Embrace Candor Over Compliments

Almost every leader we have ever met claims to want direct reports who are not trying to curry favor but tell them the hard truth. If this were actually the case, in the real world, why does so much sucking up go on?

In our classes, we ask leaders, “How many of you own a dog that you love?” Their eyes beam as they wave their hands in the air, thinking of their adorable pups.

We next ask, “Who gets the most unqualified positive recognition in your home— your husband, wife or partner, your kids or your dog?” In the vast majority of cases, the winner is the dog.

Next, they all deny loving the dog more than the other members of their family (although some look like they are fibbing). We then ask, “Why does the dog get the most unqualified positive recognition?”

The answers: “The dog is always happy to see me.” “The dog does not talk back.” “The dog does not give me any negative feedback.” “The dog gives me unqualified love.”

In other words, the dog is a suck-up!

The ‘Like Me’ Trap

We all have a very natural human tendency to give love and recognition to those who give it to us. As leaders advance in the hierarchy, the suck-up problem gets bigger and bigger.

How can we avoid the unconscious favoritism that is so easy to see in others but so hard to see in ourselves? One way is to rank your direct reports using the following metrics:

1. How much do they like me? (We know you do not know the actual answer. Just guess. What matters is what you think.)

2. How much are they like me? (How much do they remind you of yourself? For example, engineers tend to favor other engineers.)

3. What is their contribution to the company and our customers? (Try to be as objective as you can.)

4. How much positive recognition do I give them?

We have done this exercise with thousands of leaders. If leaders are honest with themselves, they often identify one or two direct reports whose recognition is more a function of “they like me” or “they remind me of me” than “they make the greatest contribution to our company.”

If this is the case for you, you may be falling into a trap that you despise in others. Without meaning to, you may be encouraging others to suck up to you.

Spotting Subtlety

As a final note, even some of the great CEOs that we have met over the years have fallen into this trap. In spite of assuming that they would never be swayed by a suck-up, they have promoted people who were clearly seen as suck-ups by others in the company.

What happened? When we say we despise suck-ups, we are thinking of obvious suckups who we can clearly see are trying to make us happy. We really hate bad suck-ups.

As leaders move up, so do their direct reports. Few are immature enough to be obvious suck-ups. They are very subtle. They know when to disagree “just enough” but not “too much.” In the big league, you are not dealing with amateur suck-ups, you are dealing with professional suck-ups. They know exactly what they are doing.

The first step any leader can take in their effort to avoid favoritism is to admit that none of us are immune to this problem. We are all just humans, even chief executives. We all love to be loved. The more we are able to carefully monitor ourselves and admit that we, like everyone else, can fall into this trap, the less likely we are to do it.