Office Politics - Avoid Them, But Don’t Ignore Them

There are many benefits to being senior management. One of the biggest, in very humble opinion, is the elimination of any office politics. Now we appreciate that there is not an organisation at any level that doesn’t ‘enjoy’ the daily playground that is office life, but it’s not half as bad in the boardroom as it is by the post room, believe me.

If you can’t beat it, at least you can avoid it. There is certainly a point when you are going to have to manage it through your staff at least. So, you can avoid it granted, but to ignore it totally would be dangerous. Playing the ‘game’ leaves you cold – and it should, but once you are part of an entity, and certainly as a man manager, you are immediately part of the human mix.

Female assistants are sometimes jokingly introduced as their male boss’s ‘work wife'. When arguably, you may spend more time a t work than you do at home, it’s only natural that the same ‘inter family’ politics, relationships, misunderstandings, games, tantrums and tears translate over to the corporate world. So as well as the ‘care’ you would receive from your real family unit, there is also the inevitable dysfunction to deal with.

We sometimes genuinely admire those executives who simply don’t care how they are perceived in the workplace. This attitude takes real talent to get right though, as a boss with no self awareness can never be a great leader, simply a selfish one out of touch with his force. Trying to impress those above you whilst simultaneously ignoring the ones ‘below’ will catch up with you for sure.

If you treat everyone as humans, with the respect they deserve, you’ll get it back tenfold. People generally expect the boss to be rather an aloof type – showing them your ‘real’ side does a lot of good – especially if you usually keep everyone at arms length.

There is no good to being everyone’s ‘buddy’ either. When the time comes to mediate the office political dramas, you will be compromised, and your jurisdiction will be diminished as the likelihood is, you could be someway involved, or your staff will expect you to take sides with them.

As the person in charge you need to sit back and assess the situation, and keep your eye on typical instigators. You can get a clear picture and make a clear game plan of how to resolve the friction.

You will never exterminate harmful, gossipy behaviour, but you really can’t be seen to tolerate it either. Even being privy to some malicious talk signals your participation, so, in the first instance, walk away. Steer a conversation or even colleagues back to work or work related topics. If an instigating clique has formed, thinking of how you can engineer the break yup of such a group without appearing obvious.

The key to managing your office politics is to lead by example. If you can manage a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to office antics, and deal with petty disputes quickly and effectively, it could go some way to curbing them in the first place.