Insofar as you exclude stuff like career choice from personal opinions I think the best way is to act like you share the opinions of whoever you’re talking to (or the most powerful person in a group) while never committing to anything publicly.
The words “yes-man”, “hanger-on”, and “riding on coat-tails” come to mind. These are failure modes of status-seeking.
Are they? They seem to always be attached to rising star or second in command and so on. Also you forgot brown-noser and the one I think most illustrative: teachers pet. The teachers’ or bosses esteem is exactly whose you should care about if you want to rise high, not jealous or anti-elite drones.
Eg “he only got the job by sucking up to the boss” is used pejoratively but guess who has the job? It’s not the complainer.
The words “yes-man”, “hanger-on”, and “riding on coat-tails” come to mind. These are failure modes of status-seeking.
Are they? They seem to always be attached to rising star or second in command and so on. Also you forgot brown-noser and the one I think most illustrative: teachers pet. The teachers’ or bosses esteem is exactly whose you should care about if you want to rise high, not jealous or anti-elite drones.
Eg “he only got the job by sucking up to the boss” is used pejoratively but guess who has the job? It’s not the complainer.