Dealing With Office Politics

Organisational politics is an inevitable element of collective life, emerging wherever individuals pursue resources, recognition, or influence. Although frequently associated with manipulation and rivalry, politics also functions constructively when shaped responsibly. It helps employees navigate complex systems, negotiate competing demands, and adapt to shifting environments. While destructive politics erodes trust and cooperation, its persistence reflects deeper social and structural realities.

Attempts to eliminate politics ignore the conditions that sustain it, including ambiguity, competition, and cultural variation. A balanced assessment, therefore, requires moving beyond condemnation to evaluate how politics functions across contexts. This analysis examines theoretical perspectives on power and influence before addressing politics in various arenas, including conflict, change, promotion, and informal networks. Case evidence demonstrates both dysfunction and value when political skill is applied ethically.

The central argument advanced is that politics is neither wholly damaging nor inherently beneficial. Its impact depends upon culture, context, and leadership. Constructive politics supports creativity, fairness, and adaptability, while toxic behaviour undermines collaboration and morale. Leaders thus play a decisive role in shaping whether politics strengthens or weakens organisational life. By examining theory, empirical examples, and ethical strategies, the discussion demonstrates that politics is best managed as an unavoidable but potentially valuable feature of collective endeavour.

The conclusion emphasises that organisations cannot eradicate politics without dismantling structures of hierarchy and resource allocation. Instead, they must recognise its inevitability and cultivate conditions where political behaviour advances rather than impedes performance. Ethical stewardship, cultural sensitivity, and structural fairness remain critical in directing politics towards collective rather than individualised ends. Organisational success depends not on suppressing politics, but on harnessing it, ensuring that influence and negotiation serve innovation, resilience, and long-term legitimacy.

The Inevitability of Politics

Politics persists in organisations because scarcity, competition, and ambiguity are intrinsic to collective life. Rules and procedures can codify expectations, but rarely eliminate conflicting goals. Individuals and groups inevitably manoeuvre to protect interests, influence authority, or secure recognition. Such behaviour is not simply aberrant but a logical response to limited opportunities and ambiguous boundaries. Organisational politics, therefore, remains embedded, not as a failure of regulation but as the unavoidable outcome of interdependence, uncertainty, and contested authority in institutional life.

Psychological needs also sustain politics. Individuals seek belonging, identity, and influence, which motivates alliances, role negotiation, and protection of status. Political behaviour thus satisfies fundamental human drives within structured environments. Attempts to eliminate politics often fail, as they neglect its psychological foundations. Political activity provides a means of securing recognition and negotiating roles where formal structures are inadequate. Politics is therefore sustained less by managerial tolerance than by universal needs for status, security, and social recognition.

Organisational design further explains persistence. Bureaucratic structures distribute authority unevenly, often rewarding compliance over creativity. Informal influence compensates for these inequalities, allowing individuals without positional power to achieve outcomes. Employees navigate bureaucratic rigidity through political manoeuvres, filling gaps where rules prove inadequate. This resilience ensures politics cannot be eradicated without dismantling hierarchy itself, a solution neither practical nor desirable. Political negotiation is, therefore, integral to how individuals navigate power imbalances and overcome structural limitations.

Politics endures because its effects are ambivalent. While rivalry and distrust frequently result, politics also enables innovation, adaptability, and resistance to injustice. Employees employ political skills to challenge unfair practices or advocate for reform. Political strategies, therefore, provide flexibility in otherwise rigid systems, empowering marginalised voices and supporting organisational responsiveness. The resilience of politics lies precisely in this duality: it undermines trust when abused but strengthens collective capacity when channelled ethically. The challenge is discerning between these outcomes.

Theoretical Perspectives on Power

Theories of power illuminate why politics is inherent. Mintzberg’s depiction of organisations as political arenas reframes decision-making as contest and compromise among competing coalitions. This lens exposes negotiation, rather than bureaucracy, as the actual driver of organisational outcomes. Political activity, therefore, becomes not peripheral but central to decision-making. By normalising political negotiation, Mintzberg highlights its inevitability and suggests constructive potential where bargaining produces creative, pragmatic solutions to complex and competing demands.

French and Raven’s typology of power bases, legitimate, coercive, reward, expert, and referent, provides practical tools for analysing political influence. Employees combine these resources to exert control, whether through authority, expertise, or trust. Expert and referent power, founded on competence and respect, prove to be the most sustainable, reinforcing the value of knowledge and credibility over coercion. Political activity is thus multidimensional, with outcomes shaped by how individuals mobilise combinations of power. Responsible leadership requires recognising which forms of power encourage trust and innovation.

