"Call it graciousness, charm, politeness, good human relations, positive reinforcement, office politics, obsequiousness, making others feel good, or sucking up - whatever the name, magnetic people do it consistently." - Personal Magnetism by Andrew J. DuBrin

I've never read a book as boring as the one on personal magnetism by Andrew DuBrin, and I've never seen a magnetic person sucking up to other people, but I'd like to say a couple of words about flattery.

I believe there are only two types of flattery: a complement based on truth and a manipulative lie.

Unlike Andrew DuBrin I don't see serial flatterers as "magnetic people". I see them as serial liars. It's especially obvious in an atmosphere of office politics where flatterers move up their career ladder by sucking up to those who are at the moment above them and scheming against those who stand in their way. Serial flatterers don't mean what they say and don't care how much of a lie it is as long as it gets them the result they want. It's just a form of manipulation of those around them.

If we look closer at their behavior and try to understand why they do what they do, we'd see that the serial "flatter will get you anywhere" behavior stems from the feeling of personal insecurity. If a person doesn't feel that his professional skills and knowledge are good enough to make his career happen or that his personal qualities aren't likable enough to make him popular and loved by others, he might resort to flattery in order to compensate their perceived shortcomings.

The majority (if not all) of the workplace serial flatterers are mediocre workers who often don't enjoy the work they do. Thus, obtaining a higher rank, bigger salary or other perks of being a manager's pet becomes their only career goal.

The social serial flatterers often aren't genuinely interested in people they're socializing with. Their objective is to proof to themselves that they are well liked, to achieve a higher social rank or to receive certain favors from people who like them.

Now, lets look at the other form of flattery, which is a sincere complement based on truth. As funny as it sounds, we don't do it often enough. Maybe because we're afraid to be misinterpreted, but we usually think lots of good things about the people we like, yet let them know only about a few of our "likings", if any.

One of the basic human needs is to feel appreciated and valued. When we feel appreciated and valued we bloom, we feel loving and generous, we become our best selves. Then, lets be generous and let other people feel that too.

And to accomplish that we don't need to lie. We honestly don't.