This won’t help your situation now, but I applaud this kind of thinking. Pleasers, (what your kid calls butt kissers and mine called try-hards) often do things for praise and validation from others, and while this can have its own benefits (good LORs!), it can also lead to a place of deep dissatisfaction.
Clearly, there is some place for simply sucking it up from time to time, but it’s pretty easy to lose yourself by bending to the desires of others. Fwiw, I suspect he’ll generally be happy in what he does.