I disagree sharply with the view that politics is bad and should be eradicated from organizations to whatever degree possible. Instead, I believe that politics is a tool that leaders must use to achieve their goals. In so doing, I think that leaders help further the goals of their organization.
Leadership, in my definition, is an episodic process whereby an individual pursues his or her goals and vision by intentionally influencing others to perform various tasks to their full potential. Politics is not “war by other means” but “power by other means.” It is an influence tactic that skillful leaders use to achieve their goals by getting others ¾ regardless of rank, position, division or formal affiliation ¾ to perform on their behalf. Those others can include the CEO’s executive assistant or the CEO himself, a direct report, a fellow vice president, or a team of consultants who are designing a new change agenda for the organization. The political leader knows how to stack the deck, play the right cards, build solid alliances, triangulate issues and isolate those with conflicting points of view. The political leader does this in order to get what he wants, i.e., to achieve his objectives and further his vision.
Mintzberg’s discussion of organizational types and their propensity for politics is illuminating because it tells us how much the structure of an organization affects the way power and influence are used. Everyone knows that org charts don’t tell the full story of how decisions get made in an organization. Title and rank do not always correspond with relative amounts of authority and influence; just as hierarchy is not a perfect map of power. This is because, by its very nature, power comes in many different forms, all of which are useful to getting things done.
According to Kathryn Stechart, an expert on the differences in the way men and women use power, there are four distinct types of power found in organizations: expert, perceived, referent and coercive. Coercive power is about forcing people to do what you want. This can range from extortion and threat, to simply having the authority to make others do what you want them to do because of position, status and the ability to follow through on a perceived or implied threat. Coercive power can be very effective in the short run, but only lasts for as long as the threat exists, and does not engender any loyalty or passion. Basically, it’s impossible to influence someone to perform at their top potential through coercion for long.
Expert power is about the ability to demonstrate knowledge or proficiency such that others come to feel those skills are essential to the success of the organization. The person who has that knowledge or skill is given deference or authority because their power is useful, and because there is a fear that they may withhold that power or bring it elsewhere. You can think of expert power as technical competence. Leaders tend to rise through the ranks because of their technical competence ¾ despite our growing belief that hard skills are less important than soft skills. We value the individual’s financial acumen, engineering knowledge, marketing savvy or project management ability, etc., and continue to promote them and reward them power for as long as their skills are beneficial.
Referent power is the power that a leader gains over someone who sees something of themselves in that leader. As we talked about in terms of charisma and mystique, heteropholy is all about perceived similarities. We are prone to follow someone who represents us in the most basic terms. If we share religious beliefs, ethnic backgrounds, nationalities, likes and dislikes, we are more apt to share or participate in a vision, which makes us more easily influenced to perform tasks in line with that vision.
Finally, Stechert talks about perceived power as being the most effective form of all. For example, we may believe that the CEO is the most technically knowledgeable person in the organization. We may also believe that the CEO is a lot like us, and we may even believe that the CEO has the most power to hurt us and force us to comply. Altogether, that’s a considerable bandwidth of power. Charisma and magnetism are some means by which perceived power gets amplified. Basically, perceived power has some basis in reality but the sense of power can be magnified dramatically through non-rational or emotional responses in followers.
In a living breathing organization most decisions get made informally, in between the lines on the org chart, as it were, and are only sanctioned or ratified in the formal meetings between those who represent established power bases. It’s pretty rare that information flow, budgetary dollars, sponsorship and support, and all of the requisite activity and decision-making follows in lock-step with the org chart. It’s much more likely that a constant scramble is going on for all of these things in an ever changing world. Politics, in that sense, is the dance of the ever-shifting dynamics of power. It’s about leveraging the power you have, in whatever circumstance you currently face, to achieve your goals.
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.
