The 50 Darkest Secrets of Corporate Politics (and How to Survive Them)

Nobody hands you the real rulebook on your first day. The employee handbook tells you about dress codes and expense reports. It does not tell you that your performance rating says more about your boss than about you, that the person who talks most in meetings usually ends up "the leader," or that complaining about mistreatment is the single most common way people end up in a second fight with their employer.

Those are not cynical opinions. They are findings from peer-reviewed research, government data and some of the largest workplace surveys ever run. We sent a team of researchers into more than 120 studies, meta-analyses and official reports to collect the 50 darkest, best-documented truths about corporate politics. Each one comes with the evidence, an APA citation you can check, and practical tips for protecting yourself and thriving, without becoming the kind of person these secrets warn you about.

The short version: Doing great work is the entry fee, not the prize. Perception, relationships and power decide who gets promoted, who gets protected and who quietly gets pushed out. You can learn those rules and still play fair.

Key takeaways

• Your rating is mostly about the rater. In one large study, the habits of the people doing the rating explained 53–62% of the variance in job performance ratings (Scullen et al., 2000).
• Confidence is mistaken for competence, and overconfident people often keep their status even after they are exposed (Kennedy et al., 2013).
• Retaliation is the most common charge filed with the U.S. EEOC, cited in 61.6% of all charges in fiscal year 2025 (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission [EEOC], n.d.).
• Being frozen out hurts more than being harassed, and it predicted people leaving three years later (O'Reilly et al., 2015).
• The real organisation is an informal network. People who connect groups are promoted and paid more than people who stay inside one circle (Burt, 2004).
• Every secret has a counter-move. Document your results, build sponsors, make your work visible and learn your actual legal rights.

How to read this guide: The 50 secrets are grouped into five parts. Use the table of contents to jump around. Citations in brackets lead to the full reference list at the bottom. This article is general information, not legal advice. For anything with legal stakes, speak to an employment lawyer in your jurisdiction.

Part 1: Power, perception and the visibility game

Secret 1: Great work is the entry fee, not the promotion

We are taught that excellent work speaks for itself. It doesn't. Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer reviews decades of organisational research and concludes that job performance matters less for advancement than most people believe. Relationships, visibility and the attention of the people above you often matter more (Pfeffer, 2010a). He argues that in large organisations you have to pursue power deliberately to get things done (Pfeffer, 2010b). That "politics" is a real, measurable skill. A meta-analysis found political skill predicts career success, reputation and productivity, and predicts task performance even after controlling for personality and general mental ability (Munyon et al., 2015).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Treat making your results visible as part of the job. Share brief updates on outcomes, not activity.
• Find out who really decides promotions and make sure they know what you have delivered.
• Keep a running "impact log" so your record is easy to retell when it matters.

Secret 2: Your boss decides whether you are "in" or "out" within days

Leaders do not treat everyone on a team the same way. They form close, trusting relationships with some people and transactional ones with others. This is the core of leader–member exchange (LMX) theory (Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995). Liden et al. (1993) followed 166 new hires and their supervisors. The expectations both sides formed in the first five days predicted the quality of the relationship weeks later. Liking and perceived similarity mattered more than performance ratings.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Treat your first weeks with a new boss as decisive. Clarify expectations, deliver one early visible win, and learn how they like to work.
• Look for real common ground, such as shared goals or standards. Don't fake similarity.
• If you start on the outside, ask directly: "What does great look like to you?" Relationships can be reset, but rarely by waiting.

Secret 3: Your performance rating is shaped by how much your boss likes you

Wayne and Liden (1995) measured impression-management behaviour six weeks into new supervisor relationships, then collected performance ratings six months later. Impression management raised ratings indirectly, by making supervisors like the subordinate more and see them as more similar. Gabarro and Kotter (2005) showed that the boss relationship is one of mutual dependence. Talented managers who stay passive toward their bosses damage their own careers and their companies.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Make your boss's top priorities visibly yours, and say how your work serves them.
• Learn their pressures and preferred way of receiving information (email or a chat, detail or headline), then adapt.
• Managing up means being reliable and honest, not flattering. Bring problems early, along with options.

Secret 4: Confidence gets mistaken for competence, even when it is unearned

Across six studies, overconfident people gained higher status in groups, because their certainty looked like competence to others (Anderson et al., 2012). People high in trait dominance were rated more competent by teammates and observers, even after controlling for their actual ability (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009). Darker still, in follow-up studies, people kept their status even after the group learned they had been overconfident (Kennedy et al., 2013).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• State your view clearly and early. Heavily hedged, apologetic phrasing gets read as low competence even when your content is better.
• Protect decisions by asking, "What is that based on?" so evidence beats volume.
• If you lead, track people's forecasts against actual outcomes to separate confidence from accuracy.

Secret 5: Whoever talks the most tends to become "the leader"

The "babble hypothesis" says that the quantity of speaking, not its quality, drives who emerges as leader. MacLaren et al. (2020) tested it in a carefully controlled study. Speaking time predicted leader emergence even after accounting for intelligence, personality and gender. The quiet expert in the corner is routinely overlooked.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Contribute early in each meeting. The first comment makes the next ones easier and stakes your claim to airtime.
• Prepare two or three crisp points in advance so speaking up costs you less.
• If you run meetings, use round-robins or written input first, so influence follows ideas rather than volume.

Secret 6: Anger buys status, but not for everyone

In four studies, people gave more status, and even a higher salary, to someone who expressed anger than to someone who expressed sadness (Tiedens, 2001). Brescoll and Uhlmann (2008) replicated the status boost for angry men. Angry professional women, from trainees to CEOs, were given lower status, and their anger was blamed on their personality rather than the situation. When an external reason for the anger was given, the bias disappeared.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• When you express frustration, name the external cause: "I'm frustrated because the deadline moved without consultation."
• Prefer controlled firmness to displays of temper. It is the safest form of strength for everyone.
• Leaders: check whether you reward the same behaviour differently depending on who shows it.

Secret 7: Self-promotion is a double bind

Self-promotion makes you look competent, but women who self-promoted were rated less likable and less hireable (Rudman, 1998). Successful women in traditionally male roles were rated less likable and more hostile unless there was clear evidence they were also communal (Heilman & Okimoto, 2007). Meanwhile, in experiments with more than 4,000 adults, women rated their own performance lower than equally performing men. On a 0–100 scale the average man gave himself 61 and the average woman 46 for the same score (Exley & Kessler, 2019, 2022).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Self-promote with facts and team framing: "Our launch hit 120% of target. I led the pricing analysis."
• Set up "advocacy swaps" with trusted colleagues who champion each other's wins.
• Before submitting a self-assessment, check it against objective data so you don't undersell yourself.

Secret 8: You are judged in a blink, and the blink sticks

Trait judgments made after seeing a face for just 100 milliseconds closely matched judgments made with unlimited time (Willis & Todorov, 2006). Competence judgments from faces alone, made within a second, predicted the winners of 68.8% of 2004 U.S. Senate races (Todorov et al., 2005). Strangers watching silent clips under 30 seconds long predicted teachers' end-of-semester student evaluations (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1993).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Treat the first minute of any interview, pitch or meeting as part of the content. Rehearse your opening, posture and eye contact.
• In a new role, ask for early feedback and correct a bad start fast. First impressions harden.
• When you evaluate others, slow down and use written criteria instead of gut feel.

