In organizations, people differ in their ability to influence others and influence work processes. Accordingly, people differ in what they can do to protect and promote their own interests. Let's take a look at organizational politics.
Organizational politics refer to social influence attempts directed at those who provide rewards that will help promote or protect the self-interests of the actor. At some point, everyone needs to influence others to follow their ideas or preferred course of action, and doing that requires the use of politics. Politics are a fact of life in work organizations. Virtually every employee in America can describe a political incident in which he or she was directly or indirectly involved.
Employees who have been regularly affected by politics tend to perceive politics to be negative influence in organizations, whereas those whose interests were advanced through political means tend to view it as a useful tool. Because employees act on their perceptions, recognizing and understanding employees'perceptions of politics is important to managing effectively. Organizational politics are the result of both individual employees and the culture of the organization. Some cultures permit and even promote certain types of political behaviors. Political behaviors are most likely to occur when there is a reasonably high degree of ambiguity or uncertainty in the work environment.
Some organizations proactively seek to eliminate political behavior. Eugene McKenna identified these common political tactics used in organizations. Controlling information, restricting information to certain people, Controlling lines of communication, establishing gatekeepers to restrict access to information.
Using outside experts. Outside consultants may seem neutral, but are paid and directed by management to do their bidding. Controlling the agenda, to ensure only certain topics are discussed. Game playing, leaking information, getting only friends to provide feedback, and so on.
Image building, enlisting spin doctors to project a desirable image. Building coalitions, befriending powerful others or starting small subgroups to promote specific aims. Controlling decision parameters, trying to influence decisions before they're made.
Eliminating political rivals, this may even mean getting them promoted to get them out of the way. Political skill involves having interpersonal influence as well as social astuteness, which involves showing respect for others'ways of thinking. Developing a strong network and being perceived by others as sincere also reflects high political skill.
Political skill has been found to be positively related to job performance. Let's take a look at common causes of political behavior in organizations. Conflict is at the core of organizational politics. Because political behavior is self-serving, it has the potential to threaten the self-interests of others.
When a perceived threat is followed by retaliation, conflict occurs. Uncertainty increases political behavior. Lacking specific rules and policies for guidance, employees develop their own rules for acceptable behavior and they're often self-serving. Decisions made under uncertainty are particularly susceptible to political interference. Scarcity of valued resources like transfers, raises, office space, and budgets also promote political behavior.
Jockeying for a position to receive a valuable but scarce resource is a classical political behavior. Some individuals desire to avoid conflict and therefore tend not to resist others'influence attempts. Although this may appear to be non-political, it's actually a form of political behavior. It has been suggested that the distinction between political and non-political behavior in organizations can be made on the basis of intent. That is, if a behavior is enacted specifically to advance one's own self-interests, including conflict avoidance, then the individual is acting politically.
Organizational policies sometimes reward and perpetuate political behavior. In particular, compensation policies may inadvertently reward individuals who engage in influence behaviors and penalize those who do not. Individually oriented rewards induce individually oriented behavior, which is often self-interested and political in nature. Managing politics is about managing power, building trust and openness to allow employees to freely discuss their feelings, fears and opinions, without fear of retaliation, decreases the need for political behavior.