Leveraging Leadership

Tackling Office Politics: Are You Ready to Play the Game?

• Emily Sander • Season 1 • Episode 166

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Emily Sander discusses the challenges of navigating office politics, identifying the "games" at play, and deciding if you're willing and able to participate. Examples include dealing with strong personalities or working long hours. She also talks about life changes affecting your willingness to play and shares strategies for shifting your approach over time.


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Who Am I?

If we haven’t yet before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want. 

 

Time Stamps:

01:21 Common Office Politics Games
02:16 Zooming Out: Evaluating the Situation
03:28 Life Stages and Career Choices
06:18 Short-term vs Long-term Commitment

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Do you ever feel like half your job is dealing with office politics and bureaucracy? And it's not about the actual work, it's about jumping through hoops to try to get things done. It's about playing the game. The real question is what is the game and are you willing to play? Question one, what is the game? So right off the bat, it's important to identify what are we talking about? What game are we playing? The game might be, okay, this strong personality is in charge. So I've got this big ego in a leadership position, the game is to stroke the ego, bow down, kiss the ring. That's the price of entry to this game. If you wanna play it all, the game might be, look, our team culture is very sensitive right now. We wanna make sure we're not hurting people's feelings. We wanna make sure everyone is heard, and so therefore, things that probably should take six hours, take six weeks because we do emails and meetings and dah, dah, dah, dah. That might be the game. All right? Oh, another common game is. I have to work 16 to 18 hour days, seven days a week. That's the game. if I wanna do well here, that's the game I have to play. Okay, so now we know what the game is. Second question, are you able to play the game? Are you capable? Can you play the game? it might be, you know what, I, I'm actually pretty good at placating different personality styles. That's no skin off my back. So are you able to play? Which goes to our third question, which is, are you willing to play the game? You could be good at the game, you could be great at the game, and you just might not wanna play. And that's a perfectly valid answer. It might be, I'm really good at dealing with. Egos, but I don't, I don't like it. I don't particularly care for it. It could be, yeah, I am technically able to work 16 hours a day, but it drains me and it takes time away from other things that I wanna be doing. So can I do that? Yes, technically, but I don't want to. And it's basically an exercise of let's zoom out. What's the situation? who are the players? What's the game we're talking about here? What does it take to play that game? And are you willing to play right now? So some people come to that point and are like, you know what? I can play another round. Let's, I can play another hand. Let's see what cards come up. Sometimes it's like, I'm done. I'm tapping out. This is over for me. Okay. Okay. And that leads to our fourth and final question, which is how does the game change over time? And that's an important one. So there's external things that can happen. for instance, let's say that that big, strong, egotistical leader leaves and a new leader comes in and oh my gosh, like this is a brand new leadership style. Things are so different, the rules are different, the players are different. Okay, this is a brand new game. Let me figure out, let me figure out this game. And then you revisit. The question is, what is the game? Am I able to play this game? Oh, hold on. Like I could be a fricking champion at this game. Like, let's go. Are you willing to play? Hell yes. This is gonna be amazing for me and my team in this company. Okay, that's that's amazing You can change over time and your life circumstance can change over time as well, and that dynamic might change the game. the most straightforward one here is someone in their twenties is set up differently than someone in their thirties and forties, right? If you go to someone who's 22 years old and you say, Hey, do you wanna travel 200 days outta the year? And we'll send you all across the world to these different amazing cities? Heck yes, man. Like you wanna send me, I'm gonna go to Asia, I'm gonna go to Europe, I'm gonna go to South America. I'm gonna go to fricking Antarctica.'cause we have penguins there. They could be our clients too. I'm gonna rise and grind. Rise and grind, outwork, hustle. I'm gonna be on Instagram with all these different locations. Hi. Hey, hey. And you know what? Do you wanna work 16 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week? Heck yes. I love work. I love my career. I have nothing else going on, and this is my primary focus. Okay, great. I. You take that same scenario and you give it to someone who is in their thirties or forties and they're gonna be like, you're funny. You're funny. Strap myself into a metal tube and fly across the sky. Be away from my family and friends for 200 days outta the year. That's funny. you're a funny person. They have a much different setup. So they might have kiddos who are in various levels of school. They might have, um, causes they care about. They might be on board seats or be on local charities. They might, uh, be, they, they probably are in different roles in their career, so they're focused on very different things, focused on strategy, focused on building a team, focused on leadership, focused on partnerships, focused on what's happening in the economy, in the industry, in the culture itself. All these different things that are just, they're just in a different life stage and life setup than the 22-year-old. neither one is good or bad. Companies need both and people just move through life. You just have to recognize where you are because that dictates the game. So your piece on the board, so to speak, has changed, or like the boards you're playing on has changed Or whatever part of the analogy you wanna use there. another facet of this is, is kind of a overarching philosophical level. So to your core values, let me just give you a quick personal example. So in my career, I was in a position where I was approving client contracts. So sales reps would prepare a custom contract for a prospect for an existing customer, and I would review it and approve I was also in charge of. Creating the templates, so the contract templates. And in that process in particular, there were peop, there were elements in the company that were advocating for using certain language in this one section. So for this one legal clause, they wanted certain language that was not technically illegal, but it was vague and it was. Kind of putting the, the client in a bad position and it just, it didn't feel right and it was a little bit shifty and shady and it, it wasn't technically illegal at all, but I was like, I'm not doing that. I'm not playing that game. Okay. another angle to look at is short-term versus long-term. So am I willing to work 16 hours a day for two weeks? Because there's a special project and we just got this client we've been trying to get forever, and now we have a custom integration. So all hands on deck, everyone's gonna be working late. Yes, I'm willing to do that. Am I willing to work 16 to 18 hour days for No.'cause I'm gonna burn out and die. So the lens of what timeframe are we talking about here can be important. and another cool thing on the time element piece is you can make something temporary. You can set certain parameters, you can define the game yourself. Other people might not know about that. That might be between you and yourself or your family or friends or whatever, but it might be all right. I kind of sense this game is unfolding. I'm gonna see where this goes for the next 30 days. Or, hey, a new boss came in. Okay? They're gonna try to prove themselves. A whole bunch of changes gonna happen, and then it's gonna settle out to something. Let me give this 90 days, at least 90, maybe 120, and then let me base my decision. Am I willing to play this game on what the game settles out to be? So it's a temporary game and sometimes That changes the dynamics of the game. I can do this for three months. I can do this for 30 days. That's fine. Okay, so now you have the set of questions. You can use it for yourself. Now it's like, yes, Emily, I'm in this situation. I gotta, I gotta run myself through this and make some mental notes or write some notes down. Also, look for people around you who could use these set of questions. It could be direct reports, it could be colleagues, it could be friends, it could be family. But if you see people getting. Frustrated or upset or just feeling stuck or they have friction in these, in these different areas. Sometimes helping them zoom out and running them through these sets of questions can be really helpful for them. So I will leave you with that. What is the game? Am I able to play? Am I willing to play? And how does the game change over time? And I'll catch you next week on leveraging leadership.