Impression management

Lately I have been reading on Impression Management and how it can help get where you want to go in your career and generally in your life. Most of the techniques I read makes me wonder "isn't it faking about what you are really feeling about someone or in a situation ".. isn't it the art of faking that one is asked to master for success..". controlling once behavior and telling what is the an acceptable behavior is one thing that everyone should practice but creating false impressions about oneself, where does it end? We have seen our politicians and there impressions, they do get where they want to go crating false impressions about their values and all, but in the end , if they had truly believed in what they stood for publicly , would not we had been a great nation in the end... thing about it?