Winning Office Politics for Promotion

By Paul Standish | Oct 27, 2008

In every office, there is a prevailing culture that is influencing how things are done and how people are acting. Office politics is a concept that is hard to comprehend but is usually the primary factor that gives people a hard time adopting in a working environment. Winning office politics is one of the necessary things you must achieve if you are aiming to get a promotion.

Office politics is hard to understand. Conformist environments aren’t too well received but people are forced to embrace it in order to survive a working environment. For example, in an office where workers practice a seniority rule setup, meaning, people treat officemates who have long been in the office as superior regardless of ranking, you will find that your officemates will expect you to have high regards to other employees who have come before you, no matter what the ranking or employee level.

You have to disregard several of your personal convictions and principles to be able to observe and practice office politics. You will find that the whole office setup is somehow weird and funny. But the odd thing is that you have no choice but to get into the system and set aside some of your personal views to fit into office politics. It would be better if you observe some of these helpful guidelines for you to win office politics.

-Office politics is a matter of acceptance. If more employees accept you for who you are, it will be better. To do this, just be yourself, be sincere and nice to everyone. If you win the approval of the majority, you are also winning office politics.

-If you need to kiss up or insincerely praise bosses and superiors, do so in a subtle way. It will be helpful if your praises are sincere.

-Be lavish in praises for everyone and reduce giving out abrupt and mean criticisms to people, even your subordinates. You are winning people’s hearts in the office so be nice to everyone. If you need to give criticisms, strategize subtly without hurting feelings.

-Do your job well. Nothing is better than that. Office politics is just a thing with the officemates. In the end, your performance will still be the primary factor needed when the company assesses you for a potential promotion, which you are chasing after.

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