Effective leaders master positive politics
Gene Mage
Today’s column is the fourth in the series “Elephants in the
office”, ten weighty problems organizations are afraid to confront. To catch up on the first three installments,
visit www.makingitwork.com.
How many times have you heard someone tell you they left an
organization because of “office politics”?
What the departing coworker usually meant by “politics” is “negative
politics”.
Now stop and think about the effective leaders you
know. They skillfully acquire, utilize,
and share power with others. Put another
way, they are politicians. After all,
given the choice, most of us prefer to have power. We want the ability to influence opinions and
obtain resources to get things done.
But too often we lump all politics into a “bad”
category. This gut reaction misses the
texture within political styles. I have
observed three political approaches that have three distinctive outcomes.
- Apolitical. The apolitical approach avoids taking
sides on key issues, or supporting others in the organization when to do
so would be personally risky. In
other words you have a “yes-man”.
His highest value is survival.
The yes-man always checks the prevailing winds before setting a
course. He gets tossed about,
changing his point of view based on the influence of whomever he deems
most powerful.
Powerful people who are also insecure like having “yes-men” around. Weak leaders know they can count on the
yes-man to never contradict or push back.
Rather, the yes-man affirms the leader’s judgment, whether correct
or not.
Great leaders, by contrast, welcome differing points of view. As a wise boss once told me, “What good
are you if you always agree with me?
I already know what I think.”
Unfortunately the “yes-man” often lacks the business acumen to go along
with his survival skills. The higher
he matriculates in the organization the more damage his poor decisions
cause.
- Negative Politics. The player who utilizes negative
politics gets things done at the expense of others. This individual openly embraces a
Machiavellian ethic, seeing the world through a simple-minded dialectic
between the weak and the strong, the smart and the stupid, the insiders
and the outcasts
The negative politician sees herself as smarter, better, and more able
than others. She exercises power to accomplish her career goals, as she
feels it is right and natural for those who are more capable to rise above
their inferiors.
She may or may not accomplish anything of value to the organization as she
climbs the ladder. She will,
however, take care of number one.
If someone threatens her in any way, she pounces like a
praying-mantis, devouring the hapless soul who wanders into her path.
The negative politician becomes a polarizing figure, forcing everyone else
to “take sides” when it comes to her or her projects. Coworkers, frightened to “cross” the
anti-mother, keep their counsel.
The business does “OK” as long as the hunches of the tyrant are
correct, but eventually she gets cut off from reality. Hearing only what people think she wants
to hear, bad news gets filtered out before reaching her ear. Lacking accurate information, she
inevitably bumbles into a catastrophic decision. Even worse, individuals of character
will flee for greener pastures when they tire of having to wink at the
tyrant’s ruthlessness.
- Positive Politics. Consulting guru Peter Block coined the
phrase “Positive Politics” for an approach that embraces the use of power,
but in a way that builds up others in the process. The positive politician “talks up”
others to their superiors with sincerity.
The positive politician negotiates with others to find mutually
beneficial solutions to conflict.
The supportive leader realizes that it does no good to win today at the
expense of another. Have you
noticed how people have a funny way of coming back into our lives in the
future? Rather than leave a trail
of resentment in his wake, the positive leader leaves a trail of
encouragement, growth, and gratitude.
Syndicated columnist Gene C. Mage is author of the book Managing for High Performance. To contact Gene, visit www.makingitwork.com.
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