Your chances for success will depend on your ability to judge the person whose rising star you are hitching your wagon to. You are gambling on his ability to get there. You are gambling on his continued faithfulness to those who have supported him. You are also leaving a great deal to luck, because there are so many variables and unknowns in this method.
Concerning his abilities, you must judge his performance and knowledge. You must sense his personal relations with others of equal or greater power. In this area, there is a real problem because the man or men in power above him may react to him differently than you assume. You must understand his political abilities and the strength of his ambitious drives. If you prove to be wrong in any of your judgments, you will have wasted a lot of time and energy and may end up in a worse position than the one in which you started.
If the man is solidly ambitious and wise in his ambition, he will probably use your support to get to the top, but no matter what he promises he will have to fight to stay on top. To do this, he will put in responsible positions the people who will produce and make him look good. If your contribution has merely been support, he may well decide that you have nothing else to offer.
If he is the kind of man who rewards the flatterers and the yes-men, you should know that his position is precarious, and that your situation is even more tenuous. That this approach has worked in the past and will continue to work for some in the future does not change the fact that such success is shaky.
A word about being a yes-man. If you are successful at this, I would seriously question the health of the company you work for. The executive who requires agreement from the men around him will usually have a warped picture of the facts and of the atmosphere in his company, because his subordinates will tell him only what he wants to hear.
Experts on Bandwagon-Hitching
The time men spend in trying to impress others they could spend in doing the things by which others would be impressed. Frank Romer
There is no other way of guarding one's self against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect. Machiavelli
Do not waste a minute-not a second-in trying to demonstrate to others the merits of your performance. If your work does not vindicate itself, you cannot vindicate it. Thomas W. Higginson
The only influence worth having is the influence you yourself create. Don't whine about the influence the other fellow enjoys. If he has it, depend upon it that he has earned it by his own honest, praiseworthy effort. Start in and earn influence for yourself. Everybody is willing to back a sure winner. Demonstrate that you are a winner. Prove that you have ability and that you know how to use it intelligently, loyally, enthusiastically. Deliver the goods. Part of your reward will consist of influence. B. C. Forbes
In a politicking organization, conditions can grow so rotten that the top men will have to go. Then the new man has no recourse but to "clean house," and the first ones to go are the sycophants who hitched their wagons to the boss. Richard P. Calhoon
Our business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves-to break our own records, to out strip our yesterday by our today, to do our work with more force than ever before. Stewart B. Johnson
Every organization, public and private, has its share of apple polishers; but the organization that gives aid and comfort to them-rewards and promotes them to high positions-is asking for trouble. Most apple polishers are nice people: witty, articulate, personable, diligent, well-educated, and, without a doubt, they will always be with us. But the executive who surrounds himself with such worthies will be the last to know of impending trouble. Why? Because he will be insulated from the facts of life by people who build their careers telling the boss what he wants to hear. Like sundials, they report only the sunny hours. Edward M. Cook
Take two workers in an organization. One limits his giving by wages he is paid. He insists on being paid instantly for what he does. That shows he is a man of limited imagination and intelligence. The other is a natural giver. His philosophy of life compels him to make himself useful. He knows that if he takes care of other people's problems they will be forced to take care of him to protect their own interests. The more a man gives of himself to his work, the more he will get out of it, both in wages and satisfaction. J. T. Mackey
Ingratiation raises important problems in human relations and self-knowledge. Much of our understanding of the world around us, and of ourselves, comes to us indirectly through the impressions we get from others. In particular, self-evaluation is to a large extent determined by how others judge us-personal qualities like friendliness, respectability, or moral worth can only be assessed by social means or mirrored in the reactions of others. Since ingratiation subverts this response, it is a threat to normal interaction and to reliable information. Like the traditional Hollywood producer and his yes-men, the executive surrounded by ingratiates may find himself adrift in a sea of uncertainties in which the only markers are the selfish interest of his advisers. Edward E. Jones
But when I tell him he hates flatterers, He says he does, being then most flattered. Shakespeare