Secret 9: The halo effect colours everything, even your height

Students watched the same instructor behave either warmly or coldly. Those who saw the warm version found his appearance and accent appealing; those who saw the cold version found the same traits irritating, and did not realise their overall impression had shaped these ratings (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). In the workplace, a meta-analysis linked physical height to leader emergence and performance ratings, and height predicted income after controlling for sex, age and weight (Judge & Cable, 2004).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Manage your "anchor" reputation, such as "reliable" or "the expert on X". It colours how everything else you do is read.
• Don't accept a missing halo as final. A visible, consistent track record outweighs surface cues over time.
• When rating others, score each criterion separately and in writing to reduce halo spillover.

Secret 10: Out of sight is out of promotion

Simply being seen at work makes people think you are dependable and committed, whatever you produce (Elsbach et al., 2010). In experiments, managers were 9% more likely to call employees with normal face time "dependable" and 25% more likely to call those seen after hours "committed" (Elsbach & Cable, 2012). In a randomised trial at the travel firm Ctrip, home workers performed 13% better, yet their promotion rate, adjusted for performance, fell (Bloom et al., 2015). The working-paper version put the drop at about 50%, an effect the authors note was only weakly significant (Bloom et al., 2013). At a U.S. Fortune 500 call centre, 44.0% of on-site hires were promoted within a year, against 20.9% of remote hires (Emanuel & Harrington, 2024). There is hope: a large trial of hybrid work found no promotion penalty over two years (Bloom et al., 2024).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• If you work remotely, send short weekly outcome summaries and hold regular career conversations, not just task check-ins.
• Use in-office days for high-value contact with your boss, sponsors and cross-team peers, not solo work.
• Leaders: rate outputs, not presence, and audit promotion rates by work location.

Part 2: The hidden rules of reviews, promotions and pay

Secret 11: Your rating says more about the rater than about you

Scullen et al. (2000) studied two large samples of managers, each rated by up to seven people. The raters' own idiosyncrasies, such as their leniency and what they personally value, explained 62% and 53% of the variance in ratings. The manager's actual performance explained far less. Change the rater and your "performance" can change without you changing anything.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Never let one person's impression be the only record of your work. Keep a dated log of measurable results.
• Early in each cycle, ask your manager what "exceeds expectations" means to them, specifically.
• Collect feedback from several stakeholders before review season.

Secret 12: Your rating gets changed in a room you are not in

At many companies your manager's rating is only a draft. A calibration committee meets later and can change it. Demeré et al. (2019) analysed data from a large multinational: committees changed about 25% of ratings, and downward changes were more frequent and larger than upward ones. Committees curbed lenient bosses, but also pushed more people into the middle.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Make sure your manager can make your case in under a minute, with two or three quantified wins.
• Build visibility with the skip-level leaders and peer managers who usually sit on calibration panels.
• Afterwards, ask whether your rating changed in calibration, and why.

Secret 13: The score that decides your promotion is "potential", and you never see it

Many firms rate employees on both performance and "potential", often on a nine-box grid. Potential is subjective and rarely shared. Benson et al. (2026) studied nearly 30,000 management-track employees at a large retailer. Women received lower potential ratings despite higher performance ratings, and that gap explained about half the gender promotion gap. Women then outperformed men who had been given the same potential rating, so the ratings were not accurate forecasts (Benson et al., 2026; Somers, 2022).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Ask directly whether your company uses a potential or nine-box rating, and where you sit on it.
• Find out which behaviours raters treat as "potential" (scope, influence, ambition) and show them deliberately.
• Leaders: require written evidence for every potential rating and audit the results by group.

Secret 14: Being the best at your job is how you get promoted into a job you are bad at

The Peter Principle is real and measurable. Benson et al. (2019) found that firms promote salespeople mainly on current sales, at the expense of traits that predict managerial success. In the working-paper data, doubling a salesperson's sales raised their chance of promotion by 14.3%, yet doubling a new manager's pre-promotion sales was associated with a 7.5% decline in their team's sales (Fitzgerald, 2018). Experience working collaboratively predicted better managers.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• If you want to manage, collect managerial evidence first: mentoring, leading projects, lifting a team's results.
• Ask whether there is a senior individual-contributor track, so you can be rewarded without being made a manager.
• Leaders: promote on the skills of the new job, not the trophies of the old one.

Secret 15: Mentors give advice; sponsors get you promoted

A mentor talks with you. A sponsor spends political capital on you when decisions are made. Ibarra et al. (2010) analysed a Catalyst survey of more than 4,000 high-potential MBA graduates. More women than men had mentors (83% vs. 76%), yet men had received 15% more promotions, and their mentors were more senior. The authors describe high-potential women as "overmentored and undersponsored" (Ibarra et al., 2010, p. 82). Earlier network research found men got bigger career returns from the same network position (Ibarra, 1992).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Ask yourself: who with real power would say my name in a room I'm not in? Build those relationships on purpose.
• Ask senior allies for advocacy, not just advice: "Would you put my name forward for X?"
• Earn sponsorship by delivering for your sponsor and making them look good. It is a two-way exchange.

Secret 16: Being reliable is not the same as being promotable

Someone has to take the notes, organise the offsite and sit on the committee. These "non-promotable tasks" help the organisation but rarely help your career, and they flow to the people expected to say yes. In one university, women faculty were 2.7 times as likely as men to volunteer for a senate committee. In the lab, both men and women asked women more often, and women said yes more often (Babcock et al., 2017). In one organisation the gap reached roughly 200 hours a year (Babcock et al., 2022).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Each quarter, sort your calendar into promotable work (visible, tied to core goals) and everything else.
• Before saying yes, ask: "What should I take off my plate to do this?"
• Leaders: assign office housework by rotation instead of asking for volunteers.

Secret 17: Your boss may be quietly hiding you to keep you

If you are your manager's best performer, losing you hurts their numbers. Haegele (2026) studied a large German manufacturer: about three-quarters of managers admitted to "talent hoarding", which discouraged internal applications. When a manager was about to rotate out, workers' applications for promotion rose by almost 80%, and those applicants were more likely to be hired and to perform well in the new roles (American Economic Association, 2026).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Watch internal job postings yourself. Don't rely on your manager to pass on opportunities.
• Build relationships with leaders outside your reporting line who will tell you about openings.
• Talk about your growth plans early, and help train your successor so letting you go costs less.

Secret 18: Loyalty is underpaid

Bidwell (2011) studied an investment bank and found that external hires were paid about 18% more than insiders promoted into similar jobs, even though the outsiders received lower evaluations for their first two years and left more often. Market data tells the same story: in November 2025, median pay growth was 6.3% for job-changers against 4.4% for people who stayed (ADP Research, 2025). Among Americans who quit in 2021 and found new work, 56% said they were earning more (Parker & Horowitz, 2022).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Benchmark your pay against reputable salary data once a year.
• In raise conversations, bring market evidence and documented results, not appeals to loyalty.
• If you leave, leave well. References and boomerang offers depend on it.

Secret 19: Pay secrecy hides the gap that matters most

Most employees have no idea what their managers earn. In a field experiment with 2,060 employees at a large Asian company, people badly misjudged their managers' salaries. When they learned managers earned more than they thought, they worked harder; when they learned peers earned more, effort fell (Cullen & Perez-Truglia, 2022). Secrecy keeps you from seeing whether the ladder you are climbing is worth it.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Learn your organisation's pay bands and grades. Ask HR where they are not published.
• Where local law gives you pay-transparency rights, use them.
• Talk about pay with trusted peers. In many places, including for most U.S. private-sector employees, this is legally protected.

