My father, a wise, blue collar, salt-of-the-earth man, who earned every penny he ever made, said it best: “Watch out for that guy. He’s a politician.” To my father, a politician was the worst thing you could be. Straight shooters say what they mean and do what they say. They live by their word. They don’t try to trick you, turn the tables on you, make promises they have no intention of keeping, say what they know you want to hear, cut you out of the loop, use you, or do an end run around you to reach their objectives. For my father, that was the one big turn-off of working for a large organization: way too much gamesmanship, politics and backstabbing. Who needs it?
Most of us feel the same way.
And yet, we all know such people in our organizations. In fact, more often than not, politicians ¾ meaning people who are skilled at getting what they want without necessarily having the authority or power to do so ¾ seem to thrive in bureaucracies. They rise through the ranks. They gain allies and supporters as well as recognition, reputation and status. They also accumulate detractors and even enemies ¾ people who feel used, pushed aside, out-maneuvered and neglected. If those detractors aren’t completely ousted, they always seem to be waiting in the wings, hoping for the politician to fail, ready to pounce if he does ¾ and just as quick to jump back on the bandwagon when that “political bastard” favors them again. When an organization is dominated by politics, it’s not pretty ¾ an indication that trust is low, leadership is weak and the organization itself is in distress.
As an executive coach, there have been many occasions when I’ve had to be the messenger of feedback in which a leader’s colleagues, direct reports and superiors describe him as being political. I know that stings. It’s not a term that has any gloss or neutrality to it. Instead, it’s a term that implies a disparagement of that person’s character and an attack on the core of who they are, not just the way they behave. One of my mentor’s, Joe Keilty, used to say that a politician is someone who kisses up and kicks down. They tell the boss what the boss wants to hear; they look out for their own interests, more than anyone else’s; and they treat everyone around them badly. It’s not easy to tell someone that they are a political slime ball; but occasionally they need to hear the news straight, in order to change how they behave and how they are perceived in the world.
Now it’s time for some straight talk of my own. As an executive coach and leadership expert, I don’t see my role in life as being on a mission to eradicate politics and political behavior from the hallways, corner offices and meeting rooms of corporate America. Far from it. In fact, it is my belief, based on years of experience observing leaders and organizations, that politics is not a necessary evil in the leadership game ¾ it is just plain necessary. No leader achieves his goals without politics. No organization is utopian because it is politics-free. Instead, politics is the air leaders breathe and an important source of an organization’s energy and dynamism. The fact that politics is such a dirty word only points to its status as another taboo of leadership. We don’t like to acknowledge the existence of politics because we prefer an idealized and sanitized view of our leaders.
And yet, if we ever encountered a leader who was truly not political we would find that leader disappointingly ineffective. Politics is a necessary skill for making leadership meaningful. When I work with leaders who have been labeled as too political by their colleagues, reports and superiors I don’t coach them to change their ways in order to become better, more morally centered and likeable people; I teach them to change their ways because it’s time, at this stage in their careers, to do the political thing differently. For a leader, appearing less political is a very political act! Like any critical skill, it needs to be mastered.
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.
