Political Tactics in the Workplace

There are eight common political tactics in organizations. First one tactic is attacking or blaming others by avoiding or minimizing association with failure. This usually happens when scapegoating occurs. Second, people often use information as their political tool by purposely withholding or distorting information. Often they obscure an unfavorable situation by overwhelming superiors with all sorts of information. Thirdly, creating a favorable image by dressing for success and impression management occurs. Also this happens when people take credit for others’ accomplishments. Fourth, people develop a base of support prior to decision making by building others commitments. Fifth, praising others is tactics by making influential people feel good. Sixth, business people tend to form power coalitions with strong allies to gain success and results. Seventh, associating with influential people is often a behavior by networking inside and outside of the organization that they are with. Lastly, people create obligations and social debts.

In the article “Workplace Etiquette: The Political Savvy Individual” it addresses that in order to successful in today’s evolving workplace, you need talent, hard work, good job performance, a share of good breaks as well as political savvy. “Political savvy means ethically using office politics to your advantage.” People must think of this as to practice sensible and ethical office politics. This article addresses that office politics were played by supervisors and managers attempting to climb the ladder of success. Office politics are omnipresent, which means they are everywhere all the time. The last thing that this article stressed was if someone was “to ignore office politics is to ignore those underlying forces that account for the success between equally talented people.”

"Workplace Etiquette: The Political Savvy Individual (identify the Characteristics of Successful Teams in a Workplace with Etiquette)." Famous Entrepreneurs, Small Business, Young, Successful, Women, Toronto Resources. Web. 17 Apr. 2010. .