I am Autistic and a paper that I am working on involves a “political mindset” to solve a problem. I am seeing ways to survive office politics but I am not sure ultimately what it is. Please help.
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It’s about protecting ‘turf’. Example: I offer to help with some web site changes – just writing copy, making suggestions about what needs to be added and deleted. Then someone comes along all pissed off becuase that’s not my job and who gave me the right to get into their business. Crikey! I was just trying to help. So you have to be very careful and understand roles and responsibilities clearly.
To help you with the specific term you’re asking, someone who approaches something with a “political mindset” (sometimes called “playing politics”) is when someone relies primarily on their interpersonal skills rather than technical skills to advance their own position.
This benefits the individual because it can lead to rapid career advancement as they leverage their connections for promotions and salary increases. But too much of this is usually bad for the organization because it tends to lead to people in leadership positions without a strong foundational knowledge of the skills needed by the people they’re leading.
Often you’ll hear people complain about under-qualified management. This is usually the avenue that gets under-qualified managers into those positions.
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