There will undoubtedly be conflicts when people work together daily, but many lifelong ties will also be formed. Many companies require employees to be adept at navigating office politics. Your success might significantly change if you comprehend the many dynamics in the workplace and emphasize developing good working connections. Workplace politics can aid in bringing about advantageous changes to the organization or the people who work there. One of the most important skills that every professional should master is how to cooperate with others and deal with differences. Office politics are an inevitable and frequently complicated aspect of the job in today’s professional environment. Your career path and job satisfaction can be significantly impacted by understanding and effectively managing office politics, just like any other aspect of your employment.
Understanding the Dynamics of Office Politics
Office politics is the term used to describe the convoluted social structure seen at a workplace. It involves employees pursuing their objectives by abusing their positions of authority, influence, and delegation. Everyone has a unique job to play within the microcosm of any business. Who has power and results in a corporation is decided by politics, whether you recognize it or not. Office politics may baffle even the most seasoned professionals, much like a mysterious language. It’s important to work smartly within the unwritten rules, not merely labor hard. Keep in mind that the objective is to flourish despite the power dynamics, not just to survive. Office politics can be a difficult minefield to cross. Still, with the appropriate tactics, you can overcome the conflict and keep moving up the corporate ladder.
The practice of employees abusing their positions of power and authority in the workplace is known as office politics or workplace politics. This kind of undesirable behavior could lead to receiving an ill-deserved promotion or other benefits. Office politics also occurs when staff members utilize their relationships with supervisors to obtain favors. Any generally unfavorable behavior, rumors, or unprofessional conduct in the workplace is called office politics. Most organizations experience some office politics. It may result in unpleasant working conditions and have a significant impact on how personnel carry out their responsibilities. Numerous things could influence politics at work. Office politics frequently emerge when there is a lack of oversight or procedures.
Here are some examples of the various kinds of office politicians you can run against in a typical workplace. Anyone who has worked in an office environment will be familiar with these personalities. Here are some details about them and what you may do to counteract their negative.
1. The Gossip Hounds
The workplace gossip is someone you can always count on to hang around in the break room or any other place where there is an opportunity for talk. The chance to gossip at work is more important to the office chatter than the potential effects of gossip on coworkers. Regarding office gossip, this person is a know-it-all and isn’t shy about spilling the beans to anyone. They frequently disregard open office ethics and like discussing private information with coworkers or on social media. It’s crucial that staff keep their interactions work-related when dealing with a gossip hound.
2. Credit Thief
This individual will go to any lengths to succeed, even if it involves stealing other people’s ideas. This person will take the chance to gain from others’ efforts if it helps their purpose. If given the opportunity, “the thief” exists in many businesses and is willing to take credit for successful work outcomes, even when you did the work and they contributed very little. To avoid becoming the victim of a credit thief at work, be vocal about your opinions and the projects you’re working on in front of your coworkers. Additionally, keep your manager informed frequently so they know who deserves credit for your efforts.
3. Flatterer
This individual enjoys showering people with compliments left and right. Still, it can be hard to determine if the flatterer is sincere or just attempting to win them over. Fortunately, most business executives can spot a faker, so you don’t need to point out the flatterer’s actions.
4. Power Freak
Even when their position does not correspond to the level of authority they seek and that they believe they are entitled to, the power freak believes they are the rightful boss or manager. This kind of bossy person may have crossed your path at work. They may need more work because they are so busy telling others what to do. Even though it is not their proper place, they could assign duties and delegate work to others. Even though they may put in a lot of effort and have earned their position of authority, power freaks occasionally order others about when they shouldn’t, such as at work-related social events.
5. The Snake
The snake is the one that moves about the organization, aligning and cuddling up to the powerful. Instead of stressing about the organizational structure, this person will put more effort into cultivating relationships with influential people. Someone who aligns with their employer and is the first to approach the boss is always known as the snake. The snake also contains a concept known as “brown-nosing,” which describes a person who panders to people in positions of authority. A sycophant is a term used to describe someone who goes above and beyond to connect themselves with powerful people to advance their agenda.
6. The Clique Group
The clique member usually forms a clique with other people and excludes or rejects individuals who they believe do not belong in their clique. You can feel isolated and less in touch with the “in crowd” at work if you’re not a part of this clique group. The clique member type is frequently observed when a new employee joins the organization and demonstrates greater ambition than what others would want. As a result, the clique members perceive a threat and take very little action to help the newcomer integrate.
