LEADERSHIP | BUSINESS
How Do You Impress Others at Work?
Impression management for leaders and followers
Hand’s up if you’ve ever tried to impress others?
We’re all Impressionists, “impression managers” (Yukl, 2013).
Impression management is the process people use to influence how others perceive us, achieved through positive and negative tactics.
It’s how we get people to like us. “Important in the development and maintenance of social relationships, and it is critically important to effectiveness as a leader.” (Riggio, 2013)
This article will discuss impression management with respect to leaders and followers in the workplace.
Elements of Impression Management
There are three elements of impression management:
№1 — Ingratiation
This tactic involves behavior that’s used to influence a target person to like us, to perceive us as an individual who has desirable social qualities:
- Caring
- Likable
- Friendly
- Smart
- Interesting, and
- Attractive
Ingratiation can take different forms, such as:
- Agreeableness — with another view or opinion
- Offering praise or compliments
- Laughing at their jokes, funny or not
№2 — Exemplification
Then we have “Exemplification”. This involves behavior to demonstrate loyalty, dedication, and commitment to the cause — organization or team.
Some examples of this include:
- Working late
- Starting early in the morning
- Adopting organizational behaviors
- Being a committed team player
- Being highly visible and engaging
№3 — Self-Promotion
This is self-explanatory. This tactic involves behaviors to influence favorable impressions about our level of competence and our worth to the business.
Again, this manifests by informing people about our achievements and talking about our skills. Or better, we influence others to talk about our loyalty and skills, indirectly.
A more subtle form of this is evident by displaying awards, degrees, diplomas, and trophies in our workspace for others to see.
Impression Management and Followers
In 1990 a study by Wayne and Ferris proposed three-dimensions of upward impression management with respect to followers (Wayne et al, 1990):
- Supervisor focused tactics— similar to ingratiation
- Job focused tactics — similar to the exemplification
- Self-focussed tactics — similar to self-promotion
Upward impression management effectiveness is measured by how your boss evaluates you, the follower, in terms of competence and/or the extent to which “favorable career opportunities” come your way. Such as a pay rise or a promotion (Yukl, 2013).
Research indicates that ingratiation is an effective impression management tactic for upward influence ( Ferris et al, 1994). That said, to be effective it must appear to be sincere.
Note the word ‘appear’.
Although self-promotion tactics are less consistent. Higgins suggested that “a negative reaction is more likely than a positive reaction” (Higgins et al, 2003).
The effectiveness of impression management tactics depends to a great extent on “interpersonal skills.” Skills that can be “a determinant of performance.” (Ammeter et al, 2002)
Impression Management and Leaders
Like followers, leaders work to create the impression that they are competent, important, and “in control of events” (Pfeffer, 1977).
“Success in social relationships and success as a leader requires a delicate balance of impression management. We need to monitor and control how we appear to others, but we also want to be straightforward and authentic.”
— Ronald E. Reggio
In 1984 Salancik and Meindl analyzed the annual reports from a selection of companies over an 18 year period. They found that leadership and senior management consistently “credited themselves for positive outcomes”, blaming “negative outcomes on aspects of the environment.” (Salancik and Meindl, 1984)
Examples
Symbolic actions demonstrate how leaders use impression management to convey that they are on top of a problem and making progress.
- Visiting a disaster site to show active involvement, personal interest
- Replacing people who behave unethically or illegally
- Creating a commission to investigate illegal or unethical issues
- Taking on board recommendations from independent commissions
- Implementing a policy to deal with issues of interest
- Creating an agency or a role to handle issues of interest
Impression management can be used by leaders to avoid the appearance of failure. Or in the case of the narcissistic leader, to shift the blame to others or pointing towards an uncontrollable event.
Some leaders aim to distort or cover up evidence that their strategy is not working. Some use confirmation bias to reinforce false negatives.
Final Thoughts
Impression management tactics can be manipulative. We only have to turn on the TV to see it in action as politicians are impression masters.
But it can also be used in positive ways by leaders.
For example, praise, a form of ingratiation, can be used to build the confidence of followers to improve performance.
“Effective and authentic impression management is not easy. Like all social skills, it is something that needs to be developed and practiced continually.”
— Ronald E. Reggio
Ronald E. Reggio proposed six tips for leaders in his article The Dangerous Art of Impression Management, as follows:
1. Know Thyself
2. Be Thoughtful and Prudent
3. Master Your Emotions
4. Observe Rules of Etiquette
5. Have Courage and Conviction
6. Be Positive (Riggio, 2013)
It can be difficult to assess the independent effects of impression management tactics in the absence of determinates like job outcomes, which are seldom measured in the research.
How do you impress George, Julia, Timothy, Aurora, Ann, Terry, Bill, Kathryn, Joe, Arthur, Rosennab, Chris, Lori, Sinem, and Dr Mehmet?
