Life Lessons in How to Use Office Politics to Your Advantage
Office politics isn't a dirty word. In fact, once you understand the appropriate usage, it can be beneficial to helping you navigate your workplace and advance your career.
Let’s talk about what office politics is and why navigating it isn't all bad. I love discussing career development strategy because it gives me the opportunity to really dig into taboo topics related to work. So often I find that professional women get a little anxious when dealing with the things that they haven’t mastered in the work environment. That means they may avoid the unknown or follow popular rhetoric around it — like the idea that office politics is a risky thing to be avoided.
I don’t want these myths to hold us back in our professional lives. As a career development mentor and expert in career strategy, I want you to understand all the facts and the opportunities around office politics and actually how you can use it to your advantage.
Office politics basically refers to the ways in which your office, workplace, and colleagues work with and engage one another. That's all office politics means. It's about the ways everyone gets their work done — whether you’re in a public organization, a large unit, or a small department.
Essentially office politics can allow you to position yourself as a highly capable and well-achieved professional who gets things done. Used appropriately and strategically, office politics can put you on the map and elevate your status. With intention, you can see positive results and discover your name is being raised in rooms that it wouldn't otherwise be.
That being said, it's important that you are discerning and intentional as you survey the landscape at work. You should be deliberate as you consider how to leverage engagement opportunities and interactions with colleagues to your advantage. And let me be clear. This is not about manipulation or being a suck up. This is about being intentional as you consider your positioning, and approach your projects or assignments.
This is office politics. Me influencing the conversation even when I'm not in the room. And this is exactly one of the topics we cover in the Mentor Me Mastermind.
I invite you to schedule a call with me this week.
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