How to Master Office Politics Without Compromising Your Values
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Welcome to HBR on Leadership.

Case studies and conversations with the world's top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. What do you think of when you hear these words? Office politics. Maybe you think of someone hoarding information or taking credit for other people's work.

Stereotypes about playing office politics often verge into bad behavior. But if you want to be a leader, learning to manage your organization's politics is part of the job. And there is a way to do it without sacrificing your principles or your authenticity. Today we bring you a conversation about how to become more politically savvy at work with the help of organizational psychologist Madeline Wyatt and a guest who's struggling to navigate the politics in her management consulting firm.

In this episode, you'll learn how to master three key skills that you need. Apparent sincerity, networking, and interpersonal influence. This episode originally aired on Women at Work in January 2023 as part of a special series called The Essentials. Here it is. I first became aware of office politics early in my career. I noticed that the colleagues of mine who sucked up to the boss consistently received better assignments from him.

At first, I found their ingratiating behavior, bringing the boss coffee, for example, unprofessional and kind of repulsive. Shouldn't my work speak for itself? And yet, while I kept my head down and churned out research report after research report, hoping the boss would notice and offer me more promising opportunities, the suck-ups just kept coming out ahead. So I realized something had to change.

I had to make real connections with the higher-ups. I had to understand them as people so that I could establish relationships that went beyond the transactional. And I had to learn to do that while being true to myself and without being totally self-serving. Though, if those relationships led to the green light or the fast track, great. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Bernstein.

Everyone at work has their own priorities and concerns, and knowing what those are allows you to move more deliberately and smoothly through whatever meetings you're in or project you're on.

Being politically savvy isn't the same as being a political operator. And to be clear, I'm not encouraging bad behavior. Do not go out there and take undue credit or act like you're in charge when you're not or hoard information to appear powerful. And actually, if you work with someone who's doing those things, Amy G's book Getting Along has advice for coping.

But I am encouraging you to consider adopting a principled approach to pulling strings. You can push your own agenda in the interest of your team and company goals instead of at their expense. Winning over higher-ups who can help your career doesn't require sucking up to them.

And if you're looking to move up, becoming interested and involved in your company's politics is just part of the process. I do speak to a lot of people who've got plateaued in their careers and they just didn't understand until kind of 25 years in that there was politics going on. They thought that the formal systems were enough to get them through and into leadership positions. Maddy Wyatt is an organizational psychologist and professor at King's Business School.

One of her research areas is the informal side of our work days. Impromptu in-person chats, non-work-related IMing, after-hours outings. She's found that a lot of ambitious professionals skip this sort of socializing, either because they fail to see the value in it, had too many negative experiences, or haven't been invited in.

That's why Maddie's campaigning for a healthier, more inclusive form of office politics, which is what a woman who we're calling Jess wants to be playing in her job as a transportation planner. They're both here with me to help us learn about how to build relationships, access opportunities, and influence others without compromising your integrity or wearing yourself out. Thank you so much for being with us, Maddie and Jess. Just let me start with you.

Tell us about the politics that you deal with every day in your work. Where to begin? The politics are kind of two-sided. I work in consulting and have to deal with the politics of being in sort of the management consulting transportation side and then also have to work with the politics of dealing with clients and trying to win contracts, trying to build relationships and

And I'm still relatively... At what point do you stop calling yourself junior in your career? I'm not sure. But I think that may still qualify. So I'm still newer in my career. I've been in the industry about five years now.

So I found that trying to build external relationships with our clients was really challenging. And what I had to do was rely on internal politicking to get access to the external politicking. So I had to make sure that I was building the right relationships with my manager, with other people in the office who had access to those avenues to our clients. So that would mean getting invited to happy hours, getting invited to golf outings,

things like that. Then internally, I kind of made a conscious decision, I think, when I started the job that I was going to adopt a certain persona within the industry. So transportation, as I think many probably know, is very male dominated, trends older. I'm Latinx,

I'm sort of an outlier within the industry. I chose to adopt a certain persona of someone that was going to be a yes woman that was not going to say no to any opportunity. I was going to be really bubbly. I was going to be very peppy. I was going to be the person that all of the engineers would want to hang around. And then I would get invited to things. But sometimes I worry that that action has sort of, I think it's helped me advance my career, but sometimes I wonder if it's

plateaued me, where people only are able to see me as the kind of young, peppy, you know, she's a lot of fun. She has a really loud laugh. And we like working with her. But, you know, we could never see her being the office leader or vice president. We wouldn't see that for her. You know, but she's really great with the clients because they like spending time with her. So it sounds to me, Jess, as if you were really grappling with the parts of the politics that

that made you feel inauthentic? Yeah. And I think that sometimes I position myself as someone that I wish I was, but it's very taxing. And I find myself more often than not in situations where it's kind of like the, you know, somebody makes a joke and you're like, that is the best joke I've ever heard. Because you're trying to, you know, stroke somebody's ego or you're trying to make a connection and that it feels really crummy. Yeah.