Secret 20: Companies that boast about meritocracy can be the most biased

In three experiments with 445 people with managerial experience, presenting an organisation as a meritocracy led participants to give a man a bigger bonus than an equally performing woman (Castilla & Benard, 2010). The slogan seemed to license people to trust their gut. And the popular claim that pay gaps exist because "women don't ask" doesn't hold up: in matched employer–employee data, women asked for raises as often as men but were less likely to get them (Artz et al., 2018).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Don't take "we're a meritocracy" at face value. Ask how pay and promotion decisions are documented and reviewed.
• Anchor every request in market data and documented results, and get commitments in writing with dates.
• Leaders: pair merit language with accountability: written criteria, a second reviewer and published audits.

Part 3: The dark side of people at work

Secret 21: The psychopath may already be in your leadership pipeline, rated "charismatic"

Babiak et al. (2010) assessed 203 professionals chosen by their companies for management development. About 3.9% scored at or above the standard research threshold for psychopathy, and on a screening measure the rate was 3% against 0.2% in a community sample. Psychopathy was linked to higher ratings for charisma and presentation, but lower ratings for responsibility and performance. The sample was not representative of business as a whole, but the pattern is a warning: charm can hide poor delivery (Babiak & Hare, 2006).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Judge people by results you can verify, not by how well they present.
• When someone's charm and results don't match, keep dated notes of commitments and outcomes.
• If you sit on talent panels, insist on peer and team data alongside presentation impressions.

Secret 22: Narcissists get picked as leaders, but they don't lead better

Narcissism predicts who emerges as leader in groups (Brunell et al., 2008). A meta-analysis by Grijalva et al. (2015) found narcissism is linked to leadership emergence, largely through extraversion, but has no linear link to leadership effectiveness as rated by others. The narcissist is often the only person who rates their own leadership highly. Moderate levels did best; very high levels did not.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• In selection, weight track records and others' ratings over self-assessment and interview charisma.
• If you report to a highly narcissistic leader, frame proposals around their goals and confirm agreements in writing.
• Build credibility with peers and skip-levels so your reputation doesn't rest on one person.

Secret 23: Power doesn't change a manipulator; it unleashes them

A meta-analysis of more than 43,000 people found all three "Dark Triad" traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy) linked to counterproductive behaviour such as sabotage, theft and aggression (O'Boyle et al., 2012). Wisse and Sleebos (2016) studied 225 work teams: supervisors high in Machiavellianism became abusive only when they felt their position gave them real power. Power works as an amplifier.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Watch how people treat others when they gain authority, after a promotion or a new project, and raise concerns early.
• Keep written records of instructions and decisions so informal power can't rewrite the story.
• Organisations: balance power with skip-level meetings, upward feedback and shared decision rights.

Secret 24: Abusive bosses drive people out, and the damage flows downhill

Employees with abusive supervisors were more likely to quit. Those who stayed reported lower job and life satisfaction, more work–family conflict and more psychological distress (Tepper, 2000). Researchers have estimated the cost to U.S. employers at around $23.8 billion a year (Tepper et al., 2006). Abuse also travels: supervisors who felt wronged by their own employer were more abusive to subordinates, who in turn undermined their families at home (Hoobler & Brass, 2006), and abusive managers predicted abusive supervisors below them (Mawritz et al., 2012).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Keep a private, dated log of incidents, witnesses and emails, stored where your company's policy allows.
• Break the chain: decompress before you go home and don't pass the abuse on to your own team.
• Get early support from HR, an ombudsperson or an employee assistance programme, and keep your options open.

Secret 25: The colleague who helps you and undermines you is the most damaging

Social undermining is the quiet sabotage of someone's reputation, relationships or success. In a study of 685 police officers, undermining was more strongly tied to bad outcomes than support was to good ones. When the same person gave both support and undermining, the results were worse than undermining alone, because you can't trust either signal (Duffy et al., 2002).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Track what a "frenemy" does, not what they say.
• Keep key agreements in writing, and widen your network so no one person controls your information or reputation.
• Address specific behaviour calmly and privately first: "I heard X was said about my project. Can we clear that up?"

Secret 26: "Playing dumb" is a weapon, and it backfires

Colleagues deliberately hide knowledge they were asked for, by playing dumb, being evasive or citing rules. Distrust is a key driver (Connelly et al., 2012). The twist: hiding knowledge reduced the hider's own creativity, because colleagues responded by distrusting them and sharing less in return. The effect was strongest in cut-throat, performance-focused cultures (Černe et al., 2014).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Make requests specific, written and dated, so evasion is visible.
• Build reciprocal sharing relationships and publicly credit people who help you.
• Leaders: reward learning and collaboration, not just individual ranking.

Secret 27: The tall poppy gets cut

Being excellent can make you a target. In a sample of 4,874 employees in 339 work groups, high performers were victimised more often, and envy explained why (Kim & Glomb, 2014). Envious colleagues undermine others while telling themselves it is justified, especially where team norms tolerate it (Duffy et al., 2012). Strong identification with the group weakened the effect.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Share credit generously and make your success visibly help the team, for example by mentoring.
• Keep records of your contributions in case they are later downplayed.
• Name and challenge undermining norms early instead of absorbing them.

Secret 28: Incivility is a hidden tax, and it is contagious

Porath and Pearson (2013) report that 98% of workers they polled had experienced incivility, and by 2011 half said they were treated rudely at least weekly. Among people treated rudely, 48% deliberately cut their effort, 38% cut the quality of their work, 80% lost work time worrying, and 12% left their job. Rudeness also spreads like a cold: one episode makes people more likely to be rude to the next person (Foulk et al., 2016).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Notice when someone else's rudeness is leaking into your own behaviour, and stop the chain.
• Respond early, briefly and privately: "When that happened in the meeting it derailed us. Can we handle it differently?"
• Leaders: model civility and treat repeated rudeness as a performance issue.

Secret 29: Most bullies are bosses, and the target usually loses the job

A meta-analysis of 86 samples and more than 130,000 people put workplace bullying prevalence at about 15% (Nielsen et al., 2010). Bullying is linked to burnout, intentions to quit and symptoms of post-traumatic stress (Nielsen & Einarsen, 2012). In a 2021 U.S. survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute, an advocacy organisation, 65% of bullies were bosses, 60% of employers reacted negatively when bullying was reported, and targets had a 67% chance of losing their job (Workplace Bullying Institute, 2021).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Keep thorough, dated records and save the evidence.
• Learn your organisation's policy and legal protections before you report. Then report in writing, describing behaviour and impact.
• Get outside support, such as a counsellor or employment lawyer, and quietly prepare an exit plan so you keep your options.

Secret 30: The "toxic star" costs more than a superstar earns, and stars get a moral pass

Housman and Minor (2015) analysed more than 50,000 workers across 11 firms. Avoiding one toxic worker saved about $12,489 in turnover costs, more than the roughly $5,303 gained by replacing an average worker with a top-1% performer. Toxic workers were often more productive by quantity, which is why they survive, and their behaviour spread to colleagues. Separately, unethical behaviour was punished socially mainly when the person performed poorly; high performers largely got away with it (Quade et al., 2017).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Don't accept "but they deliver" as a reason to tolerate harm.
• Record the knock-on costs, such as resignations, complaints and rework, and present them in business terms.
• Raise concerns with more than one stakeholder or through ethics channels, so the decision doesn't rest on one manager's tolerance.

Part 4: The shadow organisation: networks, alliances and gossip

Secret 31: The org chart is a fiction

Formal lines show accountability, not how work actually gets done. Real influence moves through advice, trust and communication networks that cut across the boxes (Krackhardt & Hanson, 1993). People who accurately understood who goes to whom for advice were seen as more powerful by colleagues (Krackhardt, 1990). In one firm's senior network, only 3% of discussion ties directly connected managers in different business units (Burt, 2004).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• For each important decision, map who people actually go to for advice, not just who signs off.
• Get input early from the people central in the advice and trust networks.
• Test your map by regularly asking: "Who else should I talk to about this?"

