Impression Management
No discussion of managing up, down, and sideways would be complete without a discussion of impression management. After all, says professor Susan Ashford of the Michigan Business School, organizations “are made up of people who observe and make judgments about each other.”[121] The judgments people make about us influence our task effectiveness, career success, and self-esteem. Consequently, it is not surprising that we sometimes use impression management strategies to influence other people's judgments of us in order to achieve a desired goal.[122]
If you ever do a survey, you'll find that people prefer illusion to reality, ten to one.
—Judity Guest, Ordinary People
Our goal may be to get something for ourselves—organizational resources, a high performance rating, or a job promotion. Or our goal may be to help someone else feel comfortable, save face (“No, I really don't think anyone on the board noticed that you were reading your mail during the meeting.”), or feel joy (“What a beautiful baby!”)—all of which help build the trust from which goodwill, cooperation, and coordination grow.
In short, impression management is both a self-preservation technique in hierarchical organizations and an important social ritual that helps make organizational relationships more satisfying and productive. Indeed, impression management is so taken for granted in everyday organizational life that we often don't notice when we or others are doing it. We consciously and unconsciously use a variety of impression management strategies.[123] For example:
We use ingratiation to make others feel better in the hope that doing so will enhance their perceptions of us.[124] Ingratiation strategies include flattering, doing favors, conforming to other people's opinions, and smiling to show support, agreement, or friendliness. Although ingratiation is usually associated with someone who is trying to influence someone who is higher in the organizational hierarchy (“buttering up the boss”), we also use ingratiation with our peers, subordinates, clients, and others.
We use self-enhancement to promote a positive image of ourselves in order to enhance other's impressions of us.[125] We may, for example, actively promote our strengths (“Did I ever tell you I was the valedictorian of my class?”), take credit for a job well done (“The team helped out so much after I got that million-dollar contract.”), or “dress for success” (“Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.”).
We use a basking-in-reflected-glory strategy when we associate ourselves with someone or something that is viewed positively by others in order to enhance another person's impression of us. We often refer to this as “riding someone else's coattails” or “being seen in the right places with the right people.” To illustrate, the story is told that a businessman once asked the wealthy financier Baron de Rothschild for a loan. De Rothschild is reported to have responded, “I won't give you a loan myself; but I will walk arm-in-arm with you across the floor of the stock exchange, and you soon shall have willing lenders to spare.”[126]
We use intimidation when we want to force someone to do something. Examples include threatening to quit, firing someone, or telling a boss about someone's undesirable action. We are more likely to use these strategies when we have power over someone, when the target is not in a position to retaliate, and when our goal isn't to be liked by the person we are intimidating.[127]
We use self-deprecation and self-handicapping strategies when we want to make ourselves look bad to achieve a desired goal.[128] For example, we may say, “I'm sorry I acted discourteously at yesterday's meeting” in order to increase our chances of getting forgiveness from someone whom we offended. We may claim to have a bad back in order to get out of playing in the company's annual volleyball tournament. We may use excuses to explain why we did a poor job (“I was just getting over the flu and I probably should have stayed home but I really wanted to finish the job on time.”). We may pretend to be incompetent in order to get someone else to do something that we don't want to do (“Can you make the 50 copies of the report, please? I can never get that copier to work.”).
Interestingly, research suggests that “playing dumb” at work is quite common. Researchers conducted a telephone survey of 2,247 working adults from 48 states in the United States and asked them if they ever “pretended to be less intelligent or knowledgeable than they were” at work. Over 25 percent of the respondents admitted to doing so. Almost 15 percent of the male workers admitted to playing dumb with their bosses, and 7 percent of the women workers admitted to doing so. Seventeen percent of the men admitted to playing dumb with their coworkers, and 9 percent of the women admitted to doing so. Younger workers reported playing dumb more often than did older workers.[129]
It appears that many of our efforts at impression management work. Several studies suggest that subordinates who use ingratiation tend to be better liked by their bosses, have more positive communication with their supervisors, receive more favorable performance evaluations, and receive more feedback, resources, challenges, pay raises, and promotions than their equally qualified coworkers who do not use ingratiation.[130]
Why does impression management work? In part, it's because we are social animals and, as such, have a natural desire to be liked by others. Flattery, favors, and similar behaviors make us feel noticed and appreciated. Impression management techniques also work because we often need to make judgments based on limited information, and sometimes the only information we have about someone is the image that they project. The more ambiguous the situation and the less objective data we have about a person, the more likely we are to “judge the book by its cover.”
The aim of flattery is to sooth and encourage us by assuring us of a truth of an opinion we have already formed about ourselves.
—Edith Sitwell
But impression management is risky business. People who invest too much time in impression management may not devote enough time to their job duties.[131] People who oversell themselves may have trouble living up to the expectations that they raise.[132] People who routinely engage in opinion conformity (that is, going along with the opinions of others even when they privately disagree) may withhold important information, feedback, and bad news. People who use flattery too often may come across as smarmy or manipulative. Self-promotion can come across as conceited and tiresome.[133] Indeed, research suggests that ingratiation techniques such as flattery are more likely to be successful than self-enhancement techniques (“By the way, I really like your haircut.”). What may be perceived as flattery in one culture may be insulting in another.
So, what can you do to avoid some of the risks associated with impression management? To avoid falling for form over substance, set clear performance standards and performance measures, and routinely assess whether your impressions match the person's actual performance. If possible, use a 360-degree feedback system to hear how people at all levels of the hierarchy perceive this person. Remember, we tend to evaluate people whom we perceive to be similar to ourselves more positively, so try to keep this bias in check.
To avoid being seen as an empty suit (someone who makes all the right moves but does not perform well when it comes to completing assignments and contributing to the organization), make sure you are competent at what you do and focus on completing tasks as well as developing relationships. Be respectful and sincere toward everyone and not only toward people that you feel can help you achieve your career goals. Perhaps most importantly, remember that although impression management is necessary for developing effective and rewarding work relationships, being overdependent on other people's judgments for your self-esteem and career success can be a stressful and fragile existence.