Dirt on the organisational landscape: politics or leaders behaving badly?

I had the pleasure of attending some lectures when at university which were run by Dr. Polly Parker a few years back, that opened my eyes to something I had up until then only seen 1 way all my life: that organisational politics was dirty and dangerous and I wasn’t going to play!

Maybe it was the thought of playing in a sandpit full of snakes amongst rules I was too naive to understand, or that I abhorred the types of people I saw abusing their positional power to exercise control and decision making out of the hands of those impacted to further their own personal and professional agendas. Firm, judgemental views these were- and I held them with much pride and vigour.

Then her words rang out like a foreign yet believable assurance; that there was a natural role and place for politics-anywhere and everywhere where resources were scarce and people had to influence in order to secure their share.

So, why then had ‘politics’ been given a bad name? Was it the game or the rules of engagement being distorted to suit those taking short cuts to drive their own outcomes, that was to blame?

If influencing is the undercarriage of politics, then what is going wrong? Influencing is a skill we all develop and need to use but when it veers to the dark side-then who is there to call it ‘dark’? At what point does grey turn to black? Influence turn into manipulation?

Can you tell the dark political players from the influencers? How? If you took away titles, positions- how much sway would they retain to obtain people’s backing? How ‘successful’ would they remain working outside of a master-servant relationship?

There are those we follow more out of the fear of getting on their wrong side-we take on role of servant and play the game. But if you stripped away their role and positional level- you may treat them with the disdain you really felt. Are those on the dark side just leaders behaving badly or managers on a power trip or children who were never taught any different? How many are there out there? Are you one of them?

The genuine influencer is one who outside of title, power and position manages to obtain support and a following because their cause justifies admiration and their rules of engagement engender trust.