Political Dilemmas at Work: How to Maintain Your Integrity and Further Your Career

Promotion Is Seldom a Right or an Inheritance—It Must Be Earned and Influenced

What is your career destiny? For many people, it is possible to see a clear career path. This might be a path of your own choosing, or it might be designed in partnership with or by the organization. Sometimes, it seems as if one particular role has your name on it. It could be the natural and logical progression for you and may appear to be what you were born to do. When your boss or stakeholders agree with you, and they infer that it is a case of when and not if, then destiny is compelling and easy to agree with. Securing the presidential role can easily be viewed as an inheritance rather than something that must be influenced and won. To believe the inference and subtext from the boss is to fail to appreciate the complexity of the organization or the rate of change. It creates political complacency and hands the advantage to a political rival.

It is fine, appropriate even, to have a career plan—a compelling vision of where your career will take you and what you will achieve. That is a positive mindset for success. What is naive is to assume that the role is your inheritance or your birthright. Your boss might be making supportive comments, even inferring that the job should be yours, but that is a soft promise, and you should not accept it. Bad bosses make these vague promises as part of their motivation strategies; unfortunately, they are mostly empty promises and usually more about manipulation ...