So Maddy, help Jess out here. What are you hearing? Well, I think that authenticity piece is quite interesting because we find this all the way across organizations is that

People want authenticity and it also is one of the most important political skills that you can develop. So the political skills literature talks about four aspects of political skills and one of them is called apparent sincerity. People believe you are sincere and genuine. So when you want to try and influence them, for example, when you're laughing at a client's joke, they want to believe that you're being true to yourself. Whereas if you're very politically skilled, then maybe you can make them think that when you're not really.

But as you say, it comes at an emotional cost in terms of the emotional labour involved with that. So if you're always having to be acting and...

Being someone you're not, it is quite challenging. I see this all the time in my own research. I do research on social class, which is probably less of an issue within the States. But in the UK, people change their accents, their mannerisms all the time to try and make sure they're fitting in with people at work. But actually, that means it's quite stressful for them. So when they go home at the end of the day, they spend all day kind of acting out.

changing who they are. And that's quite draining process. As you go through your career, I think you can become more at home with who you are. But I think it depends on the people around you that help facilitate that for you. Maddie, you said that there are four components to office politics, to workplace politics, one of which is apparent sincerity. What are the others?

Yeah, so there's networking ability, which is not just networking, but it's doing it well. So I always talk about this in terms of people who have 3,000 LinkedIn contacts aren't necessarily networking well, they're just networking. So networking well is about understanding who the right people are to be in your network and also knowing how to deal with those people and how to maintain those relationships. Networking is a long-term strategy.

strategy. It's not just going to a conference and meeting three people and using those relationships within the next six months. It's cultivating the relationships and making sure that they work for you over time. And you work for them as well. It's a reciprocal relationship and networks just don't work if you don't put the effort in. So that's one aspect. The second aspect is interpersonal influence, which is, again, not just influencing people, but knowing when to influence them and how to influence them. So

Some people might use self-promotion as an influence tactic and talk all about themselves, and other people might use flattery and ingratiation. But it's people who are skilled in this aspect of political skill know when to use which strategy, who it's going to work on, which situation to use it in.

So I always say, you know, my daughter, when she wants to have some chocolate or something, she might come up to me and say, oh, you know, I love your hair, mummy. It's amazing. And I'm like, it's the wrong strategy, darling. You should have gone with some self-promotion. You should have said, you know, I got a really good grade on my assignment or something like that instead. And that would have convinced me a lot better. So politically skilled people use the right influence tactics.

Then the third one is social astuteness, which is really understanding social situations, knowing who's in power, what's going on in the room, what are the hidden agendas around the table and those kind of things. And then finally, the apparent sincerity, which is ensuring that other people believe you're genuine and sincere in your interactions.

And importantly, all those four aspects work together. So if you want to be able to network well, you also need to influence people and people need to think you're genuine and sincere. So it all combines together to become effective. And people who can do this really well tend to get really good career outcomes in terms of leadership, team working ability, job performance, salary, job satisfaction. And they're also less stressed because they feel like they can cope very well in political environments.

What does it mean not to do it well? When do those skills turn dangerous, harmful, toxic? I think it depends on how you define well. So if you think about it, the people who are the most politically skilled are doing it very well, but they might be doing it for different reasons. And I think that comes down to the political motivation or the political will, we call it in the literature,

I think if you're doing it to help other people, so there's a lot of research coming out to suggest that politics can actually be quite a good thing and you can help your team members gain resources. You can, as a leader, you can support the people that you're leading by developing their careers and introducing them to important networks.

