Assuming, of course, you’re the kind of boss who doesn’t WANT to be sucked up to

it is to laugh… the following is excerpted from a regular newsletter i receive from booz allen hamilton on strategy and business… senior vice president for booz allen, you may remember, was the most recent position held by mike mcconnell, the recently-confirmed director of national security… perhaps mike could wrangle a few minutes with george and go over the key points of the article…

Not one [presidential] profile has ever included a desired behavior that reads “effectively sucks up to management the president.” Although given the dedication to fawning and sucking up in most corporations presidential administrations — and how often such behavior is rewarded — it probably should. Almost every company president says it he wants people to “challenge the system,” “be empowered to express their opinion,” and “say what they really think,” but there sure are a lot of companies presidential administrations that are stuck on sucking up.

Not only do companies presidents say they abhor such comically servile behavior, but so do individual leaders their subordinates. Almost all the leaders presidents I have met say that they would never encourage such a thing in their organizations administrations. I have no doubt that they are sincere. Most of us are easily irritated, if not disgusted, by derrière kissers. Which raises a question: If leaders presidents say they discourage sucking up, why does it dominate the workplace Bush administration? Keep in mind that these leaders presidents are generally very shrewd judges of character. They spend their lives sizing people up: taking in first impressions and recalibrating them against later impressions. And yet, they still fall for the super-skilled suck-up. They still play favorites.

(as you can see, i’ve taken the liberty to make a few changes…)

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