Secret 32: Brokers get promoted; people in closed circles get dismissed

Burt (2004) studied 673 managers at a large electronics company. Pay, positive evaluations, promotions and good ideas went disproportionately to people whose networks bridged groups that didn't otherwise talk. The most bridging managers had a predicted .68 probability of a promotion or above-average raise, against .28 for managers in closed circles, whose ideas were also dismissed more often.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Run every important idea past at least one smart person outside your unit before you pitch it.
• Build an "informal boss": a senior ally outside your reporting line.
• Be an honest broker. Pass information across groups openly. Don't hoard it or play groups against each other.

Secret 33: Your next big break will come from someone you barely know

Granovetter (1973) found that most people who got jobs through contacts saw those contacts only occasionally or rarely. A randomised experiment on LinkedIn involving more than 20 million people confirmed it causally: moderately weak ties produced the most job mobility (Rajkumar et al., 2022). Your inner circle mostly knows what you already know.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Keep up dormant ties on purpose with short check-ins with former colleagues and cross-functional peers.
• Give first: an introduction, a useful article, a hand with a problem.
• Don't confuse collecting contacts with having a network. Moderate, real ties beat random ones.

Secret 34: People don't quit jobs; they quit bosses

Meta-analyses link the quality of your relationship with your manager to your performance ratings, satisfaction, commitment and intention to leave, and show that bosses and employees often see that same relationship differently (Gerstner & Day, 1997; Dulebohn et al., 2012). Gallup reports that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement, and that one in two U.S. adults surveyed had left a job at some point to get away from a manager (Harter & Adkins, 2015).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Don't assume your boss sees the relationship as you do. Ask: "What should I do more of, or less of?"
• Manage up honestly: learn their goals and pressures, and make them succeed.
• If the relationship is beyond repair, build sponsors elsewhere and plan an internal move before it shows in your ratings.

Secret 35: "Culture fit" often means "someone like me"

Rivera (2012) interviewed 120 hiring decision-makers at elite banks, consultancies and law firms. "Fit" ranked among their top three criteria, and more than half called it the most important factor at interview, above analytical ability. Fit was judged largely on shared hobbies and lifestyle. More broadly, similarity shapes who we trust, advise and share information with (McPherson et al., 2001).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• As a candidate or newcomer, find genuine common ground and show what you add that the team lacks.
• If you hire, define "fit" as written values and work behaviours, and score skills before chemistry.
• Audit your own inner circle. If everyone looks like you, your information is narrower than you think.

Secret 36: Flattery works, especially when no one notices it

Meta-analyses show ingratiation (praise, agreement, favours) makes people like you and nudges up evaluations of your work, and it is one of only two influence tactics consistently linked to better outcomes (Gordon, 1996; Higgins et al., 2003). At the top, managers who complimented, deferred to and did favours for their CEO were more likely to win board seats (Westphal & Stern, 2006). One summary of that research found that two extra compliments, one favour and one fewer challenge a year raised the odds by 64% (Kellogg Insight, 2008). Subtle flattery worked best, and women and minorities got smaller returns for the same behaviour (Stern & Westphal, 2010; Westphal & Stern, 2007).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Make appreciation specific and true: "Your framing of the risk changed my mind." Sincerity is what separates credibility from flattery.
• Pair warmth with rational persuasion, the other tactic with proven payoff.
• Disagree privately and with evidence rather than in public ambushes, but never become a yes-person.

Secret 37: People choose the colleague they like over the one who is competent

Casciaro and Lobo (2005) studied work networks in four very different organisations. When choosing who to work with, people's feelings about a colleague mattered more than that colleague's competence. A strongly disliked expert's skills went largely unused, while a likable colleague's abilities were actively sought out.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Be easy to work with: responsive, generous with credit and helpful without keeping score.
• Notice when you avoid a capable but abrasive colleague, and judge whether it is costing you.
• Leaders: give isolated experts structured roles so their knowledge isn't lost.

Secret 38: Gossip is the organisation's reputation-enforcement system

About two-thirds of human conversation is about social topics, much of it gossip, which may have evolved partly to control free-riders (Dunbar, 2004). People who saw selfish behaviour felt better after warning others, and some paid to do so (Feinberg et al., 2012). When groups could gossip and exclude, selfish members were avoided until they started cooperating (Feinberg et al., 2014). People gossip for roughly 52 minutes a day, and most of it is neutral (Robbins & Karan, 2020). In one office study, frequent gossips gained influence with peers but received lower performance ratings from supervisors (Grosser et al., 2010).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Assume every interaction becomes a story told without you, and behave the same with every audience.
• Be a good receiver of informal information but a careful transmitter. Pass on facts, not judgements, and never put negative gossip in writing.
• If someone spreads a damaging account, correct it calmly and directly with the people who matter.

Secret 39: The most generous helpers get punished for it

Across more than 300 organisations, 20–35% of value-added collaborations came from just 3–5% of employees. The people seen as the best collaborators had the lowest engagement and career satisfaction, because requests kept flowing to them until their own work and wellbeing suffered (Cross et al., 2016).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Track where your collaboration time goes for two weeks.
• Redirect requests that don't need your unique expertise: "Talk to Sam; she knows this best."
• Set boundaries, such as office hours or giving half the time requested. Leaders: make "assists" count at review time.

Secret 40: The real decision is made before the meeting

Political scientists Bachrach and Baratz (1962) described the "second face" of power: the ability to keep issues off the agenda entirely, so decisions are limited to safe topics. By the time an issue reaches a formal meeting, its framing and often its outcome are already shaped. This is a well-established theory rather than a measured statistic, but it matches network evidence that ideas tested across groups beforehand fare better (Burt, 2004).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Before a key meeting, brief the main stakeholders one-on-one and fold their concerns into your proposal.
• Notice who sets agendas and frames the options, and ask early to get your item on the list.
• Do it openly. Pre-wiring is consultation, not backroom dealing, so share the same facts with everyone.

Part 5: HR, speaking up, layoffs and how people really get pushed out

Secret 41: HR's first client is the organisation, not you

MIT scholar Thomas Kochan argued that the HR profession faces a crisis of trust, and that its push to become a "strategic business partner" tilted the balance away from employees (Kochan, 2004). A study of how HR professionals describe their own work found business partnering dominates, crowding out concern for employee wellbeing (Francis & Keegan, 2006). HR can be genuinely helpful, but its job is to manage the organisation's risk. What you tell HR is not confidential the way a conversation with your own lawyer is.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Treat HR as a formal channel. Assume what you say may be recorded and shared with management and legal.
• Put important concerns in writing, stick to dated facts and keep your own copies.
• For anything with legal stakes, such as discrimination, harassment, retaliation or severance, get independent advice from an employment lawyer.

Secret 42: Retaliation is the number-one complaint to the EEOC

The most common thing U.S. workers allege to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is not race, sex or age discrimination. It is being punished for complaining. Retaliation appeared in 61.6% of all charges in fiscal year 2025, and has been the most cited basis every year since 2009 (EEOC, n.d.). Only 6–13% of people who experience harassment file a formal complaint, and one study found 75% of employees who spoke out against mistreatment faced some form of retaliation (Feldblum & Lipnic, 2016; Cortina & Magley, 2003). The EEOC's own task force concluded that the fears stopping people from reporting are well-founded (Feldblum & Lipnic, 2016).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Before you complain, write a contemporaneous, dated, factual record: who, what, when and any witnesses.
• Complain in writing and keep the acknowledgement. In many jurisdictions protection attaches to the complaint itself.
• Afterwards, log any adverse changes to schedule, assignments, reviews or inclusion, and check legal deadlines with a lawyer. They can be short.

