The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Office Politics

Office politics result as a by-product of working with multiple personalities, differing opinions and varying degrees of work ethics. No matter where you go, who you work with or the integrity that a company is based on, office conflicts, like the cockroach, will continue to exist even after an atomic bomb.

 

This naturally destructive workplace conflict factor is something that sadly we will all encounter in a multitude of environments, situations and companies. Regardless of how hard you try to find a company that is devoid of politics, fail you will. While the pursuit of a 100% happy working environment may be futile, the way in which you consciously chose to rise above such workplace disagreements is where your focus should turn.

 

How you choose to deal with office politics is an immediate reflection of your self-worth, your credibility, work ethics and ultimately your elusive self esteem. Not only do workplace disputes have an effect on you internally, but how you deal with such situations has an influence on how you are perceived as an employee, your integrity within the organisation and how colleagues respond and behave with you going forward.

 

Office politics can be attributed to a multitude of transferable skills, namely;

Communication skills

Negotiation Skills

Interpersonal Skills

General Social Skills.

 

In order to partake in office politics in an un-antagonistic manner we need to constantly keep all of these skills in check.

It is also worth mentioning that despite the pretty definitions of office politics you may find in the dictionary, office conflicts involve human beings; fluid creatures affected by fluid influences, constantly changing during any given point in time.  Understanding this, will get you half way to a solution and result in you putting your strongest foot forward in getting past office politics.

 

Instead of dwelling on only the negative aspects of workplace politics, I feel it would rather be the esteemed thing to do, to offer insight into the good, the bad and the ugly of office politics and the route you should embrace in order to maintain both your internal and external integrity and self worth.

 

In order to illustrate the good, the bad and the ugly of office politics I'm going to re-shuffle the order of my catchy title to make sure this as easy to understand. So for all informative purposes, to follow;

 

1.       The Bad-----------  3. The Good-----------2. The Ugly

 

 

1.       The Bad of Office Politics

 

While this may sound 'oh so' very amicable, the bad way to handle office politics is in an overly passive manner. Being a patsy has never got anyone anywhere. By allowing yourself to fall prey to victimisation and not having a back bone to defend your worth is the most self defeating behaviour in any situation, let alone in times of conflict in the workplace.

'The bad' of office politics stems from naivety, lack of self-worth and deprived personal and business integrity. Instead of standing up to the challenges that workplace conflict results in, some open themselves up to let the guy with even the slightest pseudo-supremacy take advantage.

As quoted by the talented author, Marianne Williamson, 'There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you' and so the same applies when conducting yourself during times of office disputes.

2.       The Ugly of Workplace Politics

 

U-G-L-Y, there really is no alibi, its ugly!

'The ugly' of office politics is the fight factor we sometimes respond with when faced with a threatening experience, but nothing makes this response right. Fighting is not going to resolve conflict but rather heighten the negativity and animosity. The more angry people become the further they get form the solution to their conflicts. The ugly of office politics indulges in distrust, dishonesty and two faced behaviour that is counterproductive and, well, ugly. By allowing aggression, negativity and the fight factor into office politics, tips the scale on fairness and welcomes everything that works against finding a meeting ground to naturally occurring disagreements. When involved in office politics try you must, to avoid things from getting ugly. The situation is bound to get worse and the politics will prevail despite any attempts at resolving it.

 

3.       The Good of Office Politics

 

Now you can breathe a sigh of relief, as there definitely are positive aspects that result from office politics. As mentioned earlier, office politics are a by product of differences. Differences that may be justified or unwarranted but until you have faced such politics the differences will still be the distance that separates us from each other as well as the achievement of our goals. Office politics forces us to take stock about who we are, how we conduct ourselves in the workplace and identify areas we personally would like to improve on. Sure, it's never nice to come about things we think would be beneficial to adjust via politics or disputes, but as we all know the best way that we learn is from making mistakes and consciously deciding to not allow them into the mix for round two.

When dealing with office politics and uncomfortable disputes in the workplace, the best place to start is by sweeping our own front doors. There is no use attacking others, until we have looked at our own personal behaviour and performance in light of the situation. Look at how each party involved can benefit from finding a mutual solution to office politics. Place yourself in the team jersey and remember that you are all supposed to be working towards the same goals and the greater good of the company and that you too have played a part in contributing to the current disagreeable circumstance. Tap into your the deepest level of your emotional intelligence (EQ) and put things into the context in which they occur.

Open up channels of communication (regardless of if this makes you feel uncomfortable or not), take ownership of your responsibilities and set aside any level of arrogance, in doing so you will consciously disarm the negative situation.

 

Finding a safe place in an environment of office politics takes a lot more that happy thoughts to get you there. While you may not want to be the better person or feel that you ought to be the better person, guess what, reading this article has already made you the better person and you owe it to yourself to employ the finest ethics and level of honesty you carry in order to resolve such office disputes. No one wants to have to deal with uncomfortable situations at work; it's an unnecessary evil that we can all practice avoiding. Consciously decide the way in which you will respond to office politics and if someone tries to involve you in an irrelevant, hyper sensitive gripe, offer them a block of cheese with their whine and move on.