Power and Politics in Organizations: A Strategic Guide for HR Leaders

Consider the story of the BBC, which set out on an ambitious journey to modernize its operations with the Digital Media Initiative (DMI). The goal was simple: digitize its archives and transform workflows. But after two years and nearly £100 million, the project was shut down. It wasn't a failure of technology or talent. Rather, it was a failure to address the unseen forces, the informal power dynamics that quietly derailed the project.

According to PwC's audit, BBC took too long to realize that the project was in trouble. But why? The report highlights that "there was no single issue" to point to. Instead, it was a competing set of priorities, hidden networks, and unmet needs within the organization that clouded judgment and prevented swift action.

This is where the story gets unsettling. How many projects across organizations fail in a very similar way, often due to hidden power struggles? What makes this failure even more alarming is how familiar it feels to anyone who has seen great ideas stall in the boardroom or seen teams get bogged down despite a clear vision. 

The Role of Power in Organizational Failures

What's crucial here is that the failure of DMI was largely due to how power was distributed and exercised within the organization. The report pointed out a glaring issue: the project lacked clear and transparent reporting structures, which could have allowed decision-makers to challenge progress and make necessary adjustments. 

This lack of transparency is a powerful lesson for organizations today. When power is concentrated in informal networks, without the necessary checks and balances, projects are vulnerable. It's not just about the formal authority of leaders. It's about the informal influencers, those who wield power outside of the official hierarchy and the political dynamics that shape outcomes.

How HR Can Address Informal Power Dynamics

This is where HR and leadership development must focus. As the DMI project showed, relying solely on formal metrics like engagement scores or traditional project management processes can mask issues that may disrupt the entire project itself. 

Too often, HR overlooks these informal power structures. But ignoring them leaves critical gaps in organizational effectiveness and limits the potential of leaders to navigate complex environments.

So, how do we design systems that develop leadership capability and address these power dynamics? How do we prepare our leaders to see through the "blind spots" created by informal systems?

In the following section, we'll dive into the strategic role HR plays in navigating these hidden dynamics, ensuring that leadership and decision-making are shaped by ethical influence, transparent systems, and informed political intelligence.

Why Power and Politics in Organizations Should Be Treated as Data, Not Dysfunction

We've been taught to flinch at the word "politics." But what if we've misunderstood it all along?

Politics in organizations isn't a sign of dysfunction; it's a signal. They reveal where influence flows, where trust is thin, and where purpose gets distorted. As Ginny Clarke puts it, "Power is not a bad word as long as it is sought to uplift others for the whole." The key lies in how leaders engage with it.

This section explores how to reframe organizational politics not as a distraction, but as diagnostic data. If you want to understand your organization's culture, incentives, power structures, and unmet needs, look at how politics plays out. That's your feedback loop.

The Psychology of Office Politics: Why It Emerges

Politics in organizations is a behavioral strategy in environments where people feel their success, status, or stability might be at risk.

Psychologists have long studied the human craving for recognition, influence, and control over scarce resources, and this desire persists even when we enter the workplace. When rewards like promotions, visibility, leadership access, or even validation seem limited or unclear, people compete. That's when politics emerges not out of malice, but out of self-preservation.

The behavior is especially intense in times of:

• Organizational Change (e.g., leadership reshuffles, restructuring, layoffs)
• Ambiguity (unclear roles, shifting priorities, blurred reporting lines)
• Perceived Unfairness (favoritism, broken promises, biased decisions)
• Resource Scarcity (limited budget, headcount freezes, bandwidth issues)

Think of politics as the organization's way of saying, "There's uncertainty here. People are working around the system because they don't feel safe within it."

Politics Carries an Emotional Tax, But It Can Be Transformed

Toxic culture, gossip, manipulation, exclusion, or hoarding influence create invisible costs that erode performance. Employees start to spend more energy managing optics than doing meaningful work. The result?

• Lower trust and psychological safety
• Withheld ideas and innovation bottlenecks
• Siloed teams and misaligned goals
• Chronic stress and quiet disengagement

But here's the nuance most leaders miss: not all politics are toxic.

Politics, when practiced transparently and ethically, is simply the art of influence, navigating relationships, aligning agendas, and moving decisions forward.

The most effective changemakers, whether in startups or Fortune 500s, are politically astute, not politically avoidant.

It's not the presence of politics that damages organizations. It's the absence of leadership in shaping how politics plays out.

Cultural and Generational Dynamics Shape Political Behavior

In diverse workplaces, political expression takes many forms, some loud, some quiet. And what looks "dysfunctional" in one culture may be completely normative in another.

Cultural Differences:

• Collectivist cultures (e.g., many Asian, African, and Latin American contexts) value group harmony. Politics often happens in informal alliances or quiet lobbying behind the scenes.
• Individualistic cultures (e.g., the US, Western Europe) may reward assertive expression. Politics appears more direct, voicing opinions, negotiating openly, and challenging hierarchies.

Generational Shifts:

• Younger professionals (Millennials, Gen Z) tend to seek transparency, shared decision-making, and value-based leadership. Traditional politicking can feel disingenuous or exclusionary to them.
• Older generations may be more accustomed to navigating positional authority and informal power brokers as part of career progression.

