one succeed in life and work.

His interest stems from a lunch he had with Stanley Marcus, son of the founder of Neiman Marcus, in the late 1990s. During this lunch, Marcus and Sanders talked about how to be a good executive, as Sanders was a new one at a hot tech company in Dallas.

Sanders told Marcus all the things he was doing to prepare himself: He was trying to make himself intellectually attractive to business partners. He was trying to make himself financially attractive. Then, as they got up to leave, Marcus stopped Sanders and said, "Son, don't forget one thing: Make yourself emotionally attractive. Good things happen to people who are emotionally attractive."

That statement stuck with Sanders like no other piece of advice ever had. "When it came to making customers happy, what I gave them emotionally was just as important" as a product, he said. When his company was bought by Yahoo and he became an executive, he preached the necessity of likability. "If we became emotionally unattractive, if we became arrogant, nothing's going to matter anymore. It would not matter if we're generous with our stock options or our sick days."

The issue of likability comes into play in many ways. For instance, most surveys and studies show that more people leave their jobs because they don't like their bosses than for any other reason.

Paul Villella, chief executive of HireStrategy, a suburban Washington staffing firm, said a person's likability is a big component in hiring decisions. "It doesn't mean necessarily that person is going to become your friend," he said. "But in business, for candidate selection or potential progression within a company, it's important, because if it's a role ... that involves interaction, you're going to be interacting with all kinds of different people."