Foucault offers a deeper perspective, conceptualising power as relational, circulating through norms, technologies, and discourses rather than residing solely in individuals. From this perspective, politics pervades routine practices, shaping behaviour even where direct coercion is absent. Surveillance technologies or performance metrics illustrate this diffuse control. Employees navigate these power structures politically, negotiating expectations and resisting subtle coercion. Foucault’s insights demonstrate why politics cannot be confined to leadership but emerges continuously through systems of governance and embedded organisational practices.

Theory gains value when linked to practice. Multinational corporations exemplify the interplay of power bases, with managers frequently relying on expert and referent authority to influence global teams. Public sector bureaucracies reveal Foucault’s dispersed power, where compliance is secured not by direct order but through embedded procedures. Such illustrations highlight the importance of contextual analysis, showing that politics reflects not merely individual ambition but systemic power dynamics. Theories of politics achieve relevance only when critically connected to lived organisational experience.

Politics, Conflict, and Scarcity

Conflict remains the most visible driver of organisational politics. The scarcity of resources, whether funding, recognition, or advancement, inevitably generates competition. Political manoeuvring becomes the means of securing advantage within constrained environments. Such behaviour is less about individual malice than systemic limitation, where competition is structurally unavoidable. Politics becomes simultaneously a navigational strategy and a source of further rivalry. By exacerbating divisions while enabling adaptation, scarcity-driven politics embodies the double-edged quality inherent to political behaviour.

Information asymmetry magnifies conflict. Employees confronted with uncertainty often rely on alliances to secure clarity, while others manipulate knowledge to exert influence. Political manoeuvres flourish where communication falters, as information becomes a resource to be withheld or exploited. Conversely, excessive information without clear prioritisation creates confusion, prompting political behaviour to determine significance. Politics, therefore, thrives at the intersection of scarcity and uncertainty, making transparency and effective communication essential in reducing reliance on political strategies for navigation.

Perceptions of favouritism also incite rivalry. Where promotions or rewards appear to be distributed unfairly, resentment builds, fuelling political resistance. Equity theory suggests that employees compare their contributions to those of their peers; a perceived imbalance prompts disengagement or retaliatory behaviour. Favouritism thus erodes collaboration, replacing cooperation with rivalry. Systems that lack fairness and transparency invite political alternatives as employees bypass compromised processes. Conflict, therefore, reflects not only scarcity but also perceived injustice, with political behaviour serving as both resistance and counterbalance to inequality.

Organisational restructuring demonstrates conflict-driven politics vividly. When hierarchies are disrupted, individuals manoeuvre to secure future positions, amplifying political behaviour. Resistance to change often reflects not irrationality but concerns about power, identity, and security. Political manoeuvring serves as both a defensive strategy and a contest for influence. In such transitions, politics simultaneously threatens cohesion and safeguards survival. Understanding political behaviour as structural rather than personal enables leaders to manage conflict constructively, mitigating rivalry while recognising politics as an adaptive response to uncertainty.

Cultural and Contextual Variations

Organisational politics varies significantly across cultures. Hofstede’s framework illustrates how power distance shapes behaviour: in high power distance cultures, employees often accept hierarchy, limiting open challenge but encouraging covert manoeuvring. In low-power-distance settings, staff contest authority more directly, rendering politics visible but sometimes more manageable. Cultural context, therefore, influences whether political behaviour manifests subtly through networks or explicitly through overt resistance. Understanding such variation is essential for leaders navigating global teams and multinational organisations.

Collectivist societies highlight how politics can appear less adversarial yet remain present. Emphasis on harmony fosters coalition-building and consensus, with politics exercised through negotiation rather than confrontation. By contrast, individualist cultures often emphasise ambition and personal visibility, resulting in overt rivalry for recognition and advancement. Neither approach eliminates politics; instead, they demonstrate its adaptive expression under different cultural logics. Leaders managing across cultural boundaries must therefore interpret political behaviour sensitively, recognising variation without mistaking subtlety for absence.

Global organisations face acute challenges reconciling these differences. A tactic perceived as standard negotiation in one cultural context may be interpreted as manipulation elsewhere. For example, deference in East Asian workplaces can conceal resistance, while outspoken dissent in Scandinavian organisations may be valued as constructive input. Misjudging these behaviours risks conflict or mismanagement. Leaders must therefore blend global consistency with cultural adaptation, creating frameworks that respect diversity while maintaining ethical boundaries across organisational units.

