The staff holds it to be polished (6)
I believe the answer is:
polite
'be polished' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'the staff holds it' is the wordplay.
'the staff' becomes 'pole' (I've seen this before).
'holds' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'pole' going around 'it' is 'POLITE'.
'to' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for polite that I've seen before include "Mannerly, courteous" , "Good mannered and civil" , "Well-mannered, courteous" , "Well-behaved" , "Having good manners, socially correct" .)