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By Mihar Dias October 2026
In the 1980s, a vice-chancellor watched my deputy greet him with a bow so deep I feared for the man's spine. "Hello, young man," he said. "If you want to suck up, don't make it too loud!"
Four decades later, I still consider this the finest management seminar I have ever attended. It was free, it was brief, and nobody handed out a certificate.
The lesson, I now realise, is that flattery is not a vice. It is a trade. Like all trades, it has its apprentices, its masters and its customers.
The Craft
The apprentice flatterer begins with research. He studies the boss as a tailor studies a customer. Does the boss think he is a strategist? Praise his vision. Is he proud of being decisive? Then every rushed decision becomes an act of courage. Does he fancy himself a man of the people? Admire his humility, ideally with an audience present, since humility is hardly worth having if nobody sees it.
The master flatterer goes further. He never says "you are brilliant." He says, "We were discussing this earlier, sir, and we all agreed nobody understands the situation like you."
Observe the artistry: the compliment arrives disguised as a casual observation, gift-wrapped in the opinion of absent colleagues who, naturally, said no such thing. The boss gets admiration. The flatterer gets an investment on which he expects returns. Both pretend no transaction has taken place. This is the first rule of the trade: the market works best when everyone denies it exists.
Praise Versus Sycophancy, or How to Tell the Difference
To be fair, not every compliment is a con. A junior who congratulates a manager for solving a genuinely hard problem is not sucking up. He is merely accurate, which is rarer than people think.
The test is simple. Would the praise survive if the boss lost the power to reward it? Would the colleague still applaud the proposal if the presenter had no say over his promotion? If the answer is no, you are not looking at appreciation. You are looking at a down payment.
The sycophant is not necessarily a liar. He is often diligent, even talented. He has simply chosen to spend part of his intelligence managing the feelings of the powerful instead of informing them. He tells the truth when it is convenient and becomes wonderfully creative when it is not.
The Boss Does Not Get Off Lightly
It is tempting to blame the flatterer entirely. But flattery needs a willing audience, and audiences are rather good at deciding what gets encouraged.
Consider the manager who promotes the colleague who nods at everything and sidelines the one who asks awkward questions. The office reads the message instantly: independent thought is a career hazard, enthusiastic agreement a retirement plan. Soon meetings become delightfully harmonious. Every idea is brilliant. Every dubious decision is defended with the vigour of a lawyer whose client pays handsomely.
The manager congratulates himself on building a loyal team. He has actually built a team of people who have calculated the cost of honesty and wisely declined to pay it. Bad news gets softened, weaknesses get hidden, objections get postponed until they are no longer objections but obituaries. The flatterer gets a promotion. The organisation loses its ability to spot a mistake before it becomes a catastrophe. A fair trade, if you are the flatterer.
Why Clever People Fall For It
One would expect intelligent, educated, successful people to be immune. One would be wrong. Intelligence does not cure vanity. It merely equips the patient with better arguments for his own magnificence. The clever executive does not think, "I am being flattered." He thinks, “Finally, people who recognise quality.”
Professors take note: if you find that disagreement with you is always a sign of ignorance and never a legitimate difference of interpretation, the problem may not be the world.
The flatterer never needs to convince you that you are perfect. That would be crude. He only suggests that you are a little more perceptive and a little more deserving than you had dared believe. Your own ego does the rest, unpaid and enthusiastic.
The Politics of Applause
If the university corridor is a modest theatre of sycophancy, politics is the grand opera. A leader visits a village and it becomes a historic act of compassion. He announces a policy and supporters call it visionary before anyone has read it. He reverses his position and yesterday's conviction is promptly rebranded as strategic flexibility. The vocabulary of admiration is wonderfully elastic. It can stretch around almost anything, including the facts.
To be clear, not all political support is sycophancy. People can admire a leader sincerely and defend policies for good reasons. The trouble starts when loyalty becomes so personal that evidence loses its vote. Then failures become the fault of subordinates, critics become enemies, and contrary facts become conspiracies. The more questionable the conduct, the louder the defence.
And the leader, bathed in applause, concludes that the cheering is the voice of the whole nation, rather than a carefully selected audience that was told where to sit.
The same drama plays out in companies, associations, families and committees. Wherever status gathers, flattery follows. Wherever the powerful reward loyalty over honesty, somebody will discover there is good money in supplying it.
Advice For Both Sides of the Bow
To the subordinate: be courteous, acknowledge good work, and keep decent relations with those above you. Courtesy is not cowardice. But learn to disagree without being disagreeable. Bring evidence, state your concerns, offer alternatives. Your lasting value lies in the quality of your judgement, not the frequency of your “Brilliant idea, boss!”
To the manager: look at whose praise you enjoy most. Do these people ever tell you when something has gone wrong? Do they say the same things when you are out of the room? And please, reward the bearer of unwelcome news. Punish candour and reward flattery, and you will be astonished at how quickly candour disappears.
Remember too that the loudest supporter is not necessarily the most loyal, and the persistent critic is not necessarily your enemy. Sometimes the only person taking your responsibilities seriously is the one who questions your decision.
And if a generous stream of compliments suddenly flows your way, pause and ask whether you are being recognised for what you have done or being nudged to believe something about yourself that somebody hopes to cash in on. The answer may sting. That is exactly why the question is worth asking.
The Final Word
There is nothing wrong with enjoying a compliment. There is something dangerous about needing one. When praise outranks truth, the flatterer starts controlling your information while your vanity holds the door.
So give credit freely, accept praise graciously, and keep your judgement to yourself, or rather, keep it independent.
And if you must suck up, do heed the vice-chancellor.
Just don't let the whole building hear you choke.
Mihar Dias (mihardias@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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