Political Dilemmas at Work: How to Maintain Your Integrity and Further Your Career

Create a Broad Base of Powerful Stakeholders

If someone higher up in the chain of command takes a supportive interest in you and your work—for appropriate reasons—then you are usually delighted. Having friends in high places gives you mentors to call on for support when the going gets tough. Common sense tells you to invest in and use this relationship as you would any other organizational resource. Over time, this relationship can become mutually rewarding and just as important to both parties. But there is danger in this type of political complacency of making an overinvestment in a single source. Given how well the relationship serves you, there can be less motivation to invest elsewhere and less inclination to build up political capital with others. Why bother investing elsewhere when you can get the access, advice, and authorizations you need from such a conveniently placed individual?

This is natural and understandable. People tend not to shop around if they can get exactly what they need at their favorite and most convenient store. It is usually only if the store closes—or suffers from a sudden fall in standards—that they begin the process of looking elsewhere, and so it can be with powerful stakeholders. It requires conscious effort to recruit people to your cause, and it is all too easy for this vital activity to fall off the end of your to-do list.

It may seem obvious—and not especially helpful to people caught up in this dilemma—to point out that a broad ...