But also you can do it for the wrong reasons. So you can be very Machiavellian about your political strategy. And obviously for those people, they might be doing politics very well, but be doing it for the wrong reasons. So it depends on how you define well and how do you define good in terms of political behaviour at work. But you can also be very bad at politics. And I think we've all come across people who do it in a kind of jarring way. I've just done some interviews with people who talked about politics in hybrid work and

and how they had colleagues who would put comments in their chat function in every meeting, regardless of what they were talking about. It was just to promote themselves. And they said this kind of behavior is really jarring. It's really obvious. So those are people are doing political behaviors, but they're not doing it in a skilled way because it's obvious what they're doing and it's not very good. Asana is the number one AI work management platform. It's where work connects across every department, even in the most complex organizations.

Asana is where AI is seamlessly intertwined with every project, team, and goal. Try for free today at asana.com. That's A-S-A-N-A dot com. Why should you listen to the Work Lab podcast from Microsoft? Because it's made for leaders who know they have to adapt to stay ahead. And those leaders know that AI-powered organizations will be better at spotting opportunities, creating new products and business models, and maximizing value.

WorkLab is the place to find real-world lessons and actionable insights to prepare you for the next phase of AI at work. That's WorkLab, W-O-R-K-L-A-B, no spaces, available wherever you get your podcasts. So we have networking ability, we have interpersonal influence, we have social astuteness, and we have apparent sincerity.

Jess, of the four political skills that Maddie described, which one are you most interested in working on?

Okay, it's definitely between the last two because while Maddie was talking, I was thinking about social astuteness. So let's say I'm politicking. How do I know if the other person is politicking me? I'm really curious about that. But then I am, so I'll leave this open for Maddie because I am also very interested in the authentic appearance too because I work a lot with communities. And so being authentic, especially in my heritage, in the languages that I speak,

the person that I am. I want to bring my full self to work, but the avenues that you were kind of describing that exist for white men, like going out to the bars or going to the golf course, just simply don't exist for women. And so then I find myself in

odd situations where I'm one on one with somebody, or I'm at an event, and I'm the only woman or I'm one of three women. And I don't know if it's better in those situations to kind of be one of the guys and try to, you know, go drink for drink with the guys at the bar, or if it's better to sort of stay true to myself and say, you know, I'm here as me and trying to get to know you or if it's better to blend in.

Okay, so I think in terms of identifying when other people are politicking, it all comes from understanding who you're dealing with. And that boils down to intel. I think men call it intel. I think women often call this gossip, right?

So who is this person you're about to meet? What is their agenda? Why are you meeting them? So I think developing your internal networks will probably help with your client networks because those people internally will be able to say, yes, I know this person. We've dealt with them before. This is how you should approach them. This is the kind of thing they might do. You can't just magically know this stuff. People will tell you it. They will guide and advise you on how to do this.

But what if they're wrong? So my mentor was introducing me to somebody and it turns out that that person that they were introducing me to actually really didn't like my mentor or my mentor's company. And so I was like, oh, this is really bad. I have politicked incorrectly. So what would you... Is that normal? Does that happen? Well, obviously it happens, as you just said. Yeah.

Yeah, I think this is a classic example of the fact that you definitely need not just one mentor, but you need a whole committee of mentors. But actually to get you above not just getting advice to actually help you, you need someone to sponsor for you. So that could be strategizing about your career, giving you insider information, which is potentially about clients, about what people's agendas are within the organization, someone who's willing to connect for you and make introductions for you.

provide you with lots of opportunities and also advocate for you when you're not in the room. So in your example, if you'd had maybe two or three people to go and speak to about this person, then you might have got the inkling that maybe the relationship between the mentor and the client wasn't so great. Well, let's say you haven't had the time or the exposure to develop this panel of mentors and sponsors. How would you recommend

let Jess walk into a situation like the one she described? Is there planning that she can do? What kind of prep? I think for me personally, there's a certain amount of prep you can do. I think you have to think about the wider agendas that people might have, but you don't necessarily need that all up front. And I think that would be quite tiresome to have to spend every time you want to meet someone to have to go and speak to four or five different people. A lot of this can be quite organic. You can just think, you know,

I need to be aware that this person might have a different perspective on this or might have different needs and wants out of this meeting. A lot of it is just coming down to asking people questions, questioning some of the things they might be saying and thinking about the different angles that might be possible, I think. But I think it all does come with time and experience as well, which I'm sure you're accumulating as you work.

