[osullivj]

I've seen the tactics I described work very well in investment banking, purely in terms of personal advancement. I naively adopted a USMC style approach as a newly minted manager and got beaten up and stabbed in the back massively by the more experienced and Machiavellian managers. So I left. It's important to realize the difference between a mature org and a growing business. In a mature org the senior staff are all fighting to get a bigger slice of a pie that doesn't grow. That's not the case in a growing business. Note that I'm using the term manager, not leader.