Political Behavior in Organizations

In the last byte, we looked at Korda's symbols of power and attempted to understand what each symbol represents. In today's byte, we begin our discussion on Political Behavior in Organizations.
 

Organizational Politics refers to the use of power and influence in an organization. The term of politics could have a negative connotation, but this is not necessarily true.
 

Organization is a setting where people have competing interest, an effective manager would need to reconcile these interests. Thus the art of managing necessitates organizational politics. There are various tactics and strategies that could be used to acquire and expand power base. While some of these are sanctioned (approved by) in an organizational setting, there are others which are done without a sanction.
 

Political Behavior thus refers to actions not officially sanctioned by an organization but taken up to influence others and thereby meet one's personal goals. While in some cases, the goals could be aligned to team or organizational goals; in other cases, the personal goals and interests of others collide with each other; individuals pursue politics at the expense of others' interest.