Yeah, and I feel like my politics, like I've been honing it over the past couple years. And obviously, I have a lot more work to do. But I keep coming back to being authentic and how I can be less

So you mentioned like that you don't need to kind of plan interactions, which I do think a lot about interactions and, you know, who's going to be in the room and who I want to talk to. And I guess that sometimes I just wish that it came more organically to me. And I think a lot of the times it ends up going really well, but it's just at what cost probably

probably more than the job itself is thinking about the politics of the job. And I don't want other women to have to live in that discomfort and that fear that they have to blur lines or that they have to, you know, participate in this. I know that you have to participate to some degree, but I guess,

I'm rambling. So how do you what recommendations do you have for me now that I am kind of moving into a more leadership role where I can advise kind of more junior colleagues?

I think there's a lot of emphasis on women to be professional. And I think that is something that can make it quite stressful to engage in politics for women, because talking about blurring lines, when you network, there's this underlying pressure of sexuality and heteronormativity going on. So you've got this pressure, I think, for women in particular, and as you go up the ranks to maintain professionalism,

and role model professionalism for other people. So I think as you go into a kind of position of leadership, my first piece of advice would be to push for culture change within the organisation. I know that's a huge ask, but I think identifying allies, because I don't think you can do this on your own, who are willing to push for change in the way that your organisation does business might be key for the long-term change. You know, I found when I work with male-dominated fields that they can be surprisingly blinkered in the way

that they network and they don't really have much knowledge about how their interactions are exclusionary. And sometimes you do just need to point those out. But in the short term, I realised that you have to cope with the situation, right? So you're having to be in this organisation, in this industry. And I think that might come down to identifying your own code of practice. So, you know, the types of interactions you're willing to have,

the times you're willing to have them. One good way to make interactions a little bit more work-related and professional is to always bring along a colleague, for example. And if you're looking to make this a better place for women, then you can bring along mentees. So you can start to mentor people and advocate for them and show them that this is how you network. This is how you engage in politics.

And it might not be the white male norm. It might not be the same as everyone else in your organisation, but you do it in an authentic way. What we see in research with women and ethnic minorities around politics is that it's when people completely opt out and say, I don't want to get involved. It's just a toxic environment and I don't want to get involved. It really plateaus their career. But I think when they say, actually, I know that politics goes on, but I need to do it in the way that I'm comfortable with. I'm authentic.

then it means that you've got a bridge into that world, but you're still maintaining that authenticity. But yeah, as you kind of develop and grow as a leader, you can start to role model these activities and these small little changes start to create culture change. If you look at competencies of organisations in terms of roles, as you go up to more senior positions, you start to become more political formally, right?

you'll see that those senior roles actually start to be described in political terms. So people want things like negotiation. They want you to influence. They want you to connect with people at the senior level. So if you try to opt out of politics at the lower levels of organisations, you haven't developed the skill sets that you actually require to be a senior leader. So you definitely do need to develop those skills, but it's just how you go about doing it.

And like I said, you don't have to do politics in a self-serving, Machiavellian way. You can do politics in a very benevolent way that helps other people, helps the communities that you work with. And you do it on your own terms. And you build political capital. And I'm wondering if you can help us understand what political capital really is and then how you build it. I think really political capital comes down to reputation and getting other people to think about

who you are and what you do. So classically, we see people who perform really well in organisations, but no one really knows that they've done that. So you might be working really, really hard, beavering away every day, trying to make the best you can do. But if no one's noticed that, then it's never going to work out. I've just done some research on hybrid work that's showing that

women have buckled down a lot in hybrid work. So they're working really long hours, trying to make sure they're ticking everything off the to-do lists, but actually they're not getting noticed for doing that. So I think this political capital all comes down to relationships, reputation. You need people to know you. You need people to know how good you are.

you need to develop that. So those relationships need work. You can't expect to get a payout without putting the work in. So political capital is spending time developing these relationships over time, maintaining them so that when the time comes, you've got someone in your corner to advocate for you, to showcase your work, to put in a good word and all those things. So

I think political capital isn't necessarily something that is internal or individually focused. It's developing that sponsorship. And it can be challenging if you're a male-dominated industry to find people to help you. And you might have to look externally for people to become your kind of committee of mentors and sponsors to do that. Jess, what kinds of questions does this raise for you? It raises questions.

