The Politics of Behavior and Belonging in the Workplace

As the political climate heats up and everyone turns their focus on things to come, I focus this month’s newsletter on the politics of workplace behaviors and how it can help accelerate one’s progression at work, and vice versa.

In its simplest terms, politics has to do with decision making and how those decisions come about, whether through shared democratic votes (consensus or otherwise) or through authoritarianism.

When it comes to the workplace, it boils down to who has the power to make the decisions. And due to the hierarchical nature of many organizations in modern society, the decision-making power tends to rest in a few hands.

The quest to be one of those hands is typically what gives rise to the concept of political behavior in the workplace.

What is workplace political behavior?

It’s what I call the hidden curriculum of workplace progression; the playbook of of actions, tactics, unwritten rules and norms that individuals (or even groups) use to get ahead and to gain either power or influence. Groups engage in political behavior to achieve desired outcomes. Think unions and collective bargaining units. Individuals also want to achieve desired outcomes (become the boss or close enough)

The thing is, most of us hear about political behavior and think it’s all bad. As with anything, nothing is all good or bad.

We may recognize the negative side of political behavior because we may have been on the receiving side of such behaviors. This is what people may refer to when they talk about people stepping on others to climb that proverbial career or work ladder.

Negative political behaviors include things such as spreading rumors, withholding information, gatekeeping, territorialism, and self-promotion at the expense of others. All with the express spoken or unspoken purpose of achieving greater influence and power.

Why Negative Political Behavior Thrives and How to Minimize it.

Political behavior thrives in organizations where resources are scarce, promotions are few and far between and the path-goals to those promotions are ambiguous.

As a leader of self within a team and organization, the goal should be to practice political behavior for the good of the polity. You can do this by asking for clarification on ambiguous goals, giving credit where credit is due and learning the fine dance between the I and the We when referencing outcomes of work done in groups and teams.

As a leader of others, minimizing negative political behavior can be achieved by ensuring transparency of processes relating to performance evaluations and paths to promotions.

Political Behavior and Belonging

The positive side of political behavior can be synonymous to organizational citizenship behaviors — those positive and constructive behaviors that are not a part of employees’ job descriptions. These extra-role behaviors come easily to many due to a culture of care and of wanting to do their part within the framework of a shared responsibility to achieve organizational outcomes.

The question of what makes people practice either negative or positive political behavior in the workplace can all be traced to belonging-ness. Everyone of us feels a need to belong. Some tend to do it through seeking avenues for power and influence and kowtowing to those in power. Others work on creating belonging for others through extra role responsibilities that are involved in making others on the job feel welcomed and thus contribute to an increased sense of belonging for everyone.

My advice to clients is to develop a culture of being able to document all contributions in any role you find yourself. This way, if you ever find yourself in a group where negative political behavior is rife, you can recognize it for what it is and have your own data for any future actions.

Positive behaviors are always profitable, in an integrated sense. Negative behaviors appear to work. But on taking a deeper look, you may find this to be only within certain organizations, and not as widespread as it appears.

The goal then should be to align ourselves with or to be leaders in organizations or work units where role goals are clearly defined and decision making has as much structure and transparency as is possible under conditions of organizational and technological change.

About the Career Acceleration Precepts (CAP) newsletter:

A monthly LinkedIn newsletter designed to provide early to mid-career pharmacy and healthcare professionals with tools and ideas for advancing their careers. CAP is curated by Dr Otito Iwuchukwu, CPTD, organizational psychologist, pharmacist-scientist, author, consultant, and career strategist. As a certified professional in talent development and career advocate for multi-passionate healthcare professionals, Dr Iwuchukwu helps individuals, put their gifts and strengths to use in and out of work.