Kiss up kick down is aneologism used to describe the situation where middle-level employees in an organization are polite andflattering to superiors butabusive to subordinates.[1] The term is believed to have originated in the US, with the first documented use having occurred in 1993. The concept can be applied to any social interaction where one person believes they have power over another person and believes that another person has power over them.[2][3]
TheBulletin of the Atomic Scientists describedRobert McNamara, an American business executive and the eighthUnited States Secretary of Defense, as a classic case of the "kiss up, kick down" personality in August 1993.[3]
On day 2 of the Senate confirmation hearings, April 12, 2005, forJohn R. Bolton, aBush nomination for the US representative to the UN, the Senate panel focused on allegations that Bolton pressured intelligence analysts. Former State Department intelligence chiefCarl W. Ford Jr. characterized Bolton as a "kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy".[4]
Calum Paton, Professor of Health Policy atKeele University, describes "kiss up kick down" as a prevalent feature of the UKNational Health Service culture. He raised this point when giving evidence at theStafford Hospital scandal public inquiry. Credit is centralised and blame devolved. "Kiss up kick down means that your middle level people will kiss-up, they will please their masters, political or otherwise, and they will kick down to blame somebody else when things go wrong."[1][5]
The flow ofblame in anorganization may be a primary indicator of that organization's robustness and integrity. Blame flowing downwards, from management to staff, or laterally between professionals or partner organizations, indicates organizational failure. In a blame culture, problem-solving is replaced by blame avoidance. Confused roles and responsibilities also contribute to a blame culture. Blame coming from the top generates "fear, malaise, errors, accidents, andpassive-aggressive responses from the bottom", with those at the bottom feeling powerless and lacking emotional safety. Employees have expressed that organizational blame culture made them fear prosecution for errors, accidents and thus unemployment, which may make them more reluctant to report accidents, since trust is crucial to encourage accident reporting. This makes it less likely that weak indicators of safety threats get picked up, thus preventing the organization from taking adequate measures to prevent minor problems from escalating into uncontrollable situations. Several issues identified in organizations with a blame culture contradictshigh reliability organizations best practices.[6][7]
Kick up kiss-down has been suggested as a viable more healthy dynamic.[8] Blame flowing upwards in a hierarchy, Weinberg argues, proves that superiors can takeresponsibility for their orders to their inferiors, and supply them with the resources required to do their jobs.[6]