Maybe a controversial question, and maybe I'm wrong about this, but, you know, I have a lot of friends that work in the tech industry, that work in other industries, that seem to have politicking figured out a lot more than my industry. My industry is very conservative.

corporate. It's very traditional. I've talked about the male dominated workplace. That's all true. The kind of avenues for which people network are all kind of the same. Mental health is not really a thing in the industry. And I hear from other friends and colleagues at other places that don't work in transportation and logistics that

that it's totally different that when I share some stories about politicking, they're like, that's crazy that you have to like go out on a limb like that. No, you don't have to have that type of tolerance for odd behavior. Or why do you have to spend all these hours outside of work trying to build relationships? You know, it should be more of a meritocracy. And I'm like, well, it's not a meritocracy. And I heard what you were saying about sort of pushing for structural change. But then I feel

feel like you become the like rebel rouser that's pushing for structural change. Then they're like, okay, yeah, nevermind too radical. Let's go with somebody else for the project or to talk to the client because that person, you know, is they're unhappy. And now we've pegged them as unhappy as the disgruntled employee. And like, we're just not going to deal with that. Let them kind of stay behind the computer. And so I guess the question is, is what I'm dealing with normal, which I think you already touched on a little bit. And then the other question,

question just about how much hell can you raise before people start to look at you and say yeah we agree but structural change doesn't happen overnight and now you're kind of just making a scene and it's not a good look for us yeah I think it's a lot to take on as an individual to try and create structural change but I think as you go up in the leadership

positions, then there's no harm in trying to role model a little bit more inclusivity. And when you see someone who might be a good ally, saying to them, you know, hang on a minute, this isn't quite right. In terms of your other point about, you know, how much should I tolerate? I think when I think about politics, I always think of it as a spectrum, essentially. So

Up on the nice, happy side, you've got leaders who really help their subordinates and you've got people who are doing it for a good reason. It could be for diversity, for example. And then you've got kind of neutral politics, which can be good or bad depending on your motives. And they might be self-serving, but it doesn't necessarily need to be.

But I think, you know, if you're coming across interactions where you feel like it's more harassment than just plain politics and you're feeling these environments making you uncomfortable, then I think you have to report them. I think you have to talk to someone you trust at work, whether you report anonymously or not. But I think you have to put a clear line and say, no, I'm not happy with that. That's not something I'm going to put up with. I want to go back to Jess's question about how you affect people.

structural change if you don't have a whole lot of political capital. And I just want to run this by you. To effect any kind of structural change, you have to recognize that one person isn't going to do it on her own.

And that is actually opening up an opportunity to build political capital, to start connecting and finding the allies who will help you build the influence that you've been talking about. What's your read on that, Natty?

I completely agree. So building up those relationships, those allies, those sponsors within the organisation that are on your side in terms of making the politics more inclusive is really important. I think in terms of the biggest changes that you can create, the organisations that kind of really spur change in organisations that I've experienced or talked to people about,

are organizations that use those networks externally. So for example, you could develop a network of female clients. That is something that will help you as an individual, but also builds the kind of groundswell of support for you, both externally and internally. And if you start to introduce other women into that as well, you become a role model and you start to be seen as a leader and not just a yes woman.

And you're demonstrating those leadership behaviors as well. So I think that's something that you can do to kind of sidestep and then step back in again. And you've got this kind of huge support base is maybe one strategy. But it also sounds as if you're suggesting that Jess reframe her view of politics, that it doesn't take place only in politics.

big moments, you know, big pushes that it takes place in every relationship you have in the workplace, right? Oh, yes, definitely. And when I talk to people about networking, for example, they first think about going to conferences, going to an event where you're holding a wine glass and a plate and

And I'm like, no, that's not networking in my head. My head, it's in the toilets at work. Or maybe, you know, for a long time I worked at a university and my son was at the nursery and a lot of my colleagues had children at the nursery. So a lot of my politics was actually done on the nursery pickup and just having a chat

with people and just having a kind of share. You'd hear a tidbit of information. You'd think, oh, yeah, you don't really think anything of it. And then two months down the line, you might think, oh, actually, that person was quite relevant to this thing I'm doing now. And that's how I think politics is really played. And I think you're right. The politics is the everyday interactions. I don't think it necessarily is these big pushes to be the network or anything. I think it is just the day-to-day work.

I mean, one of the things that happened early on for me when the penny really dropped – and I don't think I even thought about this as politics. But I realized that with every interaction, I had the choice to be aloof, which might be a natural tendency for me, or to reach out, to make small talk, to create a connection.

And the first way, the aloofness really wasn't going to help me or anyone else. But if I could start the spark of a relationship, even the thinnest thread of connection, that that would make work so much pleasanter and easier. And I think that's where I realized that office politics, again, I don't think I thought about it in those terms, was...

