Early in my career I told a leader I didn’t like politics.
He sat me down and, more or less, called me an idiot.
Politics, he explained, is simply the way groups of people make decisions. It isn’t good or bad. It just is.
You can decide not to take part, and nobody will make you. The group still decides, though, and now it decides without you.
If you don’t want that, the next question is whether you’ll be good at politics or bad at it. You’re smart, so you set out to become reasonably good at it.
That leaves what you do with the skill. A bad actor uses it to advance themselves above everything else. A good actor uses it to further a greater cause, or the common good of the company.
The bonus is that being a good actor helps you too. Most of what I wrote about turning the ship, finding the levers and building a coalition, is political skill put to work for the organization, and the people who do it well tend to get trusted with more.
The Bad Actors
So now you’re reasonably good at it, and you’re a good actor. What do you do when you run into a bad actor who is better at politics than you? So much better that nobody else can tell they’re bad?
Their skill is what hides them. The same political skill that lets them put themselves first also lets them appear to be serving everyone else. They’re a darker relative of the unintentional imposters I’ve written about, except this one knows exactly what they’re doing.
Taking them on means fighting on their strongest ground, in front of people who already trust them. Keeping your head down is just opting out again.
I left at least one company for that reason. They were better, they were bad, and I didn’t want to be along for the ride.
Not every political fight is worth it. Sometimes the right decision is to leave and put your effort somewhere healthier.
