The purpose of this study is to translate kiss up/kick down (KUKD) into a practical HR framework for identifying managers who perform loyalty upward while creating fear, silence or downward harm, while linking it as an organizational manifestation of Right Wing Authoriatianism.
The article reviews and synthesizes management, leadership and social psychological theory, especially work on right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), abusive supervision, employee silence, workplace mistreatment, psychological safety and compassionate management.
KUKD can be understood as a vertical pattern of authoritarian workplace behavior. The “kiss up” side reflects upward deference, loyalty signaling and information filtering. The “kick down” side reflects coercion, humiliation, retaliation and voice suppression.
This is a conceptual practitioner paper that links RWA with a potential organizational representation: KUKD behavior. Future research should examine whether KUKD predicts employee silence, retaliation perceptions, information distortion and withdrawal beyond established constructs such as abusive supervision, supervisor undermining and organizational politics. Multi-source, longitudinal and intervention studies are especially needed to test whether fair process, multi-rater feedback and compassionate management may reduce KUKD risk.
HR can reduce KUKD risk through multi-rater evaluation, skip-level listening, structured voice routines, anti-retaliation audits, fair-process performance management and compassion-based leadership development.
KUKD matters because it normalizes unequal treatment based on power. When organizations reward upward pleasing while ignoring downward harm, employees may learn that candor is unsafe and that status protects mistreatment. Reducing KUKD can strengthen dignity, trust, psychological safety and fairness at work. It may also help organizations create cultures where lower-power employees can raise concerns without fear and where leadership effectiveness is judged by the ethical use of power, not only by loyalty to those above.
The article reframes KUKD from a colloquial complaint into a practitioner-friendly, research-based model for detecting hidden and creating a culture where authoritarian behavior in hierarchy, is identified and remedied.
