Political skills are increasingly being seen as vital to career success, but many managers admit they have room for improvement when it comes to influencing others.
A study by the Chartered Management Institute and Warwick Business School found that most individuals believe the political skills that build alliances will grow in importance in the next five years.
Respondents expected that by 2012, partnership working would become a priority for UK business leaders (63 per cent, up six points from today), followed by the need to influence regulators or government (53 per cent, up 10 points) and secure external funding (35 per cent, up three points).
Only a minority of the 1,495 respondents viewed politics as ‘pursuing personal advantage’ (21 per cent). Nearly twice as many (39 per cent) believed political skills were about ‘reconciling differences’, but only 1 per cent judged their own capabilities are ‘excellent’ and 18 per cent suggested they are ‘average’.
Jo Causon, director of marketing and corporate affairs at the Institute, said: “In a dynamic business environment, the shift to external partnership-building is good news for UK business. Increasingly, how good an individual is at using their political skills, with employees and external audiences will determine personal, and business, success.”
The Chartered Management Institute is set to run a session on ‘Dealing with political awareness’ at its National Convention, at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole, 11-12 October 2007.
2 Responses
Basic Competency
In the early days of Competency, when McBer and DDI were introducing competency frameworks in to the UK, (ICI, Unilver, BP were the early adopters in the 1980’s), basic competency frameworks explicitly listed generic competencies about these capabilities. Called various things, at the basic level there were terms such as “Concern for Impact” and at more sophisticated levels, terms such as “Strategic Influencing” were part of the frameworks. Indeed, strategic influencing was one of a small number of distinguishing competencies at the most senior levels. To get things done in complex environments, whether in the civil service, or in global multi-nationals, knowing how one came across, and how to influence others was, and remains, a key skill. Calling it “politics” rather belittles what is a very real skill area, one which is difficult to develop. After all, most of what is now called “Emotional Intelligence” can also be labelled as organisational politics.
Political skills – and political awareness
As an arch ‘behaviouralist’, could I possibly reframe the term ‘political skills’ as a very important management competency, in terms of ‘political awareness’?
I don’t want to nit-pick. I know lots of people who are very politically skilled in knowing how to work the system, at least as it is at the moment, to get their way and to influence others.
But what many may lack is ‘political awareness’, to spot their impact on others, to identify and deal with hidden agendas most effectively, and much more, for the longer term.
I see few with genuine ‘political awareness’ who don’t have ‘political skills’ as well, but plenty who have the second without the first.
For the healthy conduct of any organisation, which would you rather promote?
I hope you won’t feel this is being too pedantic? In times long by, I have worked with many ‘politically skilled’ people, but without having ‘political awareness’ as well, many were very damaging to their organisation. Maybe you have worked with quite a few yourself?
Best wishes
Jeremy