Secret 43: Nearly half of whistleblowers report being punished

The 2023 Global Business Ethics Survey covered more than 70,000 employees in 42 countries. It found that 46% of employees who reported misconduct experienced retaliation, a rate the Ethics & Compliance Initiative describes as being at an all-time high (Ethics & Compliance Initiative, 2023). A meta-analysis shows that the organisational context, not just personal courage, shapes what happens to people who blow the whistle (Mesmer-Magnus & Viswesvaran, 2005).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Before reporting, look at how past reporters were treated. It is the best predictor you have.
• Use documented channels, keep copies of what you submitted, and ask in writing which anti-retaliation protections apply.
• For serious legal or regulatory wrongdoing, get advice early. Protected external channels may exist.

Secret 44: Silence is the norm, because people fear the label

In interviews with employees across industries, 85% said they had at least once felt unable to raise an important concern with their boss. The top reason was fear of being labelled negatively and damaging relationships (Milliken et al., 2003). Organisational silence is often created from the top, by leaders who don't want to hear bad news (Morrison & Milliken, 2000). People also carry unwritten rules about when speaking up is risky (Detert & Edmondson, 2011). Where teams feel psychologically safe, they learn and perform better (Edmondson, 1999).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Frame concerns around shared goals and bring a proposed solution and data, not blame.
• Test the waters with a trusted peer first. Where safety is low, raise issues in writing or with allies.
• If you lead, ask for bad news explicitly and thank the messenger. Your reaction trains the whole team.

Secret 45: Challenging the status quo can quietly lower your rating

Organisations say they want people to push back. Yet in one field study and two experiments, managers rated employees who used challenging voice as worse performers and endorsed their ideas less than employees who voiced support. The penalty ran through how loyal and how threatening the speaker seemed (Burris, 2012).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Open a challenge by stating your commitment to the shared goal: "I want this launch to succeed, which is why…"
• Raise challenges privately first, with evidence and a proposed fix.
• Keep a record of your results so your review rests on outcomes, not impressions.

Secret 46: Being frozen out hurts more than harassment, and rarely breaks a rule

You may never be told you are unwanted. You just stop being invited, copied in or consulted. Across three studies, employees saw ostracism as more acceptable and less harmful than harassment. In reality it was more strongly linked to lower belonging, worse wellbeing and worse work attitudes, and it predicted people actually leaving three years later (O'Reilly et al., 2015).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Notice patterns early, such as being dropped from meetings, threads or one-on-ones, and log them with dates.
• Raise it as a work problem, not a feelings problem: "I need to be in X to deliver Y." Then confirm the answer by email.
• Invest in relationships beyond your manager, and quietly prepare options in case the freeze-out is the first step of an exit.

Secret 47: The promises that got you hired are routinely broken

Robinson and Rousseau (1994) surveyed 128 management graduates when they were hired and again two years later. A majority, 54.8%, said their employer had broken the promises made during recruitment. Those broken promises were linked to lower trust and satisfaction and to higher turnover.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Get key promises into your offer letter or a follow-up email: title, scope, pay review dates and development commitments.
• Revisit them in scheduled check-ins and raise gaps early and factually.
• If commitments keep slipping, treat that as information about the organisation, and plan accordingly.

Secret 48: Layoff lists are built on paper, and the paper trail decides who goes

Layoffs rarely deliver what executives promise. A study of S&P 500 firms found pure "downsizers" did not earn better returns than their peers (Cascio et al., 1997), and downsizing predicts more voluntary turnover among the people who remain (Trevor & Nyberg, 2008). When cuts do happen, SHRM Foundation guidance recommends a selection funnel: critical skills first, then performance ratings, then disciplinary records, with seniority as a tiebreaker. It also notes that downsizing can be used to address long-standing performance problems, and advises firms to document their criteria (Cascio, 2009). The human stakes are real: for long-tenured workers, job loss was followed by a 50–100% jump in mortality in the following year (Sullivan & von Wachter, 2009).

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Make sure your skills match what the business calls strategic, and keep that visible in writing.
• Never leave a review you disagree with unanswered. Add a short, factual written response to your file.
• If layoffs are rumoured, update your CV and network now. If you are selected, ask what criteria were used, and have a lawyer review any severance agreement before you sign.

Secret 49: When results go bad, the powerful pick a scapegoat

Boeker (1992) studied 67 organisations over 22 years. During downturns, powerful CEOs were less likely to be dismissed. Instead they shifted the blame onto their top managers, who were replaced while the CEO stayed. Blame flows downhill toward whoever has the least power to resist it.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• On risky projects, keep a simple decision log: what was decided, by whom, and what risks you raised.
• Make ownership of key calls explicit. Don't silently absorb accountability for decisions made above you.
• Build visibility beyond your direct boss so your contribution is known if blame starts to move.

Secret 50: You probably have fewer job protections than you think

In the United States most employment is "at will": you can be dismissed for almost any reason that isn't illegal, or for no reason at all. Yet in one survey, as many as 89% of workers wrongly believed they were legally protected from arbitrary or unfair dismissal (Kim, 1997). Believing you are safer than you are is the most expensive mistake on this list.

How to protect yourself and thrive:

• Learn the real rules where you work: at-will status, notice periods, protected characteristics, and whistleblower and retaliation laws. They vary widely.
• Read your contract and handbook for any promises about discipline or termination, and keep copies.
• For senior roles or relocations, negotiate notice, severance or "for cause" terms up front, with an employment lawyer's advice.

How to survive and thrive: your 10-point action plan

You don't need to become a schemer to survive corporate politics. You need to stop being naive about it. Across all 50 secrets, the same ethical counter-moves come up again and again:

1. Keep an impact log. Dated, measurable results protect you from biased raters, calibration rooms and scapegoating.
2. Make your work visible. Short outcome updates beat long hours nobody sees.
3. Find sponsors, not just mentors. You need someone powerful who will say your name in rooms you are not in.
4. Build bridges across groups. Brokers learn more, are trusted more and are promoted more.
5. Invest in your boss relationship early. The first weeks set the pattern.
6. Put important things in writing. Promises, agreements, complaints and decisions.
7. Speak up skilfully. Lead with the shared goal, bring data and a solution, and go private before public.
8. Guard your calendar. Say no to office housework that doesn't move your career.
9. Know your real rights. Learn the law where you work before you need it.
10. Stay decent. The research is clear that toxic tactics spread, backfire and eventually cost the people who use them.

Want to turn these insights into real leadership skill? Take our free Leadership Flex Check to see how you lead under pressure, then explore BLTI's leadership and management courses.

Frequently asked questions

What is corporate politics?

Corporate politics, also called office politics or organisational politics, is the informal use of relationships, influence, information and perception to get things done and get ahead at work. It operates alongside the formal org chart and often decides outcomes the formal process only confirms.

Is playing office politics unethical?

Not in itself. Research treats "political skill", meaning reading people, networking and influencing sincerely, as a measurable competence that predicts career success (Munyon et al., 2015). What becomes unethical is manipulation, sabotage, knowledge hiding and taking credit, which the research also shows tend to backfire.

How do I protect myself from a toxic boss or colleague?