What Does This Mean for Leadership?

You cannot manage politics effectively without cultural and generational fluency. One-size-fits-all rules create exclusion. Assumptions about "how people should behave" can backfire.

Don't try to eliminate politics. Understand it. Redesign around it. Train for it. Office politics reveal what your org chart can't:

• Where informal influence lives
• Where clarity is missing
• Where trust is under strain
• Where leadership behavior is shaping silent norms

When seen this way, politics becomes a leadership development tool, a culture feedback loop, and a diagnostic lens for HR and L&D.

Developing Leaders Who Can Navigate Power and Politics with Integrity

“Leadership is about influencing, not coercion. Strive to build bridges between individuals and groups, always focusing on finding solutions that can work for most, if not all. This is a delicate dance, a careful negotiation that is both an art and a science. Benevolent power is contagious. It requires each of us to step into our individual power and align with others to create a collective force that is good for everyone. ”

Ginny Clarke

Conscious Leadership Expert

Navigating power and politics is a crucial skill for any leader seeking to influence ethically, build effective alliances, and shape culture. While some leaders try to sidestep politics altogether, believing it’s unproductive or beneath them, the truth is this: avoiding politics doesn’t eliminate its impact. It just removes your voice from the conversation.

Instead, they learn when and how to engage. Strategic leaders conserve their political capital, choose their battles carefully, and prioritize what truly matters for the mission. They don’t aim to “win” every battle. They focus on building lasting coalitions and maintaining trust across the organization.

But knowing when to engage is only half the story. The more pressing challenge is how to engage and how to do so with integrity.

1. Lead with Benevolence, Not Force

The foundation of navigating politics ethically starts with building benevolent alliances. Seek out individuals who are committed to doing high-quality work and bringing the team together. These allies aren’t always the loudest or most obvious influencers, but they are grounded in purpose and willing to collaborate toward shared outcomes.

Just as importantly, extend a hand to those who seem skeptical or hesitant. Inclusion is not just about alignment; it’s about diplomacy. It’s about bridging divides between departments, mindsets, or motivations, and creating solutions that work for most, if not all. This isn’t a one-size-fits-all tactic. It’s a leadership dance: a balance of persistence, presence, and patience.

2. Know When to Engage and When to Rise Above

Before stepping into any political situation, clarify your intent. Is the issue at hand central to your goals or your team's mission? If not, it may be wise to conserve your political capital. When engagement is necessary, take the high road.

Don’t let reactive, petty, or emotionally charged dynamics pull you into a spiral of performative politics. Speak your truth calmly. If a conversation turns unproductive, say, “I’m not going to engage in this conversation. Can we get back to the project at hand?” Over time, this clarity will define you as a leader of integrity, someone others trust, follow, and seek out for guidance.

3. Practice Discretion: Positivity is Power

In high-politics environments, restraint becomes a strategic asset. Exercise discretion in what you say, how you say it, and what you choose to engage in. Resist the urge to spread rumors or take sides in trivial conflicts. Don’t share information unless it’s verified and adds value to a solution.

Instead, model what ethical influence looks like. Positivity isn’t about staying silent. It’s about choosing unity over division. It's about showing that power, when used well, can be a force for good. Leaders who demonstrate this earn reputational power, trust, credibility, and the ability to move people without force.

4. Choose Your Strategy Based on Power and Goal Alignment

As you grow in political awareness, your engagement should also become more precise. Use the following framework, rooted in power and goal alignment, to choose your strategy:

• Domination (Unequal Power, Misaligned Goals): If you're outmatched and the goals don’t serve your mission, don’t rush in. Focus on strengthening your coalition, building credibility, and reframing the dynamic for a better future encounter.
• Influence (Unequal Power, Aligned Goals): Leverage connection. Support others publicly, align behind their goals, and build mutual wins. You don’t need equal power, you need alignment and trust.
• Negotiation (Equal Power, Misaligned Goals): Meet in the middle. A shared solution requires compromise, clear communication, and an openness to understand the other side’s deeper concerns.
• Cooperation (Equal Power, Aligned Goals): This is the ideal zone. When power and purpose align, build coalitions. Lead by example. Encourage shared ownership and let the collective mission take the spotlight.

5. Sidestep Fear-Based Politics and Model Benevolent Power

In many organizations, politics are fueled by fear, force, and zero-sum thinking. The best leaders break this cycle by transcending it. They sidestep the divisive tendencies that divide teams and instead model behaviors rooted in respect, transparency, and inclusion.

Benevolent power is contagious. It invites others to step into their own leadership potential and contribute without fear. This doesn’t mean avoiding hard conversations or disagreement. It means anchoring those moments in dignity, shared purpose, and forward momentum.

Leaders who successfully navigate power and politics create cultures where ethical influence replaces manipulation, and collaboration replaces fear. They engage strategically, speak wisely, and lead with courage even when it’s inconvenient.

In a world where force and noise often dominate, leaders of benevolence, discretion, and diplomacy will quietly but powerfully reshape the organization from within.

