How to survive office politics as a Product Manager

Welcome to Rise & Thrive, a weekly newsletter where I challenge conventional wisdom to help high achievers, especially women, advance in their careers and rise into product executive leadership roles.

Hello there ??,

This week, I want to talk about office politics. Not the sanitized version—the real, messy, uncomfortable truth that’s often the elephant in the room.?

Last month, I had asked our members in the Product Leadership Edge program to define office politics in their own words.? Here is what they shared:

• “It’s like every win is on loan.” (Senior PM at a Fortune 500)
• "There's a constant need to watch your back—even with people you consider allies." (Director of Product, mid size tech company)?
• "Success starts to feel like a threat." (Product Manager, well funded startup)?
• "It's like playing chess with people you can't even see." (Product Manager, Bigtech)?

For years, I struggled to navigate these dynamics, constantly feeling like I was walking on eggshells, watching my back, and rarely feeling safe. No matter how many times I changed companies, teams, or managers, the politics were always there.

After stepping into an interim Chief Product Officer role, I forced myself to zoom out and observe. That’s when I realized something crucial: office politics isn’t a game you can choose to play or ignore. It’s an invisible ecosystem of human interactions, power dynamics, and unconscious survival mechanisms present in every organization.

But here's the real question: How do you navigate this without losing your soul (or your sanity)?

There's a moment I'll never forget. I was working at company that was considered a sweetheart where everybody wanted to work, was awarded the best place to work for years, and investors loved it. It was the annual product review offsite, and I had just presented my product strategy for the next year. I watched a colleague, a fellow Sr. Product Manager—someone I'd considered a friend and also someone whose feedback was incorporated in the strategy I presented along with other stakeholders—systematically dismantle what I presented. Not with facts, but with carefully placed innuendos and strategic silences. The fact that we had several pre-meets with all relevant stakeholders to strengthen the argument and the main thesis of the strategy over the last month - none of this mattered.

My chest tightened. My hands went cold. As I write this, I can almost feel those emotions coursing through me again - the anger, the betrayal, the frustration.

This was not the only time this happened. I've walked through organizational landscapes that felt more like psychological minefields than professional environments. Tech companies that promised innovation but delivered tribal warfare. Companies where ambition was a weapon, not a vision. Office politics isn't a game. It's a primal narrative of human needs: recognition, safety, significance. Every passive-aggressive email, every strategically timed meeting invite, every subtle undermining—it's not malice. It's survival.

Here are 3 techniques I use personally to figure out and navigate my way in office politics.?

P.S. Each one builds upon the other to help you maintain your sanity and effectiveness in politically charged environments:

Technique #1: You need to observe like an anthropologist

For years, I took political moves personally, feeling blindsided and betrayed. Now, I have a sticker on my laptop that reads “Observe like an Anthropologist”—a daily reminder to approach situations with curiosity instead of defensiveness.

During a quarterly business review, my team’s product direction was being scrutinized intensely. My first impulse was to defend our work, but I paused and observed instead. The CFO became visibly tense when we discussed projections. I later learned his former company had failed due to overly optimistic forecasts. His resistance wasn’t about us—it was about his past trauma..

Remember that colleague who torpedoed my product strategy? Every time leadership mentioned "organizational efficiency," her political moves intensified. Her aggression peaked during reorganization rumors. She wasn't evil. She was terrified.

Reflection corner - spend 15 mins to ask yourself:

• When was the last time I observed a situation without reacting?
• Did I allow myself to see the underlying motivations at play?

Technique #2: Your growth happens in the margins

While observation helps you understand the landscape, a strong internal foundation prevents you from getting lost in it. That’s where I learned my second lesson: Corporate ladders are dangerous illusions.

I spent years in a senior role that, on paper, felt stagnant. My title and scope were the same, and by traditional metrics, I was “stuck.

I started actively seeking out projects for skill acquisition for my next role. I helped an Executive Leader with slides and research for an M&A discussion. I also helped my designer with rapid prototyping and user testing. None of these were in my job description.