Keep dated, factual records; put agreements in writing; build relationships beyond the person causing harm; raise concerns through formal channels in writing; and get independent advice, such as from an employee assistance programme or employment lawyer, before the situation escalates.

Is HR on my side?

HR's primary role is to protect the organisation and manage its risk (Kochan, 2004). Many HR professionals genuinely help employees, but treat HR as a formal channel, not a confidential advocate, and seek independent legal advice for anything with legal stakes.

How do I get promoted if I'm not good at politics?

Start small: keep an impact log, send brief outcome updates, build one cross-team relationship a month, and ask a senior leader who knows your work to sponsor you for a specific opportunity. These habits capture most of the benefit of "politics" without compromising your integrity.

About this research

This guide was compiled by the Better Leaders Training Institute (BLTI) research team. Every source below was checked for authors, year, title, publisher and DOI or stable link. We prioritised peer-reviewed studies, meta-analyses, official government data and large reputable surveys. Where a figure comes from a working paper, an advocacy organisation or a secondary summary, we say so in the text. Findings from individual studies describe averages and specific samples; your organisation may differ. This article is general information, not legal, medical or financial advice.

References

ADP Research. (2025, December 3). ADP National Employment Report: Private sector employment shed 32,000 jobs in November; annual pay was up 4.4% [Press release]. https://mediacenter.adp.com/2025-12-03-ADP-National-Employment-Report-Private-Sector-Employment-Shed-32,000-Jobs-in-November-Annual-Pay-was-Up-4-4

Ambady, N., & Rosenthal, R. (1993). Half a minute: Predicting teacher evaluations from thin slices of nonverbal behavior and physical attractiveness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(3), 431–441. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.64.3.431

American Economic Association. (2026, August 26). Talent hoarding in organizations [Research highlight]. https://www.aeaweb.org/research/talent-hoarding-organizations-germany

Anderson, C., Brion, S., Moore, D. A., & Kennedy, J. A. (2012). A status-enhancement account of overconfidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(4), 718–735. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029395

Anderson, C., & Kilduff, G. J. (2009). Why do dominant personalities attain influence in face-to-face groups? The competence-signaling effects of trait dominance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(2), 491–503. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0014201

Artz, B., Goodall, A. H., & Oswald, A. J. (2018). Do women ask? Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 57(4), 611–636. https://doi.org/10.1111/irel.12214

Babcock, L., Peyser, B., Vesterlund, L., & Weingart, L. (2022). The no club: Putting a stop to women's dead-end work. Simon & Schuster.

Babcock, L., Recalde, M. P., Vesterlund, L., & Weingart, L. (2017). Gender differences in accepting and receiving requests for tasks with low promotability. American Economic Review, 107(3), 714–747. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20141734

Babiak, P., & Hare, R. D. (2006). Snakes in suits: When psychopaths go to work. HarperCollins.

Babiak, P., Neumann, C. S., & Hare, R. D. (2010). Corporate psychopathy: Talking the walk. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 28(2), 174–193. https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.925

Bachrach, P., & Baratz, M. S. (1962). Two faces of power. American Political Science Review, 56(4), 947–952. https://doi.org/10.2307/1952796

Benson, A., Li, D., & Shue, K. (2019). Promotions and the Peter Principle. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(4), 2085–2134. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjz022

Benson, A., Li, D., & Shue, K. (2026). "Potential" and the gender promotion gap. American Economic Review, 116(2), 375–417. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20220831

Bidwell, M. (2011). Paying more to get less: The effects of external hiring versus internal mobility. Administrative Science Quarterly, 56(3), 369–407. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839211433562

Bloom, N., Han, R., & Liang, J. (2024). Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance. Nature, 630(8018), 920–925. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07500-2

Bloom, N., Liang, J., Roberts, J., & Ying, Z. J. (2013). Does working from home work? Evidence from a Chinese experiment (NBER Working Paper No. 18871). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w18871

Bloom, N., Liang, J., Roberts, J., & Ying, Z. J. (2015). Does working from home work? Evidence from a Chinese experiment. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(1), 165–218. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qju032

Boeker, W. (1992). Power and managerial dismissal: Scapegoating at the top. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37(3), 400–421. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393450

Brescoll, V. L., & Uhlmann, E. L. (2008). Can an angry woman get ahead? Status conferral, gender, and expression of emotion in the workplace. Psychological Science, 19(3), 268–275. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02079.x

Brunell, A. B., Gentry, W. A., Campbell, W. K., Hoffman, B. J., Kuhnert, K. W., & DeMarree, K. G. (2008). Leader emergence: The case of the narcissistic leader. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(12), 1663–1676. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167208324101

Burris, E. R. (2012). The risks and rewards of speaking up: Managerial responses to employee voice. Academy of Management Journal, 55(4), 851–875. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2010.0562

Burt, R. S. (2004). Structural holes and good ideas. American Journal of Sociology, 110(2), 349–399. https://doi.org/10.1086/421787

Casciaro, T., & Lobo, M. S. (2005). Competent jerks, lovable fools, and the formation of social networks. Harvard Business Review, 83(6), 92–99. https://hbr.org/2005/06/competent-jerks-lovable-fools-and-the-formation-of-social-networks

Cascio, W. F. (2009). Employment downsizing and its alternatives: Strategies for long-term success. SHRM Foundation. https://www.shrm.org/content/dam/en/shrm/topics-tools/news/hr-magazine/Employment-Downsizing.pdf

Cascio, W. F., Young, C. E., & Morris, J. R. (1997). Financial consequences of employment-change decisions in major U.S. corporations. Academy of Management Journal, 40(5), 1175–1189. https://doi.org/10.2307/256931

Castilla, E. J., & Benard, S. (2010). The paradox of meritocracy in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55(4), 543–576. https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.2010.55.4.543

Černe, M., Nerstad, C. G. L., Dysvik, A., & Škerlavaj, M. (2014). What goes around comes around: Knowledge hiding, perceived motivational climate, and creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 57(1), 172–192. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2012.0122

Connelly, C. E., Zweig, D., Webster, J., & Trougakos, J. P. (2012). Knowledge hiding in organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33(1), 64–88. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.737

Cortina, L. M., & Magley, V. J. (2003). Raising voice, risking retaliation: Events following interpersonal mistreatment in the workplace. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 8(4), 247–265. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.8.4.247

Cross, R., Rebele, R., & Grant, A. (2016). Collaborative overload. Harvard Business Review, 94(1), 74–79. https://hbr.org/2016/01/collaborative-overload

Cullen, Z., & Perez-Truglia, R. (2022). How much does your boss make? The effects of salary comparisons. Journal of Political Economy, 130(3), 766–822. https://doi.org/10.1086/717891

Demeré, B. W., Sedatole, K. L., & Woods, A. (2019). The role of calibration committees in subjective performance evaluation systems. Management Science, 65(4), 1562–1585. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.3025

Detert, J. R., & Edmondson, A. C. (2011). Implicit voice theories: Taken-for-granted rules of self-censorship at work. Academy of Management Journal, 54(3), 461–488. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2011.61967925

Duffy, M. K., Ganster, D. C., & Pagon, M. (2002). Social undermining in the workplace. Academy of Management Journal, 45(2), 331–351. https://doi.org/10.5465/3069350

Duffy, M. K., Scott, K. L., Shaw, J. D., Tepper, B. J., & Aquino, K. (2012). A social context model of envy and social undermining. Academy of Management Journal, 55(3), 643–666. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2009.0804

Dulebohn, J. H., Bommer, W. H., Liden, R. C., Brouer, R. L., & Ferris, G. R. (2012). A meta-analysis of antecedents and consequences of leader-member exchange: Integrating the past with an eye toward the future. Journal of Management, 38(6), 1715–1759. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206311415280

