Positive Office Politics
Leadership
February 10, 2010
Mike Henry
Operations and IT Consultant
Topics
Alignment, Jane Perdue, Leadership, motives, Office Politics, sincerity, win-winThis is part of a series of posts organized and arranged by Jane Perdue. You can find the introduction here and the post on networking by Jennifer V. Miller at her blog The People Equation. I also posted on Sincerity and Office Politics and Susan Mazza followed with a great post on the political side of agendas at Random Acts of Leadership. This is the final post in the series, titled Influence and Intentions on the positive side of influence.
Is there such a thing as positive office politics? Jane Perdue has hosted a series of articles on the four behaviors that politically astute leaders master. Jane asked each of us to post on one of the behaviors. Her post here presents the common thread. When your motives are noble, your behaviors are received as "positive politics." When your motives are selfish, your social astuteness, interpersonal influence, networking ability and sincerity all come into question.
When people perceive that your motivations include them, they give you the benefit of the doubt in many behaviors. Eventually your skills need to produce results in line with your true motives. Jane's post points out 7 ways to improve your "win-win" influence skills. They're great tips. Zoom over to her blog to read the whole post. You'll be glad you did.
Mike,
It’s been such a pleasure collaborating with you, Jane and Susan. This blog series has helped me clarify something I’ve always known, but didn’t quite have the words to describe. It’s not a matter of whether one plays office politics, it’s *how* you play that determines your effectiveness.
.-= Jennifer V. Miller´s last blog ..Office Politics: It’s Personal =-.
Mike – noble motives and positive win-win results are the root of character-based leadership! You’ve been a role model of both throughout the entire series process!