Webinar report: Navigating office politics

Joanna specialises in helping people develop workplace relationships and non-technical skills.

Rare is the individual who is immune to office politics. Even rarer is the one who didn’t take their first steps into political manoeuvring in childhood.

Think back to when you were very young. You wanted a chocolate bar but your caregiver said no. How did you respond? Maybe you played one care giver off against another. Maybe you bargained? Perhaps you sulked?

Office politics is the adult manifestation of this behaviour; a bid to achieve what you want through informal channels. 

Are office politics all bad?

Ego. Tension. Conflict. Disruption. Cliques. These are some of the words that spring to mind when we think of workplace politics. Typically, politics arise when the agendas of people with conflicting values, assumptions and ambitions collide. Internal politics are a big cause of workplace absence and mental health disorders.

It doesn’t have to be like this. With skills to navigate office politics you can drive positive outcomes such as buy-in on projects, team cohesion, increased productivity and fast decision-making. 

You can’t avoid office politics, but you learn to navigate them positively. This is vital, as they will always be there!

Decide who you need to know

The people we have the greatest political challenges with tend to be senior stakeholders who aren’t out manager. We don’t work closely with them so haven’t built a relationship with them. However, their decisions are likely to affect your day-to-day work, the structure of your working environment and, eventually, your chances of career progression.

Our immediate bosses and peers are the key runners up to senior stakeholders in the hierarchy of who we need to get to know. Your boss’s remit extends way beyond your own sphere of activity, which necessitates effort when building that rapport. And with peers, conflicting priorities and competitiveness, both in the day job and when opportunities for promotions arrive, create a febrile political environment.

Once you’ve identified who you need to be ‘politicking’ with, be true to your values and beliefs. Remember the self-fulfilling prophesy in which:

My beliefs shape my behaviour - which influences other peoples’ behaviours - which reinforce my beliefs.

This matters because we can only change other people’s behaviour by changing our own.

The four political animals 

We can liken some characteristics we see in people to four animals:

• The donkey – loyal, load-bearing and hardworking, though possibly obtuse. May feel put upon and taken advantage of;
• The sheep – paragon of the herd mentality showing no evidence of critical thinking. Unlikely to question things, the sheep will happily go with the flow;
• The fox – famously cunning, clever and resourceful, the fox seeks to achieve through any means necessary. While also evasive, the fox is not afraid to fight; and
• The owl – wise, watchful and well respected, the owl’s unemotional pensiveness conceals a ruthless predator.

So, if political intelligence is the ability to get results through informal as well as formal channels. 

Our political animals show us how to plan our approach to their human counterparts. In the political animal model:

• The fox ranks highly for political intelligence yet is focused on personal goals;
• The donkey is also preoccupied with personal goals yet scores lowly for political intelligence;
• The sheep plays into organisational goals but, like the donkey, lacks political intelligence; while
• The owl is high on political intelligence and uses it to further organisational goals.

Polishing your political skills

Joanna set out four areas in which to build our political acumen.

Influence
Ahead of meetings involving people you don’t yet know, learn everything you can about them. How are they perceived? What does their LinkedIn profile tell you? What does their role suggest their agenda may be at the meeting? From here, look for common ground upon which to build relationships with these people.

Communication
Great communication begins with listening. When we listen carefully to someone we make them feel valued, which bodes well for a quality relationship. Curiosity also helps. Asking questions and digging deeper into their ideas and concerns adds depth to relationships and gives you a fuller understanding of other people's political agendas. 

Think too about communication channels. Aim for a mix of formal and informal. Formal meetings give you input from multiple business functions and help you solve problems before they start. Informal channels reveal what colleagues are saying off the record and help you take the political temperature across your organisation. 

Internal networking
Network with well-connected people who are in positions to influence your career. Use a range of networking options, from one-to-one interactions, internal events and conversations in communal break areas. And don’t forget do build your presence on corporate social and culture-building channels such as Viva Engage and Workvivo.

Factor x
As well as a great influencer, communicator and networker, always be looking for ways to make an impact with your colleagues. Empathy is a key skill for making yourself memorable. For example, if you're unsure why somebody holds different values to yours, ask yourself, “In what circumstances, or with what assumptions, would I see the world in the same way as them?” This can help you see things through others’ eyes – a critical skill in navigating office politics.

Likewise, question your assumptions when assessing other people’s behaviour. When two people suddenly stop talking as you enter the room, is it because:

• Their conversation reached a natural conclusion;
• They were being polite by preparing to start a new conversation with you; or
• They were talking about you or something confidential.

Any answer could be correct, but what we choose to believe is often driven by our relationship with those people and how we feel about the politics in our workplace.

Read on

For more great relationship-building tips from Joanna, check out her book, Getting On: Making work work. It’s discounted to £13.00 on Amazon for CLL delegates (usual print price £14.99) using code CLL253 until Sunday 31st October 2025. 

See you in November for…
… The ‘joy’ of difficult conversations. Few of us enjoy them, but good things can come from difficult conversations.

In the last webinar of her CLL 2025 series, Joanna will take us through the skills and proven techniques we need to master challenging dialogues. Pre-register here.