Empirical cases illustrate the significance of culture. Traditional Japanese corporations have historically minimised overt rivalry by offering lifetime employment, thereby reducing competition for promotions but fostering other forms of politics, such as seniority-based networks. By contrast, technology organisations in Silicon Valley, operating within flatter structures, encourage politics around reputation, charisma, and innovation visibility. Both contexts illustrate that politics persists, albeit in culturally distinct forms. Organisational politics is therefore best understood as present universally but variable in expression across contexts.

Organisational Change as a Political Arena

Organisational change is among the most politically charged processes. Structural shifts redistribute authority, unsettle routines, and create uncertainty, prompting employees to either protect their interests or align with the new power holders. Resistance frequently reflects political calculation rather than irrational defiance. Individuals assess potential losses and mobilise strategies to preserve autonomy, status, or influence. Politics thus becomes both obstacle and mechanism during transformation, shaping outcomes according to whether behaviours are managed constructively or descend into rivalry and obstruction.

Lewin’s three-stage model highlights how politics intensifies during unfreezing, as established practices are destabilised. Employees contest new priorities, and leaders face challenges to legitimacy. Without clear vision, communication, and inclusion, uncertainty magnifies political manoeuvring, undermining progress. Conversely, inclusive leadership can convert politics into a driver of change, harnessing alliances to support reform. Political skill, therefore, determines whether organisational transitions consolidate collective energy for innovation or fragment attention through defensive rivalry and distrust.

Cultural context continues to shape political responses to change. In hierarchical societies, opposition may remain covert, expressed through delays or compliance that appear only superficial. In egalitarian contexts, resistance is often overt, with staff openly contesting new directives. Leaders must avoid misinterpreting cultural dynamics, recognising that silence may mask significant political resistance while overt dissent may reflect engagement rather than hostility. Misreading these cues risks either complacency or overreaction, undermining the management of political behaviour during transition.

Practical examples illustrate these dynamics vividly. Large-scale IT transformations in public health systems have often encountered political resistance, as staff form coalitions to defend their professional autonomy. Yet politics can also drive reform: within corporations, employee advocacy networks lobbying for sustainability have successfully influenced environmental policy. In both cases, politics served as a vehicle for both resistance and innovation. Organisational change, therefore, provides an arena where politics cannot be ignored but must be channelled into constructive energy.

Promotion, Inequality, and Structural Barriers

Promotion represents a fertile ground for political manoeuvring. With limited opportunities for advancement, employees often employ informal strategies to secure an advantage, including aligning with powerful sponsors or discrediting their rivals. While politically adept individuals may benefit, such practices risk sidelining competence in favour of influence, damaging perceptions of fairness. Politics in promotion thus represents both consequence and cause of inequality: scarcity drives manoeuvring, while political victories consolidate further inequality, entrenching disillusionment and mistrust among less favoured employees.

Although meritocracy is promoted as an ideal, practice often diverges. Informal networks, loyalty, or favouritism shape outcomes, undermining trust in official processes. Equity theory suggests that employees assess fairness by comparing their contributions and rewards with those of their peers. Where disparities appear, morale declines and disengagement ensues. Political behaviour becomes both a symptom of frustration and an alternative pathway to advancement. Without transparent systems, politics risks distorting meritocratic ideals, reinforcing perceptions of injustice and further incentivising political manoeuvring.

Inequality in career progression carries heavy organisational costs. Skilled staff overlooked due to political bias often disengage or leave, depleting talent pools and eroding institutional knowledge. Conversely, politically astute yet less competent individuals may ascend to leadership, weakening performance and credibility. Misalignment between capability and authority exemplifies the risks of unmanaged politics, where ambition overtakes organisational priorities. This dynamic illustrates how political influence can shift from constructive advocacy to destructive distortion, jeopardising long-term organisational integrity and success.

Empirical studies confirm these concerns. Research into law organisations demonstrates that partnership decisions often rest upon sponsorship and networks rather than competence. Healthcare organisations similarly reveal political influence over promotions, privileging seniority or loyalty over merit. Such evidence highlights politics in promotion not as an aberration but as a systemic feature. The challenge lies in designing transparent and equitable structures that limit distortion while recognising political skill as inevitable within processes of advancement and recognition.

