Politics in the workplace differs from the politics we know from elections, but there are some similarities, too. Politicians who are competing in elections “campaign” for support for their issues and their own candidacy. They focus particularly on opinion-leaders, those with sway over others, and try to garner as many votes as they can. They try to be well-liked by everyone, kissing babies, and shaking hands because that sense of likeability can turn into passionate support. (FDR once said that every handshake is worth three hundred votes.) Workplace politicians do many of the same things, metaphorically. While we see electoral politics as full of staged rituals that are acceptable because they are traditional, we view any perceived lack of sincerity or any overt efforts to garner support in organizations as distasteful. Going after what you want by playing the game is considered somehow wrong.
I could cite many highly respected leadership and organizational experts for their negative views of politics, too. At the same time, I recognize that in the world of book reviews and jacket endorsements, this might be an impolitic thing for me to do. Oh, what the hell.
Henry Mintzberg, Bronfman Professor of Management at McGill University, is one of the smartest and most refreshingly unorthodox management and organizational experts in the world. Like Peter Drucker, he recognizes the good and bad in our organizations. According to Mintzberg:
“I am no fan of politics in organizations. But neither am I a fan of illness. Yet I know we have to understand one like the other. In fact, politics can be viewed as a form of organizational illness, working both against and for the system. On one hand, politics can undermine healthy processes, infiltrating them to destroy them. But on the other, it can also work to strengthen a system, acting like fever to alert a system to a graver danger, even evoking the system’s own protective and adaptive mechanisms.” [Politics And The Political Organization, from Mintzberg On Management.]
In other words, Mintzberg (like most of us) believes that the existence of politics in organizations is a bad thing; but there’s a good side. When we spot the existence of politics, we know something is terribly wrong. The patient is sick, and politics is the symptom. Recognizing that, we can rush the patient to the emergency ward and save his life.
Mintzberg thinks of politics in terms of gamesmanship, too. He’s even come up with names for those games, many of which you will read with a thrill of recognition. There’s the insurgency game; the counterinsurgency game; the sponsorship game; the alliance-building game; the empire-building game; the budgeting game; the expertise game; the lording game; the line versus staff game; the rival camps game; the strategic candidates game; the whistle-blowing game; and the young Turks game. I think that just about covers it.
From this perspective, politics is a sign of “war by other means.” It indicates dissatisfaction within the ranks, conflict between power bases, division between factions; it distracts people from important goals; and it uses up vital energy in unproductive pursuits. Mintzberg points out that some organizations are more prone to politics than others. The entrepreneurial organization, for example, is not very political because the founder is a strong figure with a strong vision, and most people are focused on urgent objectives. The industrial (machine) organization is more prone to politics because it is more bureaucratic. Divisions have budgets which they scramble over. New generations can be in conflict with the generation in power. Line can be in conflict with management. Whistle-blowers might try to bring down the whole system. The professional organization is also prone to politics because hierarchy is flat and authority is decentralized. In schools, law firms, and innovative start-ups, people assume power bases, alliances are formed, sponsorship is critical, and everyone needs to work gamely for whatever influence they can gain. In pure ideological organizations, like cults, politics is not tolerated because belief is so strong, people follow it without question.
All of this feels accurate, if viewed through a particular filter. Mintzberg does allow that politics can have a functional role. He thinks of it as a Darwinian process in which the strong survive; a conflict-heavy method by which various sides of an issue can be debated; a means by which change can be stimulated by dissatisfied people from within; and a way of easing the acceptance of executive decisions. Mintzberg implies that in a healthy organization, only a minimum of politics would be necessary; but he also suggests that the existence of politics is a sign of life. Only a dead organization is free from politics; because nobody cares what happens in them anymore. If politics is a necessity, Mintzberg believes, it is because disease goes with life. That said, we need to be vigilant about watching for it, and try to lead lives that are as healthy as possible.
Anthony Smith is Co-Founder and a Managing Director of Leadership Research Institute and author of ESPN: The Company (Jossey-Bass, September 2009). He is also the author The Taboos of Leadership: 10 Secrets No One Will Tell You about Leaders and What They Really Think (Jossey-Bass, May 2007). This article originally appeared in different form in his book, The Taboos of Leadership.
