Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.“
Good ol’ Ben was onto something. Sacrificing our sacred freedoms for some fleeting security is foolish, but we see it all the time. The backstory of Franklin’s quote is a bit tangled, but the core message remains as sound as a hundred dollar bill: Don’t undersell what’s most important.
Arguably the most precious liberty—perhaps the one even most worth dying for—is the liberty to stay true to our values, to live them. Yet, in the everyday workplace, we see people undermining their own values to gain “a little temporary safety” or to give their status a quick boost. Yes, selling out one’s values can be an effective tactic for lying low even while others suffer. It’s also an effective tool for advancing one’s career so long as you lack compunction. In such cases, this betrayal of self and others boils down to one unpleasant word: capitulation.
Now, I'll grant that there are times when capitulation is necessary, even advisable. A strategic retreat can assure that you live to fight another day. Indeed, when both sides give a little, that is compromise, and healthy compromise is essential to good leadership.
But that’s not what I am talking about here. No, the worst, most insidious, and most common form of capitulation is the self-serving, self-abasing variety that leaves others in the cold or tramples them underfoot.
Let me present a few of the more familiar types of workplace capitulators. I am sure you have seen these folks as well as others at work.
The Dog
Most people love dogs, and dogs love their humans right back. Dogs are loyal to a fault, even to the point of self-sacrifice. Dogs don’t judge. They adore their owners even when their owners display the most heinous behavior. Many a vicious boss, no matter how nasty and bullying at work, comes home to a doggo who slobbers its affection all over them. Heck, even Hitler had a dog although he apparently killed it, which remains somewhat of a trend among a certain set.
So, dogs are loved, loving, loyal, dependable, and—for some—even expendable. In the workplace, the capitulators who ingratiate themselves to their superiors to get ahead are the type I call the dog. I am not saying that they don’t work hard or aren't solid performers, but their main tool for ascension isn’t merit; it's that drool-slick tongue licking up to the pack leaders. They're the great appeasers, devoid of any core values beyond blind loyalty and shameless ambition.
At one college where I worked, I had a direct report who was a prime specimen of the office dog breed. He was loyal and helpful to me, sure, but his real objective was to rise up the ranks. To that end, when I made it clear I was not looking for a pet, he snuggled right up to the bigger bosses—the president and her sycophantic favorite. This place was a dysfunctional mess, so you know what sort of overbearing overlords we’re talking about here. Worse still for my little puppy, his efforts at currying favor kept backfiring spectacularly, and I had to swoop in to rescue him more than once. To the bosses, he was expendable. But, like a true canine, he remained blissfully oblivious to the outright malevolence around him.
Since I fled that scene, he switched strategies, morphing into a different kind of capitulator altogether: the weathervane.
The Weathervane
At another institution, I had what I thought was a loyal direct report, more like a dog, but she was that even more soulless sort of capitulator: the weathervane.
You find weathervanes mounted in prominent positions, which makes them seem important and useful at offering directions, like an authoritative leader pointing into the distance. In reality, though, they are ever-shifting, just following the prevailing winds. If a weathervane points north, that doesn’t mean you should march northward—it just means that’s where the breeze is heading at the moment.
As workplace capitulators, weathervanes are just as you would imagine. Not predictable, exactly, but predictably fickle and reliably reactive. They point intensely in one direction for a bit until they sense the winds changing course. Then, without a thought, they’ll abandon their old allegiances to realign with the new trend. Weathervanes can be quite deceptive since being anchored in one place gives the illusion of a solid core. But that core is nothing more than a pivot point, and pivot they will.
The Stream
Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.
Even harder to pin down than the weathervane is the capitulator I call the stream. The most unassuming little rivulet, over time, can exert incredible force. Just look at the Colorado River that helped carve the spectacular Grand Canyon. Once, it too was just a modest trickle tripping along the solid earth, following no track of its own. It forged nothing and shaped nothing. Indeed, the water just coursed over the path of least resistance because that’s what water does, but with persistence and time—absurd amounts of time—the stream would become a significant feature.
In the workplace, the type of capitulator I call the stream operates exactly the same way. They start out small, inconsequential, and amorphous, slithering along. They just are. Given time enough, though, their relentlesssness digs them in. Their single-minded ambition starts to gouge and shape the landscape a bit more to their liking. But, their efforts never result in anything as impressive as the Grand Canyon or even your local crick. They are more like storm runoff, cutting a rut, scarring the earth.
It’s baffling really. Streams morph their surroundings, yes, but by first totally conforming to them. They accommodate the terrain long enough and tenaciously enough that it begins to accommodate them.
I once mentored a young woman who later became a dean at one of my universities. As soon as she had her new position, she grew weary of my fixation on ethical leadership and genuine service to others—I guess human decency was just too outlandish for her—and focused instead on getting more for herself. To do so she adapted herself to the prevailing landscape—a twisted terrain—and like a trickle followed whatever grooves and troughs were available. She hated it, complaining bitterly about our rotten bosses’ toxic behavior—the lies, the unreasonable demands, and the broken promises—even as she offered no resistance whatsoever.
And sure enough, under her naked ambition’s relentless flow, the ground yielded a bit. Little by little, particle by particle, the combination of her capitulation to the lay of the land and her constant movement paid off. Years later, she’s a much more prominent and imposing landscape feature. But, at what cost? Yes, she seemingly forged her path, but it’s miserably shallow and confined to the predetermined contours of an inhospitable terrain. She still has no core, no defined shape and remains heedless of the damage she does as she slowly cuts deeper into and through her surroundings.
The Damage They Wreak
Dedication to capitulation is always destructive. It’s always fatal to core values and a sense of self.
But beyond the injury to the self, capitulators inflict harm on others as well, either through passive neglect or outright abuse. Take the duplicitous dog I described earlier. While real dogs can be noble companions, they can also be vicious, easily provoked, and quick to lash out. That particular canine capitulator on my team sometimes acted harshly toward his own underlings with little cause. He was perfectly willing to let those he found inconvenient suffer, and I had to occasionally shield them and muzzle him.
As for the wavering weathervane employee, she was content to ignore or oppose anyone who refused to shift with the prevailing winds even if that meant betraying the institution’s vaunted values. Her endless pivoting even unwound her own commitment to professional ethics. The moment the winds changed, she’d just change too. Truly incorruptible people simply aren't that tractable. Meanwhile, her prominent position and illusory steadiness helped legitimize the prevailing winds no matter how foul.
And that snaking stream? Mindlessly reshaping the landscape inevitably means inflicting collateral damage on the weakest objects standing in the way. Those obstructions—usually powerless people, personal principles, and institutional values—must yield to the relentless flow regardless of any other considerations. How they’re removed is irrelevant. What becomes of them is irrelevant. The stream's single-minded advance must continue unchecked.
True leaders compromise at times. They collaborate certainly. But they never capitulate solely to suit their own desires or to promote their self-preservation—“to purchase a little temporary Safety.” For the authentic leader—the growth-minded collaborators—capitulation is anathema. Of course it is. Look at all the damage it does.
What sort of workplace capitulation have you witnessed? How have you maintained your values and resisted capitulating?
Great leaders must stand strong against the pressure to capitulate, and I can help.
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Workplace Capitulation: The Opposite of Great Leadership