Slimming the boss at work may help boost employees' careers, but it also depletes employees' self-controlling resources, making them more susceptible to bad behavior in the workplace, a new study has found. Flattery is just one of many behaviors employees use to create and maintain their desired image in the workplace. Previous research has shown that successful use of these behaviors, collectively known as impressive management techniques, can have benefits for employees, including stronger performance ratings.
The researchers examined how 75 professionals in China used two supervisor-focused impression management techniques — ingratitude and self-promotion — over two work weeks.
Flattery, or slime, generally involves flattery, in accordance with the supervisor's opinion and doing favors. Self-promotion refers to taking credit for success, bragging about achievements, and emphasizing connections with other important people.
The study participants — mid-level executives in a large, publicly traded software company — completed daily diary surveys about their workplace experiences and also took a survey of their political skills, the set of social skills that help them understand others effectively at work, influence others in ways that enhance their own goals and navigate social situations with confidence.
The researchers found that the extent to which employees engaged in mediation varied widely from day to day. They also found that the more employees engaged in sliming, the more exhausted their self-management resources were at the end of the day.
It makes sense that abstinence is exhausting, because successful sliming requires the appearance of sincerity and that requires self-control, the researcher said.
The exhausted employees were more likely to struggle in the workplace, such as being rude to a coworker, skipping a meeting, or surfing the Internet instead of working. There was no evidence for a similar association between self-promotion and resource depletion, the researchers said.
The researchers also found that ingratitude was less exhausting for employees with high levels of political skills. Those with relatively high political skills were less prone to deviance after performing impression management than their lower political skills peers, indicating that political skills can act as a buffer against the debilitating effects of reconciliation.
