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

Increase Objective Feedback to Key Stakeholders

One of the most challenging aspects of this dilemma is that the troublemaker has been able to build a strong reputation with senior stakeholders within the business. These stakeholders are likely to be more senior and powerful individuals. There is nothing wrong with your people promoting their achievements and building their reputations. In fact, these things are very much to your advantage as their boss because it helps build your own reputation as a diligent and skilled leader. However, if you allow your people to exaggerate their results, skills, and value, then you are building a significant risk that one day, the masquerade will be exposed. When that happens, how much of the fallout will land at your feet?

You need to be alert at all times to the way your people communicate with others. If you handle this in a controlling way, you will erode their trust in you, but if you are alert to how they are promoting themselves, you can gain insight into what is going on. Any feedback that you receive from these stakeholders also helps fill in the gaps in your knowledge. Chances are you have recruited ambitious people, so deliberate debate with them about how they should go about building up their brand and profile allows you to gain an intimate understanding of how they are already doing this. It puts you in a position of being able to influence their actions as a trusted ally.

But if you find yourself facing the troublemaker dilemma, ...