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

Prepare to Challenge Your Sponsor

It is natural to feel disappointed if you have not received the level of support you expected or were promised. This is particularly true if you are engaged in a major program of change, where senior level support is often necessary to make things happen. Agendas often change, and the gap between the support you expected and what you have received may have a legitimate, if hidden, reason behind it. You may already have your suspicions about why the support is absent, having reflected on what the real agenda might be.

Now is the time to challenge your sponsor. Given that he asked you to do something and you are having difficulty achieving it, the door should be open. A frank and honest debate about what is happening is long overdue. If you approach this in a constructive manner, you are more likely to get a good outcome. And there is no substitute for careful planning for this critical meeting.

Begin by thinking about what the real agenda is and how this may affect your sponsor’s level of support. If you think that he has good reasons for dropping his support, then any requests for his support are likely to be a waste of time. You need to consider how to open the debate about what really needs to happen. This will help you agree jointly on how to modify your approach so that you may successfully deliver your objective for the organization.

If you believe that your sponsor’s support should have materialized, then you need to identify all ...