7. The Restrictor
You cannot approach the restrictor for a variety of reasons. These are the people you avoid coming since you don’t know what their mood will be like because they are erratic. We also have individuals in this category who are averse to change and, as a result, are set in their ways, making it challenging to communicate with them about issues that even the slightest amount of change might entail.
8. Advisor
Company leaders frequently confide in and seek advice from their advisors. Making friends with the advisor is in your best interest because they are well-informed about corporate affairs and have a lot of clout in the background.
9. “The Ruler”
The ruler is the person who adheres to all the rules with extreme rigidity and who, as a result, displays little flexibility, even when flexibility is required. This person’s rigidity, along with their inflexibility and lack of adaptability, has the potential to disrupt the workplace and those around them.
10. The Scheming
The schemer is the employee at your company who will use the knowledge provided to them to their advantage. They don’t hesitate to use information—including rumors—unfairly at times to get an edge. To improve their chances of promotion, this person wouldn’t be scared to share knowledge with others even when doing so would jeopardize those plans. This individual can occasionally pass for a charmer, i.e., someone who appears genuinely polite and sweet but is quite judgmental behind a coworker’s back.
Recognizing the Power Structures and Hierarchies in the Workplace
Today’s organizations frequently work in unclear and uncertain contexts that need quick adaptation and group decision-making. Many leaders believe establishing clear lines of authority, communication, and oversight is the best way to deal with uncertainty. The majority choose or design the traditional pyramid-shaped hierarchy, in which power and control are increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer people as you move up the pyramid.
Each offers unique guidelines for adept navigation. Being aware of two crucial dimensions is necessary for navigating these environments. The individual player and their political aptitude are where political dynamics begin.
Distinct Organizational Structures
To better understand how leaders can influence the distribution of authority within an organization, let’s first look at the most typical organizational structure. Then, let’s examine five fundamentally distinct organizational structures.
Standard Pyramid
The organizational structure that has been used the most frequently is also the one that has been studied the most. Pyramid organizations develop when most team members have low to moderate formal authority, defined as traditional control and access to resources or rewards based on team performance. There are fewer and fewer persons at each level who have more and greater amounts of influence over those in the story below. Key pyramid indicator: As formal authority grows, fewer persons exercise it in proportion to the total number of team members.
Inverted Pyramid
Advisory groups, expert panels, or domain-specific support teams like human resources, accounting, or public relations teams frequently employ examples of reverse pyramids. However, they are more difficult to locate in practice. Inverse pyramids are teams where most team members have high or moderate formal authority, and there are few team members with low formal power. The number of people who exercise formal jurisdiction concerning the total number of team members increases as traditional authority increases, which is a key reverse pyramid indication.
The Leaderless Group
Self-managed teams have attracted a lot of interest lately. The self-managed team functions with each member having the same amount of formal power inside the group. It is frequently utilized by development teams, practitioners in research and development, open-source creators, and industrial partners. Such organizations rely heavily on high degrees of member autonomy and necessitate substantial participation from each member in the group’s decision-making processes. These teams frequently use technology or other automated solutions to plan, monitor, and structure their work in ways that do away with the perception that traditional managers are still required to define priorities, establish goals, and keep teams responsible. In this organizational structure, each team member participates actively in the self-governance and accountability process and has an equal amount of official responsibility within the organization.
The Hour Glass
Organizations with formal hierarchies that equally distribute authority between high levels and those with low to no levels resemble an hourglass. They balance the two extremes, with roughly equal numbers of people in high and subordinate authority, with the bulk of the team belonging to one of those categories. In other words, only some group members have a moderate amount of authority. Surgical teams are likely the most typical hourglass example, where a comparable number of subordinate staff and surgeons supports senior operating staff and surgeons with significant authority.
A small number of people in complementary support roles with formal authority that falls between that of the senior and junior team members are present with these high/low authority dyads. Hourglass structures are frequently developed by organizations that rely on the master/apprentice paradigm to transfer information and build potential. Very few individuals with an average level of formal authority are a key hourglass indication. Instead, as the number of team members grows, there are roughly equal numbers of those who hold high and low levels of formal authority, and both groups grow at roughly comparable rates.
