Does Office politics pay off?

The word ‘Politics’ has negative connotation. Majority of the working population does not like office politics. However, it is the fact of today’s organizational life. When two or more than two people are working together, political activities are bound to happen.

Office politics is all about hypocrisy, rumours, self-promotion and destructive behavior .Agenda of self-promotion is good. However, people who play office politics try to promote themselves at the cost of interest of other employees and organization. They try to misuse the power. Organization is collection of people who try to achieve common goal through collective efforts. But people who are engaged in office politics are more bothered about individual rather than collective goals. They engage into destructive activities like rumours, hypocrisy.They try to take credit of somebody else’s achievements. They build groups who work hand in gloves in the pursuit of self-promotion. Because of such politicians, entire work culture takes a negative turn. No constructive activity can happen in such a negative work environment. Teamwork takes a back seat. Common goals are forgotten. Mediocrity is preferred over merit.

If we analyze profile of workplace politicians, some common characteristics are observed. In simple language, workplace politicians are mediocre people with inferiority complex who constantly feel unsafe and insecure. As these people cannot progress or retain their positions based on merit, they resort to politics.

It is the responsibility of a leader to make sure that such destructive behavior is not encouraged .Leader can ensure through actions such as pay for performance, transparent communication, bias towards merit, open door policy,

If bad practices like workplace politics are not checked in time, organization will eventually take place of also rans.