Maybe it's a game you have to play, but it's also a way of making life easier for yourself and a lot more fun.

I think it does make life fun and it feels really exciting to build connections and to get to know people. And that's why I like working in this industry is because I get to meet so many different types of people from different walks of life. You know, everybody from bus operators to people that are, you know, managing the whole transportation department. So I think if I could change my perspective on seeing it as this

maybe dirty is too strong of a word, but just, you know, the madman style, like swishing glass, kind of like politicking to sort of more what you and Maddie are talking about as just making connections. And I love that. I really think something that's doable for me is connecting more with female identifying clients.

because they do exist. And it's just that they might not be in my direct line of work, they might not be the natural person that I would run to for something. But that doesn't mean that they can't help me then connect with another client. I think it would make me feel a lot more comfortable. And it would make me feel more comfortable bringing along some more like mentees and junior colleagues along for the ride.

But I did have a question about Intel or gossip, whatever we're calling it now, because this is a problem I run into a lot at work too, which is that, okay, so like I've done successful politicking, like I did it. And then I got some really great information. But the person that I was politicking with was like, I shouldn't really say this. But and then gave me some really juicy gossip, really juicy Intel. And then

And my company is like, hey, I saw you with that person. What'd they say? And then I'm like,

I am not sure what they did. Did they say anything? What do you what do you do? Like, do this feels like an ethical question. But I guess like, how do you know when to hold something in confidence versus like, this is a piece of intel that was like political intel that probably 12 other people at my firm know, and I'm just kind of corroborating the evidence. Yeah, it's an ethical dilemma, right? I think, yeah.

The political side of me would say that that information is power. So if you give it up too easily, then you lose your power immediately. So although someone might see you as a useful contact, maybe you've suddenly lost all the luster if you give up that information straight away. So almost being kind of a little bit secretive about it and say, well, yeah, I've got some good information, but, you know, I can't say unfortunately what that is.

means that you are suddenly seen as someone who's quite valuable. So I think there's a political element with how you decide to give up information or not. So after all of this back and forth among the three of us, Jess, what are you going to take away from the conversation? I'm taking away that it's not okay to have any

obvious toxicity in terms of politicking but that politicking in the traditional way that I've thought about it is not what it is and that it seems like the real politicking happens in those kind of micro moments of connecting with somebody in passing like Maddie joked like in the bathroom or when we're in the elevator together and that I think I'm also thinking that like there's a lot of

opportunities to just connect with people that are more lateral to me and that are also junior to me too, that politicking doesn't just have to happen upwards, but that it can happen with anyone around me because ultimately the people that I'm working with now are going to be senior people.

at some point. And so that's an important part of politicking, too. So I think those are my main takeaways. But I think if I had to say one thing, I'm leaving feeling a lot more optimistic than I was when I walked into this conversation, because I felt pretty helpless in this regard. And I'm excited to listen to this back when I'm feeling like I'm losing sight of my politicking. And Maddie, what do you hope listeners will think about after listening to this?

My big hope is that if you're a leader in an organisation, that you think about how inclusive your politics are in the organisation and how you can set a good example of where politics takes place, how it takes place and who it takes place with.

And I think making sure that, for example, when you're networking and who you choose to sponsor, if you're thinking about demographic diversity within that, thinking about gender and ethnicity and socioeconomic status and who you choose to spend your time with in organisations, I think that's my big mission would be to change cultures along those lines. But I also hope that people who are looking to develop their own political savvy or political skills within organisations can

also realise that it is really important and you can't just ignore politics and try and opt out because that strategy tends to be a very hard one. It means that you might spend a long time in your career trying to go upwards when it could be a lot simpler just by using some relationships and not necessarily in a negative way. You can do politics in a very positive and inclusive way and I think that's my main message.

So Jess, Maddie, thank you so much for this conversation. It's been terrific. Thank you so much. Thank you. You just heard organizational psychologist Madeline Wyatt and Jess, a management consultant, in conversation with Amy Bernstein on Women at Work.

We'll be back next Wednesday with another handpicked conversation about leadership from the Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, be sure to leave us a review. And when you're ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos with the world's top business and management experts, you'll find it all at hbr.org.

This episode was produced by Amanda Kersey, Anne Sani, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Music by Coma Media. And special thanks to Rob Eckhart, Tina Tobey-Mack, Erica Truxler, Maureen Hoke, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, and Bartholomew, and you, our listener. See you next week.