Aligning HR Systems with the Realities of Power and Politics in Organizations

By now, most HR leaders reading this know one thing for certain: politics is inevitable, and if not handled properly, it will derail the system. And when systems don’t account for informal power, unspoken influence, or shadow hierarchies, they reward behaviors that quietly corrode fairness, trust, and engagement.

Let’s pause here.

Most organizations already run engagement surveys, 360 feedback, L&D programs, and even performance reviews designed to promote fairness. So why is it that employees still feel overlooked, unheard, or uncertain about how decisions really get made?

Because power and politics are playing out in places your current systems don’t see.

Let’s explore how to fix that systematically.

1. Map Informal Influence Before It Undermines Formal Structure

Informal power brokers, those who aren't in top roles but influence decisions, culture, and collaboration, often hold more sway than org charts suggest. And yet, HR rarely tracks them.

If you're designing leadership programs, succession plans, or transformation initiatives without knowing who the real influencers are, you're flying blind.

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People with significant informal influence are often invisible to senior leaders. In his estimate, only about half of the actual central connectors would be recognized without ONA. Rob Cross

2. Rethink Feedback Systems to Capture Real Influence, Not Just Performance

Traditional performance reviews often reward individual output and manager perception, but overlook the invisible work of influence. Employees who foster collaboration, build trust, and connect teams are often overlooked in standard KPI-led systems.

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Feedback systems designed around talent influence collaboration, alignment, and trust drive performance outcomes more than task-based evaluation alone. Their People & Organizational Performance insights emphasize multi-rater feedback tied to collaboration and alignment as core predictors of impact.- McKinsey & Company

3. Redesign Recognition Systems to Value Invisible and Political Labor

In every organization, some individuals naturally resolve the tension, mentor new joiners, or bridge conflicting perspectives without ever asking for credit. Their influence is quiet but essential. They make others feel safe, included, and supported. And while they may not seek recognition, their absence is deeply felt when they're gone.

Yet traditional recognition systems tend to reward only the visible wins: KPIs met, deals closed, deadlines hit. The result? We risk reinforcing a culture where output overshadows contribution, and self-promotion outpaces quiet influence.

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Leaders who do not address a star employee's bad behaviors demonstrate to the team that results are more important than their values, relationships, and ethics.- Forbes

4. Bring Transparency to Decision Rights and Power Distribution

In many organizations, decision-making is a black box. Teams don't always know who holds the final say, especially during cross-functional projects, leadership transitions, or strategy shifts. In that vacuum, informal influence takes over: dominant personalities, legacy power holders, or those "in the loop" quietly start making calls.

This ambiguity doesn't just slow execution. It creates confusion, fuels frustration, and erodes psychological safety. Employees start asking, "Why wasn't I included?" or "Who approved this?" And without a visible structure, politics becomes the operating system.

Transparent decision-making is not just operational hygiene. It's a signal of fairness. And in politically charged environments, clarity becomes culture-shaping.

During the qualitative study, John C. Rensink found that the leaders who possessed a low level of formal authority felt that political skill was a necessity for leading successful organizational change.

5. Hardwire Psychological Safety Into Systems

Organizations love to talk about psychological safety. It's a common theme in leadership offsites and DEI workshops. But when it's not embedded into the daily systems that govern power, feedback, and recognition, it fades into lip service.

That's when workplace politics creep in.

When people don't feel safe to speak up, challenge ideas, or admit mistakes without fear of backlash, they don't stay silent, they adapt. They form alliances, seek protection in cliques, or disengage quietly. These are all survival strategies. And they're all political in nature.

In environments where candor is punished and hierarchy dominates dialogue, employees shift from contributing to calculating. That's not a people problem. It's a system design problem.

When HR systems reinforce safety at scale, not just in conversations, you replace politics of fear with cultures of contribution.

Conclusion

Power and politics aren’t dysfunctions to be fixed. They’re the hidden architecture behind how influence, trust, and decisions move through an organization. Ignore them, and even your best initiatives stall. Acknowledge them, and you start leading for real alignment, not just intent on paper.

Yet most development efforts still miss the mark:

• Leadership programs focus on competencies, but not political fluency.
• Recognition systems reward visibility, not value-based influence.
• Feedback mechanisms track output, rather than building trust.

To change culture, we can’t just teach leaders to “navigate” politics better. We need to build systems that reward the kind of leadership we want more of: ethical influence, transparent decision-making, and inclusive power.

This is where HR gets strategic, and Edstellar delivers the edge to move with clarity and impact.

By mapping individual skill gaps, including behavioral and leadership capabilities, Skill Matrix helps you move from one-size-fits-all development to precision learning. Whether it’s building psychological safety, stakeholder management, or cross-functional collaboration, you gain visibility into what each leader needs to grow and the pathways to close those gaps.

Because culture doesn’t change through intent, it changes through design.

Let’s build leadership development that accounts for reality, not just theory. Let’s design systems where influence is earned, trust is visible, and politics become purposeful.

Talk to Edstellar. Let’s turn hidden dynamics into structured development.