There’s a moment in the American sitcom The Office where Michael Scott, the paper-company branch boss played by Steve Carell, explains how he wants employees to treat him. “I don’t want somebody sucking up to me because they think I’m going to help their career. I want them sucking up to me because they genuinely love me.”

Two characters on The Office are notable suck-ups: the paranoid Dwight Schrute, who sees himself as Scott’s No. 2 man and heir apparent; and the bro-dude wannabe Andy Bernard, whose awkward attempts at flattery include lines like, “[Michael], you’ve got this amazing ability to bring people together. You’re like a human icebreaker.”

We may cringe at Dwight and Andy’s over-the-top fealty. But there’s a nugget of truth in their behaviour. Every office has employees who go out of their way to get close to the boss. Researchers even have a name for them: “upward influencers.”

“These are people who are trying to look good in front of the boss, being nice, buttering them up and finding reasons to spend more time with them,” says Jee-Eun Shin, assistant professor of accounting at the Rotman School of Management.

Upward influencers are more common in workplaces than we may think, which piqued Shin’s interest. She wondered: How do these employees affect team dynamics and performance? How do colleagues perceive them? How do managers handle them? And are they better workers than most?

These are crucial questions. Most workplaces today are built around teams. The way group members interact influences efficacy and morale. And if upward influencers do have an outsized effect, the organization needs to know how best to leverage them.

To investigate, Shin dug into a large service firm’s 360-degree employee evaluation surveys. These surveys offer researchers rich insights, as each employee is evaluated by current and former supervisors, peers and subordinates, allowing Shin and her fellow researchers to identify upward influencers and assess their impact. Their study, titled “Upward Influencers in Teams,” is among the first to examine how these individuals affect group dynamics at work.

So what did they find? As it turns out, upward influencers have both good and bad effects on co-workers.

First, these suck-ups can hurt team collaboration — especially when there are many of them. Shin found that team performance peaks when about half the members (52 per cent, according to the study) are upward influencers. When the proportion rises, communication, knowledge-sharing and collegial support decline. Team members also report lower satisfaction with their group.

“When there are one or a few upward influencers on a team, everyone seems to get along pretty well. They still talk to each other,” Shin says. “But when more are trying to please the boss, we start to see a lack of communications within the team.”

Next, Shin and her colleagues discovered an overlooked upside of having suck-ups around: They attract more managerial attention. Supervisors of teams with one or more upward influencers spend about 20 per cent more time offering feedback and guidance with the overall team compared to those without them.

While these managers don’t provide additional financial or material resources, they are more likely to offer hands-on support to the team, such as lending their experience to solve a problem on an important client project.

Shin surmises this extra attention can benefit the whole team — not just the suck-up. “If the boss is giving more attention to that team, and the team performance is good, the other employees in the group stand to get rewarded,” she says.

But Shin is clear about one thing: Nothing in her investigation shows that upward influencers are better individual performers than other employees. Her research also suggests that upward influencer behaviour is likely an innate trait in certain individuals. In other words, sucking up is part of their personality.

Unlike Michael Scott and his craving for devotion, effective managers understand the office conflict that arises when some workers regularly butter up the boss. Will their behaviour be rewarded with more responsibility, a raise or promotion? Other employees will note any favouritism.

That’s why Shin and her fellow researchers also looked at how managers respond to upward influencers. They found that more experienced managers are better at containing such behaviour and redirecting it toward actions that align with the organization’s goals. Inexperienced managers are less successful in doing so.

So how can firms identify upward influencers? A 360-degree survey can help, but Shin says seasoned managers usually already know who’s sucking up. The challenge, then, is to ensure the team has the right mix of personalities. Upward influencers aren’t inherently bad. But too many can impede a team’s ability to thrive, she says. 

With organizational success increasingly dependent on group performance, the stakes are high. And no amount of flattery is going to change that.

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