Networks and Informal Systems of Influence

Organisational life is defined not only by formal hierarchies but by informal networks of influence. While charts and titles define authority on paper, relationships, alliances, and informal roles frequently prove decisive in shaping outcomes. Political behaviour thrives within this interplay, as individuals use networks to bypass bureaucracy, secure resources, or advance ideas. Informal systems, therefore, represent both a resource for adaptability and a risk for manipulation, depending on whether they align with or subvert organisational goals.

Informal networks often provide critical flexibility. In times of crisis, decisions and information frequently travel more efficiently through personal relationships than through formal channels. These networks enable organisations to adapt quickly when procedures prove too rigid. Yet the same structures may also harbour exclusion, gossip, and covert manipulation, weakening cohesion. Their ambivalence demonstrates the dual nature of politics: the same channels that facilitate resilience may also promote division. Effective management requires recognising informal influence as both essential and potentially dangerous.

Leaders who ignore informal networks risk being blindsided by unseen centres of power. Mapping these structures reveals who holds influence beyond titles, often individuals with control over information, access, or relationships. For instance, administrative staff frequently exert significant influence through gatekeeping functions, despite lacking formal authority. Recognising such dynamics enables leaders to engage political influence realistically, managing outcomes according to how power honestly operates rather than how it appears in official diagrams and reporting lines.

Bridging formal and informal networks is crucial to harnessing politics constructively. Transparent communication, inclusive decision-making, and recognition of informal contributions strengthen alignment between the two systems. When informal influence supports organisational priorities, resilience and cohesion increase. When informal systems oppose formal authority, conflict and dysfunction intensify. Leaders must therefore cultivate conditions where informal networks operate as complementary assets rather than competing centres of influence. Political skill lies in balancing both structures to sustain collaboration and adaptability.

The Consequences of Toxic Politics

Toxic politics produces damaging consequences at individual, group, and organisational levels. For individuals, exposure to manipulation, favouritism, or exclusion often generates stress and dissatisfaction. Over time, this erodes motivation, leading to disengagement and poor performance. Prolonged exposure can even damage mental health, fuelling absenteeism and burnout. Politics, therefore, affects not only workplace morale but also broader well-being, illustrating how destructive dynamics within organisations may extend into personal lives, creating costs that reach beyond professional contexts.

At the group level, toxic politics undermines cooperation and trust, rivalries fracture communication, transforming teams into competitive silos. Instead of focusing energy on collective objectives, members expend effort on internal manoeuvring, fuelling resentment and inefficiency. Such dysfunction corrodes collaboration, one of the most valuable assets in modern organisations. Where political distrust prevails, teams lose creativity, responsiveness, and cohesion, demonstrating how destructive politics can damage not only morale but also the capacity for joint problem-solving and innovation.

The wider organisational consequences are equally severe. Toxic politics increases turnover, damages reputation, and reduces competitiveness. When survival strategies, service delivery and innovation decline, they consume employee energy. Stakeholders, ranging from customers to investors, perceive the indirect costs of dysfunction, which erode confidence in leadership and long-term sustainability. Organisations consumed by destructive politics risk losing strategic direction, becoming reactive rather than proactive. In such environments, political activity ceases to be adaptive and instead corrodes structural and cultural integrity.

Unchecked politics threatens ethical foundations, leaders who exploit manipulation for personal gain foster cynicism, legitimising behaviour that disregards fairness and accountability. Employees, observing misconduct rewarded, rationalise similar behaviour, encouraging corruption. Once political manipulation becomes normalised, integrity dissolves, undermining legitimacy both internally and externally. Destructive politics thus risks not only efficiency but also trust, transparency, and ethical responsibility. Ultimately, organisations that fail to address toxic politics compromise their credibility and long-term viability in increasingly scrutinised global environments.

Harnessing Constructive Politics

Despite its risks, politics also possesses constructive potential. Employees with political skill often act as brokers between groups, facilitating dialogue and compromise. By bridging divides, they strengthen cohesion and support problem-solving across departmental or cultural boundaries. Political behaviour, when exercised responsibly, therefore contributes positively to collaboration. Rather than fuelling conflict, it channels competing interests into negotiation, producing outcomes more sustainable than those imposed without consultation. Constructive politics thus functions as a lubricant rather than an obstacle in organisational life.

