Well meaning but misguided people often advise aspirant leaders not to ‘get involved in the politics’ of organisations. They infer that there are different kinds of people: the bad guys who, ‘play politics’, and the good guys who don’t.
‘Playing politics’ means a number of things to different people, such as:
Power games
Empire-building
Stabbing people in the back
Seeking personal gain above corporate gain
Manipulating others
Not many people would recognise their own behaviours here. In most organisations, people are accused of involving themselves in this kind of negative politics. It is rarely you, however, who does this kind of thing. It is almost always ‘the other guys’.
In leadership, everything has a political dimension. Whenever a leader wins an argument, he or she has used influence of some kind to do so. This is politics. It is not inherently bad. But if you are the one over whom the leader has succeeded, it feels bad from your point of view, and it helps soothe the wounds to describe the other person’s success as ‘playing politics’.
When, on the other hand, you win the day, you do not feel that you have ‘played politics’, simply that good sense has prevailed, and that you have done the right thing for the organisation.
So, are you a political player, or a leader who understands organisational politics?
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