Dunbar, R. I. M. (2004). Gossip in evolutionary perspective. Review of General Psychology, 8(2), 100–110. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.8.2.100

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

Elsbach, K. D., & Cable, D. M. (2012, June 19). Why showing your face at work matters. MIT Sloan Management Review. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/why-showing-your-face-at-work-matters/

Elsbach, K. D., Cable, D. M., & Sherman, J. W. (2010). How passive "face time" affects perceptions of employees: Evidence of spontaneous trait inference. Human Relations, 63(6), 735–760. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726709353139

Emanuel, N., & Harrington, E. (2024). Working remotely? Selection, treatment, and the market for remote work. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 16(4), 528–559. https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20230376

Ethics & Compliance Initiative. (2023). The state of ethics & compliance in the workplace: A global look (2023 Global Business Ethics Survey). https://www.ethics.org/gbes-2023/

Exley, C. L., & Kessler, J. B. (2019). The gender gap in self-promotion (NBER Working Paper No. 26345). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w26345

Exley, C. L., & Kessler, J. B. (2022). The gender gap in self-promotion. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 137(3), 1345–1381. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjac003

Feinberg, M., Willer, R., & Schultz, M. (2014). Gossip and ostracism promote cooperation in groups. Psychological Science, 25(3), 656–664. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613510184

Feinberg, M., Willer, R., Stellar, J., & Keltner, D. (2012). The virtues of gossip: Reputational information sharing as prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102(5), 1015–1030. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026650

Feldblum, C. R., & Lipnic, V. A. (2016). Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace: Report of co-chairs. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/migrated_files/eeoc/task_force/harassment/report.pdf

Fitzgerald, J. (2018, May). The Peter Principle isn't just real, it's costly. NBER Digest. https://www.nber.org/digest/may18/peter-principle-isnt-just-real-its-costly

Foulk, T., Woolum, A., & Erez, A. (2016). Catching rudeness is like catching a cold: The contagion effects of low-intensity negative behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(1), 50–67. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000037

Francis, H., & Keegan, A. (2006). The changing face of HRM: In search of balance. Human Resource Management Journal, 16(3), 231–249. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-8583.2006.00016.x

Gabarro, J. J., & Kotter, J. P. (2005). Managing your boss. Harvard Business Review, 83(1), 92–99. (Original work published 1980). https://hbr.org/2005/01/managing-your-boss

Gerstner, C. R., & Day, D. V. (1997). Meta-analytic review of leader–member exchange theory: Correlates and construct issues. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(6), 827–844. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.82.6.827

Gordon, R. A. (1996). Impact of ingratiation on judgments and evaluations: A meta-analytic investigation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71(1), 54–70. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.71.1.54

Graen, G. B., & Uhl-Bien, M. (1995). Relationship-based approach to leadership: Development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years: Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective. The Leadership Quarterly, 6(2), 219–247. https://doi.org/10.1016/1048-9843(95)90036-5

Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380. https://doi.org/10.1086/225469

Grijalva, E., Harms, P. D., Newman, D. A., Gaddis, B. H., & Fraley, R. C. (2015). Narcissism and leadership: A meta-analytic review of linear and nonlinear relationships. Personnel Psychology, 68(1), 1–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12072

Grosser, T. J., Lopez-Kidwell, V., & Labianca, G. (2010). A social network analysis of positive and negative gossip in organizational life. Group & Organization Management, 35(2), 177–212. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601109360391

Haegele, I. (2026). Talent hoarding in organizations. American Economic Review, 116(8), 3110–3151. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20220264

Harter, J., & Adkins, A. (2015, April 8). Employees want a lot more from their managers. Gallup. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236570/employees-lot-managers.aspx

Heilman, M. E., & Okimoto, T. G. (2007). Why are women penalized for success at male tasks? The implied communality deficit. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(1), 81–92. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.1.81

Higgins, C. A., Judge, T. A., & Ferris, G. R. (2003). Influence tactics and work outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24(1), 89–106. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.181

Hoobler, J. M., & Brass, D. J. (2006). Abusive supervision and family undermining as displaced aggression. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(5), 1125–1133. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.91.5.1125

Housman, M., & Minor, D. (2015). Toxic workers (Harvard Business School Working Paper No. 16-057). Harvard Business School. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:23481825

Ibarra, H. (1992). Homophily and differential returns: Sex differences in network structure and access in an advertising firm. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37(3), 422–447. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393451

Ibarra, H., Carter, N. M., & Silva, C. (2010). Why men still get more promotions than women. Harvard Business Review, 88(9), 80–85. https://hbr.org/2010/09/why-men-still-get-more-promotions-than-women

Judge, T. A., & Cable, D. M. (2004). The effect of physical height on workplace success and income: Preliminary test of a theoretical model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(3), 428–441. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.3.428

Kellogg Insight. (2008, April 1). Ingratiating behavior provides alternative path to the boardroom. Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/ingratiating_behavior_provides_alternative_path_to_the_boardroom

Kennedy, J. A., Anderson, C., & Moore, D. A. (2013). When overconfidence is revealed to others: Testing the status-enhancement theory of overconfidence. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 122(2), 266–279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2013.08.005

Kim, E., & Glomb, T. M. (2014). Victimization of high performers: The roles of envy and work group identification. Journal of Applied Psychology, 99(4), 619–634. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035789

Kim, P. T. (1997). Bargaining with imperfect information: A study of worker perceptions of legal protection in an at-will world. Cornell Law Review, 83(1), 105. https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clr/vol83/iss1/2

Kochan, T. A. (2004). Restoring trust in the human resource management profession. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 42(2), 132–146. https://doi.org/10.1177/1038411104045352

Krackhardt, D. (1990). Assessing the political landscape: Structure, cognition, and power in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(2), 342–369. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393394

Krackhardt, D., & Hanson, J. R. (1993). Informal networks: The company behind the chart. Harvard Business Review, 71(4), 104–111. https://hbr.org/1993/07/informal-networks-the-company-behind-the-chart

Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., & Stilwell, D. (1993). A longitudinal study on the early development of leader-member exchanges. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78(4), 662–674. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.78.4.662

MacLaren, N. G., Yammarino, F. J., Dionne, S. D., Sayama, H., Mumford, M. D., Connelly, S., Martin, R. W., Mulhearn, T. J., Todd, E. M., Kulkarni, A., Cao, Y., & Ruark, G. A. (2020). Testing the babble hypothesis: Speaking time predicts leader emergence in small groups. The Leadership Quarterly, 31(5), Article 101409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2020.101409

Mawritz, M. B., Mayer, D. M., Hoobler, J. M., Wayne, S. J., & Marinova, S. V. (2012). A trickle-down model of abusive supervision. Personnel Psychology, 65(2), 325–357. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2012.01246.x

McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., & Cook, J. M. (2001). Birds of a feather: Homophily in social networks. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 415–444. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.415

Mesmer-Magnus, J. R., & Viswesvaran, C. (2005). Whistleblowing in organizations: An examination of correlates of whistleblowing intentions, actions, and retaliation. Journal of Business Ethics, 62(3), 277–297. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-005-0849-1

Milliken, F. J., Morrison, E. W., & Hewlin, P. F. (2003). An exploratory study of employee silence: Issues that employees don't communicate upward and why. Journal of Management Studies, 40(6), 1453–1476. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6486.00387

