Going out of your way to overly ingratiate yourself with your boss (aka “kissing up”) may not be the most ‘attractive’ quality to display in the workplace, but there’s no denying that being proactive about getting your boss on your side can have some positive results … for the short term, anyway.
Going out of your way to overly ingratiate yourself with your boss (aka “kissing up”) may not be the most ‘attractive’ quality to display in the workplace, but there’s no denying that being proactive about getting your boss on your side can have some positive results … for the short term, anyway.
According to a recent study in the Journal of Applied Psychology, twisting yourself into a pretzel at work to curry your boss’s favor may give your career a boost, but spending that much energy on trying to be liked or appear capable to your boss comes with the added risk of a kind of “burn out” that could hurt your career or professional reputation in other important ways.
Researchers at Oregon State University found that employees who engaged in regular “kissing up” to their boss also demonstrated a depleted sense of self-control, more frequent “slacking off,” and in general more deviant behavior in the workplace. Because of the daily effort needed to flatter, win over, or kiss up to one’s boss, they found that those employees who did this most often felt depleted, which manifested itself in other, more negative ways at work.
How do you know if you’re “kissing up” to your boss? The study’s authors said this behavior typically includes flattery, performing favors for your boss, or always agreeing with or conforming to your boss’s opinions or point of view. People engage in this common workplace behavior, the authors said, because they want to be liked, appear capable, achieve stronger performance evaluations, and “maintain their desired image in the workplace.”
Researchers found that employees who engaged in this type of behavior on a regular basis reported feeling “depleted,” which led to other negative workplace behaviors like rudeness or “incivility to a co-worker, skipping a meeting, or surfing the internet rather than working,” among others. The more the employee engaged in acts of ingratiation, they found, the more likely they were to feel depleted and display poor workplace behaviors that could negatively reflect on their reputation or career.
According to the researchers, the amount of energy or self control an employee has to spend in affecting “the appearance of sincerity” it takes to effectively “kiss up” takes its toll on an employee.
Interestingly, though, they found that employees who reported a “high level of political skill” were less likely to show negative behaviors as a result of “kissing up.”
In order to offset the potential harmful effects of this type of common workplace behavior, the authors also suggested that employees become more self aware of the toll that ingratiation takes on them and become proactive at finding other outlets that can restore their energy levels and avoid negative behaviors, such as taking a walk or talking with a friend.
