When Louis XIV had his Finance Minister Nicolas Fouquet sacked on charges of graft, he was supposedly motivated by Fouquet’s audacity to outshine the “Sun King”. Fouquet had thrown a lavish party in the King’s honour. It was a feast like no one had seen before and the King felt upstaged in the light of its fireworks. Hence, the 20th Century Manager (20M) has learned that outshining or even worse opposing your boss, is a Career Limiting Move or CLM. Since Louis XIV and Fouquet this is a mainstay of company politics. 20M have thus developed sycophancy into an art.

At the same time, many companies in the 20th Century took their playbook from military organizations and the 20M will therefore treat their subordinates as just that: sub ordinate to them and their every commands.

In today’s business environment your people expect more from you: the 21st Century Manager (21M) needs to be open to their ideas and allow an open dialogue, especially if they disagree with you. If you have all the good ideas yourself and are the only one who can get it right, you have built the wrong team in the first place. Command-and-control type environments will drive out high potentials and leave you with mediocre staff and yes-people.

Likewise, your team will watch you in your interactions with your boss and expect you to stand up for your/their ideas and opinions, as they would. If the 21M bows to every whim of his boss, the team will lose its respect and trust quickly and start looking for a boss with an actual spine.

TL; DR: Speak up to your boss but manage your people with the utmost respect!