Morrison, E. W., & Milliken, F. J. (2000). Organizational silence: A barrier to change and development in a pluralistic world. Academy of Management Review, 25(4), 706–725. https://doi.org/10.2307/259200

Munyon, T. P., Summers, J. K., Thompson, K. M., & Ferris, G. R. (2015). Political skill and work outcomes: A theoretical extension, meta-analytic investigation, and agenda for the future. Personnel Psychology, 68(1), 143–184. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12066

Nielsen, M. B., & Einarsen, S. (2012). Outcomes of exposure to workplace bullying: A meta-analytic review. Work & Stress, 26(4), 309–332. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2012.734709

Nielsen, M. B., Matthiesen, S. B., & Einarsen, S. (2010). The impact of methodological moderators on prevalence rates of workplace bullying. A meta-analysis. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83(4), 955–979. https://doi.org/10.1348/096317909X481256

Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). The halo effect: Evidence for unconscious alteration of judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(4), 250–256. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.35.4.250

O'Boyle, E. H., Jr., Forsyth, D. R., Banks, G. C., & McDaniel, M. A. (2012). A meta-analysis of the Dark Triad and work behavior: A social exchange perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(3), 557–579. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025679

O'Reilly, J., Robinson, S. L., Berdahl, J. L., & Banki, S. (2015). Is negative attention better than no attention? The comparative effects of ostracism and harassment at work. Organization Science, 26(3), 774–793. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2014.0900

Parker, K., & Horowitz, J. M. (2022, March 9). Majority of workers who quit a job in 2021 cite low pay, no opportunities for advancement, feeling disrespected. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/09/majority-of-workers-who-quit-a-job-in-2021-cite-low-pay-no-opportunities-for-advancement-feeling-disrespected/

Pfeffer, J. (2010a). Power: Why some people have it—and others don't. HarperBusiness.

Pfeffer, J. (2010b). Power play. Harvard Business Review, 88(7/8). https://hbr.org/2010/07/power-play

Porath, C., & Pearson, C. (2013). The price of incivility. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2013/01/the-price-of-incivility

Quade, M. J., Greenbaum, R. L., & Petrenko, O. V. (2017). "I don't want to be near you, unless…": The interactive effect of unethical behavior and performance onto relationship conflict and workplace ostracism. Personnel Psychology, 70(3), 675–709. https://doi.org/10.1111/peps.12164

Rajkumar, K., Saint-Jacques, G., Bojinov, I., Brynjolfsson, E., & Aral, S. (2022). A causal test of the strength of weak ties. Science, 377(6612), 1304–1310. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abl4476

Rivera, L. A. (2012). Hiring as cultural matching: The case of elite professional service firms. American Sociological Review, 77(6), 999–1022. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122412463213

Robbins, M. L., & Karan, A. (2020). Who gossips and how in everyday life? Social Psychological and Personality Science, 11(2), 185–195. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550619837000

Robinson, S. L., & Rousseau, D. M. (1994). Violating the psychological contract: Not the exception but the norm. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 15(3), 245–259. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030150306

Rudman, L. A. (1998). Self-promotion as a risk factor for women: The costs and benefits of counterstereotypical impression management. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(3), 629–645. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.3.629

Scullen, S. E., Mount, M. K., & Goff, M. (2000). Understanding the latent structure of job performance ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(6), 956–970. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.85.6.956

Somers, M. (2022, April 12). Women are less likely than men to be promoted. Here's one reason why. MIT Sloan Ideas Made to Matter. https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/women-are-less-likely-men-to-be-promoted-heres-one-reason-why

Stern, I., & Westphal, J. D. (2010). Stealthy footsteps to the boardroom: Executives' backgrounds, sophisticated interpersonal influence behavior, and board appointments. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55(2), 278–319. https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.2010.55.2.278

Sullivan, D., & von Wachter, T. (2009). Job displacement and mortality: An analysis using administrative data. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 124(3), 1265–1306. https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2009.124.3.1265

Tepper, B. J. (2000). Consequences of abusive supervision. Academy of Management Journal, 43(2), 178–190. https://doi.org/10.5465/1556375

Tepper, B. J., Duffy, M. K., Henle, C. A., & Lambert, L. S. (2006). Procedural injustice, victim precipitation, and abusive supervision. Personnel Psychology, 59(1), 101–123. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2006.00725.x

Tiedens, L. Z. (2001). Anger and advancement versus sadness and subjugation: The effect of negative emotion expressions on social status conferral. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1), 86–94. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.80.1.86

Todorov, A., Mandisodza, A. N., Goren, A., & Hall, C. C. (2005). Inferences of competence from faces predict election outcomes. Science, 308(5728), 1623–1626. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1110589

Trevor, C. O., & Nyberg, A. J. (2008). Keeping your headcount when all about you are losing theirs: Downsizing, voluntary turnover rates, and the moderating role of HR practices. Academy of Management Journal, 51(2), 259–276. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2008.31767250

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (n.d.). Table E1a. Charge receipts by basis or statute (all statutes) FY 1997 – FY 2025 [Data set]. Retrieved October 23, 2026, from https://www.eeoc.gov/data/enforcement-and-litigation-statistics-0

Wayne, S. J., & Liden, R. C. (1995). Effects of impression management on performance ratings: A longitudinal study. Academy of Management Journal, 38(1), 232–260. https://doi.org/10.5465/256734

Westphal, J. D., & Stern, I. (2006). The other pathway to the boardroom: Interpersonal influence behavior as a substitute for elite credentials and majority status in obtaining board appointments. Administrative Science Quarterly, 51(2), 169–204. https://doi.org/10.2189/asqu.51.2.169

Westphal, J. D., & Stern, I. (2007). Flattery will get you everywhere (especially if you are a male Caucasian): How ingratiation, boardroom behavior, and demographic minority status affect additional board appointments at U.S. companies. Academy of Management Journal, 50(2), 267–288. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2007.24634434

Willis, J., & Todorov, A. (2006). First impressions: Making up your mind after a 100-ms exposure to a face. Psychological Science, 17(7), 592–598. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01750.x

Wisse, B., & Sleebos, E. (2016). When the dark ones gain power: Perceived position power strengthens the effect of supervisor Machiavellianism on abusive supervision in work teams. Personality and Individual Differences, 99, 122–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.05.019

Workplace Bullying Institute. (2021). 2021 WBI U.S. workplace bullying survey. https://workplacebullying.org/2021-wbi-survey/

Videos

Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2019, March 26). Why do so many incompetent men become leaders? [Video]. TEDx Talks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeAEFEXvcBg

Edmondson, A. (2014, May 4). Building a psychologically safe workplace [Video]. TEDx Talks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhoLuui9gX8

Grant, A. (2017, January 24). Are you a giver or a taker? [Video]. TED. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyXRYgjQXX0

Heffernan, M. (2015, June 16). Why it's time to forget the pecking order at work [Video]. TED. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vyn_xLrtZaY

Hewlett, S. A. (2014, July 29). Want to lead? Be well spoken and well dressed [Video]. Big Think. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cJ5mG8Ml64

LaBianca, J. (2011, October 5). Gossip networks in organizations [Video]. TEDx Talks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5M2mBk2FKE

Pfeffer, J., & Levin, J. (2023, May 18). "Power" fireside chat: Professor Jeff Pfeffer and Dean Jon Levin [Video]. Stanford Graduate School of Business. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXtVfrzPYqE

Porath, C. (2018, October 24). Why being respectful to your coworkers is good for business [Video]. TED. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YY1ERM-NIBY

Sutton, R. I. (2017, October 23). How to outwit workplace jerks [Video]. Stanford eCorner. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFTkQmPw2Gk