Beware of the deceitful impression manager

Impression Management presents a hazard like the Iceberg Menace for the unwary. All of us like to display our best faces to the world. But what happens when that conceals outright fakery underneath?

- VISTY BANAJI

I knew a man named Jackson once and I was scared of him. Jackson could change colours like a chameleon. At one moment he could be the most charming person around and, literally without batting an eyelid, turn and torture his prey with a tirade from his vicious tongue. Like the Jackson chameleon, he was also slow in his movements and ruthless in his behaviour with competitors.¹ His dazzle and dashing actions were reserved for the people that counted - till they counted.

Jacksons are not a rare species in the corporate world. But those who cannot see through how Jacksons package their pasts, pretend in performing and present themselves to the public, are destined to join the extinct species list themselves. This column is intended to prevent that from happening.

I shall not pretend the rest of us don't manage impressions. What is different about Fake Impression Builders (FIBs), are the deceit they use in doing so and the consequential harm they can cause to trusting individuals and enterprises. They are the frightening realisations of what happens when the lily and the rose accede to the tiger and the viper:

Said the tiger to the lily, Said the viper to the rose: Let us marry so our children May attain the double pose. With a feline half a flower With the attar in the asp, We could institute a slaughter

That would make a planet gasp.²

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