Situation · Work
“My colleague sucks up to management and is nasty to everyone below”
What could be going on
Impression management: Fits if their behaviour changes sharply depending on who is watching.
Name-drops and tracks rank: Fits if they track rank closely and name-drop.
Self-monitoring: Fits if they are skilled at reading rooms and adjusting how they come across.
Machiavellianism: Fits if people are treated as useful or useless to their goals.
Contempt: Fits if they look down on those with less power.
Grandiose narcissism: Fits if it sits with entitlement and a need for admiration.
Questions to carry
- Watching this colleague turn from a manager to a junior, which changes first, the voice or the face?
- What do I feel when I see it happen, and what do I keep myself from saying?
Also said as
- kiss up kick down
- she's charming to the bosses and awful to junior staff
- he's a different person depending on who's in the room
- my coworker only cares about people who can help her
- coworker who brown-noses the bosses
- she's fake nice to executives and mean to her team