Politics also empowers individuals by enabling them to influence outcomes that extend beyond their formal roles. Understanding organisational dynamics allows employees to negotiate responsibilities, lobby for resources, and advocate for innovation. This sense of agency strengthens engagement, reducing passivity and alienation. Far from undermining authority, political skill can democratise influence, granting voice to individuals or groups who might otherwise be marginalised. Constructive political practice, therefore, enhances participation, improving both morale and the diversity of perspectives within decision-making processes.

Informal networks provide resilience during crises, exemplifying the constructive side of politics. When formal structures falter under pressure, employees rely on relationships to mobilise support and disseminate information rapidly. These channels offer agility where bureaucratic systems lag, ensuring responsiveness in uncertain environments. Managed responsibly, such political engagement becomes an asset, enabling organisations to adapt quickly to shocks. Constructive politics, therefore, enhances flexibility, complementing rather than undermining formal systems, particularly in times of disruption or organisational transformation.

The constructive capacity of politics ultimately depends on leadership. Leaders who recognise political skill as a resource and encourage ethical negotiation transform politics into a vehicle for progress. By setting boundaries against manipulation and aligning political behaviour with organisational goals, they convert ambition into innovation. Constructive politics flourishes in transparent and inclusive environments, where influence is directed towards creativity, resilience, and shared achievement. Managed ethically, politics strengthens organisations, demonstrating its potential as more than a disruptive force.

The Role of Leadership and Ethical Stewardship

Leadership is central in determining whether politics becomes destructive or constructive. Leaders set behavioural norms by modelling either integrity or manipulation. Those who exploit politics for personal gain legitimise distrust, while those who demonstrate fairness foster trust. The political climate of an organisation is therefore a mirror of its leadership practices. Effective leadership requires recognising politics as inevitable while guiding it ethically, ensuring ambition contributes to collective achievement rather than self-serving competition.

Transformational leadership provides one pathway for ethical stewardship. By inspiring shared vision and valuing contributions, transformational leaders redirect political energy towards innovation and collaboration. Their influence reframes ambition from personal advantage to collective purpose, reducing rivalry. Political skill is thus channelled positively, supporting cohesion and creativity. In environments shaped by transformational leadership, politics becomes a collaborative resource, demonstrating how vision and inspiration can reframe influence into a tool for sustainable organisational success rather than conflict.

Servant leadership offers a complementary model. By prioritising employee needs and promoting empowerment, servant leaders counteract the self-interest that fuels toxic politics. Their humility and focus on reciprocity create cultures of respect, discouraging manipulation. Political behaviour in such environments supports inclusion and fairness rather than undermining them. Servant leadership demonstrates how ethical stewardship can redirect political activity into advocacy, participation, and collaboration, highlighting leadership’s critical role in shaping political behaviour towards constructive and equitable ends.

Ultimately, political astuteness is indispensable for leadership. Leaders cannot eradicate politics; they must navigate it skilfully. Political awareness enables leaders to interpret informal networks, anticipate resistance, and engage stakeholders effectively. Ethical stewardship ensures that this awareness is not exploited manipulatively, but instead used to align political behaviour with organisational values. Leaders who combine political astuteness with integrity convert influence into a strategic asset. Politics thus becomes not an unmanaged threat but a resource for ethical leadership and long-term resilience.

Case Illustrations of Politics in Practice

Case evidence underscores the dual character of politics. During the merger of two central European banks, political rivalry among senior executives undermined the integration process. Informal networks competed with formal structures, resulting in delayed decisions and employee frustration. This example highlights how unmanaged politics can derail strategic objectives, even in well-resourced organisations. It demonstrates the importance of recognising politics during structural transitions, as informal influence often proves decisive. Without political awareness, formal strategies remain vulnerable to disruption by internal manoeuvring and conflict.

In contrast, constructive politics emerges in the non-profit sector. Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) frequently rely on internal coalitions to prioritise campaigns. Political skill allows groups to lobby effectively within the organisation, shaping agendas and mobilising resources. Far from undermining goals, these practices encourage inclusivity and adaptability. By legitimising political advocacy as part of the decision-making process, NGOs harness political engagement to ensure that diverse perspectives influence policy. This demonstrates how politics, guided ethically, contributes to organisational responsiveness and long-term sustainability.

Public sector agencies also illustrate the ambivalence of politics. In healthcare reforms across the United Kingdom, resistance frequently emerged through political coalitions defending professional autonomy. While this slowed implementation, it also exposed flaws in proposed changes and forced policymakers to address legitimate concerns. Politics functioned both as an obstacle and a corrective mechanism, protecting professional standards while requiring negotiation. Such examples highlight the dual function of politics: simultaneously disruptive and productive, depending on whether resistance is engaged constructively or dismissed as irrational obstruction.

