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

Make a Stand by Reconnecting with Your Own Personal Power

The fact that you have line management responsibility for the troublemaker immediately puts you in a position of power. Your job is to manage your team to deliver the objectives set by the organization and to do so in a manner that supports other teams to deliver their objectives too. Although it may not feel like it right now, you gained your current position because someone felt you were the right person to deliver the objectives.

Yet because you have an extreme troublemaker on your hands, it is likely that he has been working hard to erode your confidence and your own sense of power. At the heart of a troublemaker dilemma is the pursuit of power and control. In extreme cases, troublemakers show little integrity and even less remorse for their actions. They will do whatever they can to get power. Sometimes this can be a pathological condition where they have little or no awareness or conscious control over their actions and the consequences of those actions.

It is unlikely that troublemakers view the pursuit of power as their motivation. To them, everything is about their control over people, events, and their own destiny. To a certain extent, you probably understand and share this desire for power and control. The difference between you and troublemakers is that for them, it becomes an obsession. They have little or no regard for the damage they cause, and are more than happy—perhaps even delighted—to trample ...