The Rectangle Structure
A rectangular structure is one in which each level of the organization is generally the same size as the one above it but where there are considerable disparities in official authority between them. Such firms typically concentrate on specific activities and are quite tiny. A rectangle structure would be an academic research team with an equal number of senior faculty, junior faculty, and Ph.D. candidates. Other instances include advisory teams where an equal number of individuals are chosen to represent various sectors, levels of expertise, or viewpoints with varying degrees of formal authority over the team’s function.
The Diamond Organizational Structure
The number of “middle managers” and senior leaders, as well as entry-level personnel, are roughly equal in this organizational structure. This structure develops when retention is high, resulting in a relatively low need for entry-level employees, and task complexity is high, requiring high levels of expertise, autonomy, and cooperation by most team members. In a diamond-shaped hierarchy, most of the team has a moderate level of authority. When one or two managers oversee a sizable number of fully certified nurses and a comparatively small number of nurse trainees or administrative support staff, clinical nursing organizations take on this shape. With few senior leaders and low-ranking team members, the largest category of group members in this organization has a moderate amount of formal authority.
Types of Organizational Powers
Understanding various types of power is essential to understanding organizations at a systemic level and optimizing your performance at work. This knowledge includes how they are constructed, how they are used, how they operate morally and otherwise, and what they can and cannot do.
Coercive Power
When you threaten to penalize someone for getting them to comply, like by threatening to fire or demote them if they don’t achieve their goals, you are using coercive power. Coercive power only functions when you can see what the subject of your control is doing. You use coercive authority against individuals who repeatedly fail to fulfill the requirements of their position, like when you add them to a capability process. When an organization is in trouble or faces budget cuts, it may also be necessary to deploy coercive force. Otherwise, exercising coercive authority rarely serves a purpose in the workplace because it breeds resentment and might result in charges of bullying.
Reward Power
When you use rewards to get people to do what you want, you are using the power of rewards. Bonuses, wage raises, days off instead of pay, training opportunities, or even a public commendation or expression of gratitude are rewards. The key to using reward power is to instill the anticipation of a reward and activate the brain region that values rewards for effort. As an easy illustration, if you consistently publicly commend your top achievers but never your poor performers, you’ll inspire others to try hard to earn your praise.
Authentic Power
When you utilize your position within the company to get what you want done, you are exercising legitimate power. When you have legal power, your subordinate complies with your requests because they think you have a right to do so, given your position. A CEO has genuine authority. The same is true for a leader who has been elected to office. An ex-president cannot command the military, and while a president in office may command the army, they cannot order the people to eat healthfully because such authority does not exist in that circumstance. Legitimate power is, therefore, decided by both title and circumstance.
Expert Power
When you utilize your extensive knowledge of a subject and a track record of exercising sound judgment in that field to get what you want done, you are using expert power. Subordinates think your prior experience will help you make the best choice. In essence, you are a thought leader in a particular field or subject. Power as an expert can also come from reputation or credentials, not merely from those who have seen your experience grow. It’s important to note that this skill need not truly exist—only that it be perceived to exist.
When relying on expertise to hold power, there are some drawbacks to be aware of. For instance, expertise only lasts for a while, so an expert promoted to management because of their knowledge of a specific IT system will find that as the system changes. They spend more time focusing on other things, and their ability to that system will deteriorate over time. Because of this, it is advised to be open to other people’s viewpoints even if you are recognized as an authority in your profession.
Referent Power
When you utilize your reputation as a revered and dependable role model to get people to do what you want, you are using referent power. Referent power is commonly acquired over time by organizational leaders and managers who model the conduct they wish to see in others over an extended period. By giving subordinates more freedom and power over time, revered power can likewise be attained. Celebrities have referent power in our culture, so companies frequently pay them a lot to advertise their goods to us. We purchase the items they endorse because of their standing as role models because we want to be like them and believe doing so will improve our likeability.
Tips on How to Navigate Work Politics
Most of us ignore our emotions in response to office politics and refer to this as being professional. Although we believe we are easing our burdens, nothing ever changes. We complain to our friends and coworkers, but these issues hardly ever disappear. When we do something, the problem frequently gets better. People often avoid discussing politics to prevent team strife. However, that does not imply that they do not occur at work. Office politics primarily revolves around the differences among coworkers. Disparities in opinions, personality, power, or authority can be among them.
Here’s how to navigate office politics and transform unfavorable politics into a productive workplace environment.