Global corporate examples further reveal constructive potential. Technology organisations in Silicon Valley often rely on internal political visibility, where employees advocate ideas and attract support through networks. Political skill becomes critical to advancing innovation within flat hierarchies. Here, politics functions less as rivalry and more as a platform for influence, enabling new ideas to gain traction. This case illustrates how organisational culture shapes politics: in innovative environments, political skill serves creativity and agility rather than destructive competition.

Strategies for Managing Politics Responsibly

Managing politics requires deliberate cultural, communicative, structural, and ethical strategies. Culture remains foundational: organisations that emphasise transparency, fairness, and inclusion reduce incentives for manipulation. Cultures built on trust weaken destructive politics by aligning ambition with collective goals. Employees perceive influence as legitimate when it is exercised transparently, thereby diminishing resentment. By embedding values of openness and accountability, leaders establish conditions in which political behaviour becomes constructive rather than corrosive, integrating ambition into shared organisational purpose rather than self-interest.

Communication provides another critical safeguard. Clear and consistent information reduces uncertainty, limiting opportunities for distortion or manipulation. Leaders who engage in open dialogue, encourage feedback, and clarify priorities weaken the secrecy upon which political manoeuvring often thrives. Transparent communication also legitimises political behaviour by providing structured forums for influence, redirecting informal rivalry into constructive participation. Political management, therefore, depends less on suppression than on creating communicative practices that reduce ambiguity and provide meaningful opportunities for engagement.

Structural design also influences politics. Flexible organisational arrangements adapt more effectively to change, reducing the alienation that fuels political resistance. Regular reviews of hierarchies ensure authority is distributed to support collaboration rather than entrench inequality. Structures that reward participation rather than compliance diminish destructive political incentives. By designing adaptable frameworks, organisations mitigate the conditions that exacerbate political dysfunction, enabling political energy to be channelled towards creativity and resilience instead of rivalry and obstruction.

Reward systems require careful attention. Where recognition is transparent and based upon genuine merit, jealousy and favouritism diminish. Explicit criteria for advancement reduce perceptions of manipulation, discouraging destructive rivalry. Reward systems that celebrate collaboration and innovation rather than individual manoeuvring redirect ambition towards constructive ends. Leaders who design equitable recognition frameworks, therefore, transform political energy from competitive resentment into cooperative achievement. Responsible management of rewards is thus central to ensuring politics strengthens rather than corrodes organisational effectiveness.

Summary: Dealing With Office Politics

Organisational politics is an unavoidable element of collective life. Sustained by scarcity, competition, and cultural dynamics, it persists across institutions and societies. While often destructive, politics also provides flexibility, empowerment, and innovation when ethically guided. The challenge is not eliminating politics but recognising its inevitability and cultivating environments in which it functions constructively. Leadership, culture, and structural fairness are central in determining whether politics undermines trust or strengthens adaptability and resilience.

It is essential to examine the inevitability of politics, theoretical frameworks of power, and contexts such as conflict, change, and promotion where politics flourishes to evaluate cultural and contextual variations, analyse toxic consequences, and consider constructive potential. Case illustrations demonstrate how politics operates in practice, from banking mergers to NGOs and healthcare reforms. These examples confirm politics’ dual role: as a destructive obstacle when unmanaged, and as a resource for creativity when ethically stewarded by responsible leadership.

Strategies for managing politics emphasise culture, communication, structural flexibility, and fairness in rewards. Leaders emerge as the decisive factor, shaping political behaviour by modelling integrity or manipulation. Transformational and servant leadership highlight how political energy can be redirected towards collaboration and innovation. Ethical stewardship ensures that political skill enhances organisational life rather than corroding it. The responsibility of leadership is therefore not to eradicate politics but to transform it into a tool of ethical progress.

In conclusion, politics is best conceptualised as a double-edged force: capable of producing distrust and inefficiency, yet equally capable of empowering voice, resilience, and creativity. Organisations that deny politics risk being undermined by it, while those that recognise and manage it constructively can harness influence for sustainable success. Through cultural transparency, ethical leadership, and structural fairness, politics becomes not a liability but a resource for adaptation, inclusivity, and long-term achievement. Organisational success depends upon such stewardship.

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