Looking back, it appears I was building a portfolio of valuable skills. This eventually led to an international secondment and later, my promotion to President of a tech company.

This isn't just about "focusing on your work." It's about redefining what growth looks like in politically charged environments. Your career equity isn't just your title or position - it's the unique combination of skills, experiences, and relationships you're building, often in the margins of your official role.

P.S. Be mindful, though; focusing on these non-core tasks can raise questions about your commitment. To balance this, make sure your manager understands how these skills align with your official role. Position it as an opportunity to strengthen your impact within the team, not as a distraction.

Reflection corner - spend 15 mins to ask yourself:

• What invisible skills are you building today that could position you for tomorrow?
• What's one action you can take this week?

Technique #3: Understand what is costing you to be curious

One of my managers once asked me, “Bosky, what is being curious costing you?” At first, I didn’t get it. I thought curiosity meant asking questions. But true curiosity isn’t about leading questions or subtly reinforcing our own opinions; it’s about listening without an agenda.

We use frameworks like "5 Whys" and naively believe we are being curious. In reality, we often ask questions not to learn, but to lead witnesses to our predetermined conclusions. This is why most questions we ask are so surface-level or lazy.

We were 3 months into building a major platform feature that would improve our customer onboarding by 60%. In one of the engineering discussions, our Principal Engineer was outlining issues with the architecture. Each point he made was actually valid - system bottlenecks, scaling concerns, data consistency risks.?

But all I could hear was the product strategy I worked on for weeks being threatened. Three months of work, stakeholder buy-in, customer promises—all at risk.

Instead of listening, I went defensive: "I hear a lot of potential risks. Help me understand—is this about technical architecture, or is there something about the direction that doesn't align with your experience?"

Instead of listening,my tone was defensive: "I hear a lot of potential risks. Help me understand—is this about technical architecture, or is there something about the direction that doesn't align with your experience?"

Two months later? We hit exactly the scaling issues he'd warned about. Major customer complaints. Emergency weekend fixes. Countless hours of rework. All because I used curiosity as a weapon rather than a tool for understanding.

Reflection corner - spend 15 mins to ask yourself:

• Are your questions genuinely aimed at understanding, or are they shields for your own agenda?

Here's what I want you to take from today: Surviving office politics isn't about becoming a better player. It's about recognizing when you're playing at all.

Most advice will tell you to get better at the game. Build allies. Manage perceptions. Ask strategic questions. And yes, sometimes that's necessary. But after over 20 years in the trenches building products and leading product teams, watching politics derail great products and burn out brilliant leaders, I've learned something else.

The most powerful moments in my career weren't when I played the game well. They were when I had the courage to stop playing - to be genuinely uncertain, openly imperfect, actually curious rather than strategically clever.

Does this make you more vulnerable? Yes. Will there be times when others take advantage of that vulnerability? Also yes. I've had those scars to prove it. But here's what I keep coming back to:?

The constant vigilance of political maneuvering costs more than just time and energy. It slowly erodes the very thing that makes us good product leaders - our ability to see clearly, to engage genuinely, to build trust through transparency rather than technique.

Something to understand here is? when these strategies don’t work.

In some environments, these approaches may face systemic limits—where power dynamics heavily influence decision-making or cultural issues outweigh individual actions. Be aware of your organization’s power structures and your place within them.

At different levels, these strategies may also vary in effectiveness. In junior roles, “observation” and “curiosity” are often safer, while “growing in the margins” might be more practical for those in mid-level or leadership positions.

I still have that "Observe like an anthropologist" sticker. But now it reminds me of something different: Not just to observe others' political moves, but to notice my own. To catch myself when I'm slipping into defensive strategy mode. To remember that sometimes the bravest thing we can do is just be human.

So I'll leave you with this: What if the answer to office politics isn't better armor, but less armor? What if our job isn't to get better at the game, but to change how the game is played? ????

If this resonates, and you want to dive deeper into navigating these waters while staying true to yourself, join us in Product Leadership Edge . Our next cohort starts next week, where we'll tackle these challenges head-on, together.

Until next time,

Bosky