1. Bring Attention to the Issue
When you are impacted by professional drama, it can creep into your daily life and create an ominous cloud. Your focus and productivity will be significantly affected if it needs to be clarified. Give this cloud a name and make it tangible to regain control. Focus on the facts and steer clear of what you believe happened. Be alert and question yourself, “What is going on here?” You can only manage how you behave; you cannot control how you feel. This will facilitate further interactions.
2. Be sympathetic while remaining grounded.
It’s challenging to gauge your audience while using Zoom and video conferences. After a meeting, follow up, inquire further, and extend the benefit of the doubt. Exercise your kindness muscle; everyone is dealing with their own unique set of difficulties. Take the high road if you’ve witnessed some weird office politics. You want to be known as a leader who upholds moral principles.
3. Determine Your Part in the Issue
Ask yourself honestly if you’re making a detrimental contribution or trying to help. Even if your contribution is merely 5%, you still have direct control over that portion. Describe your contributions in detail and decide how you may individually accept responsibility. If you carry out this action authentically, it will become your go-to tactic for influencing “opponents” to cooperate.
4. Determine the key individual(s)
In other circumstances, the problem is being caused by a single person. Consider removing each player from the team one at a time as you go through the cast. Does the issue disappear? If it does, this individual holds the key. You must delicately confront the elephant in the room if this person’s performance is the problem. Finding empathy for this person is your best defense against any other issue. Discover a natural method to defuse the tension by trying to understand their motivation.
5. Be genuine at all times.
Your sincerity will always be your greatest asset. Mean what you say, keep your word, and avoid being the type who waits to see how others will react before taking action. Genuineness is essential in the workplace. You will move up the “trusted” list among your coworkers.
6. Recognize formal and informal network structures.
In corporate politics, there are primarily two types of networks: formal and informal. The term “formal network” describes a person’s official title or place of authority, such as “CEO,” “manager,” or “intern.” The informal network represents the covert yet important positions of power that staff members may possess. You can manage each network more effectively if you comprehend both.
7. You Must Escape the Ally Echo-Chamber.
You’ve probably been venting to your allies, so you know who they are. However, they are red herrings that might worsen matters because venting only partially alleviates the symptoms, deterring everyone from addressing the real issue. By allowing you to concentrate on your interpretation of what occurred rather than the facts, they can likewise distort reality. Don’t let this diversion distract you.
8. Encourage open, constructive communication.
A vital component of healthy business politics is encouraging constructive, open communication. Communication channels must be available for everyone to receive fair and respectful treatment. Healthy communication removes the possibility of false information spreading. This lessens the likelihood of conflict developing. Cooperation among coworkers is facilitated via communication. As a result, social networks for good and relationships between employees get stronger.
9. Determine who your opponents are and build a positive relationship with them.
Enthusiasm reduces drama. Try to comprehend their motivations and feelings. When you truly care about your critics and opponents, it can dramatically change the conversation, as Sarah Silverman showed on Twitter. A genuine connection is your best tool for swaying someone’s opinion, even if it doesn’t change.
10. Reward the right individuals.
Favoritism in the workplace is a risky practice. When workers feel they are being ignored, jealousy erupts everywhere. Favoritism fosters disdain in any workforce. It’s a smart idea to use incentives and rewards to encourage productivity. However, individuals in charge of rewarding those who receive recognition must watch out for the influence of personal ambitions or feelings. Leaders should have clear criteria for awarding incentives and strive to give appreciation to all staff members equitably while preserving a sense of fairness.
Conclusion
At first glance, navigating the political environment at work may appear like a daunting task. However, a large portion of it includes using the fundamental social instincts that we all possess in one way or another. Nevertheless, only some have strong social instincts. Everyone must learn how to survive in the business jungle. Office politics are an unavoidable part of any workplace. There are effective ways to deal with them even when there is an opportunity for self-serving exploitation.
The world of office politics may be bewildering, whether you’re a seasoned professional or just getting started. Politics at work are pervasive everywhere you will ever work. No matter your position, the sector you work in, or the setting you work in, there will always be some office politics to deal with. It’s crucial to learn how to deal with rumors, political divisions, and workplace infighting if you can’t resist it (or live in denial). In some situations, it’s beneficial to keep out of the conflict; in others, staying out can result in getting passed over for promotions. There is a fine line between participating in negative office politics and defending your efforts and reputation.
