Welcome to the Stop Sabotaging Your Success podcast, episode six. I’m your host, Cindy Esliger. This is the podcast for focusing on what we can do today to take control of our careers and overcome the inevitable barriers to success that we encounter along the way. 

I hate to admit it, but I spent a big portion of my life believing that those who work the hardest would get noticed and rewarded in the competitive environment of the workplace. I guess I thought it would be more like school, which I was good at. But unfortunately, the harder we work doesn’t translate into career advancement the way I’d hoped it would. That’s just not the formula for success. 

In this episode, we’re going to give you the hard truth, the workplace is not a meritocracy. It is not the smartest or the hardest working who necessarily succeed. The way to succeed in a fast paced, high-pressure environment is to be politically savvy, and that starts by understanding what gets rewarded. 

In a merit-based system, reward is for performance regardless of political connections. But for that, there’s a need for a complete database of people’s skills that highlight competence as the major criteria for advancement. Instead, the emphasis is on the formation of relationships, those professional networks, so we encourage self-promotion because waiting for ideas and results to speak for themselves leads to becoming invisible and disrespected.

It’s necessary to establish your profile, to prevent yourself from being underestimated and marginalized. That visibility and recognition for our ideas is what helps us establish a strong identity. So I encourage you to track your accomplishments weekly so that there’s a handprint on your work. 

Become a continuous learner to get that recognition as a valuable team player. It makes sense that employees are more loyal and produce more when they’re well-treated. And companies are looking for people with good ideas and competence who embrace integrity and the company’s interests while wanting to be successful.

So, we have to encourage people to enter the political arena with integrity, competence, and savvy. Wouldn’t it be nice if they based bonuses on more than just meeting goals, by including qualitative assessment of how those results were achieved, so that values and fairplay were taken into account? 

It’s important to have clear performance measures so that relationship connections don’t determine advancement exclusively, and that will help flush out deception and sabotage. But it might be too much to ask that leaders ensure that their own behavior is congruent with that vision, because they don’t all walk the talk, or lead by example. 

So, we have to learn how to play the game and play without feeling apologetic or guilty, by understanding the unspoken rules for winning that game, and learning the boundaries of the playing field, while continuing to push up against them. We need to stop viewing the whole idea of the game as something unpleasant, to be avoided at all costs. Because business is a game, but it’s a game you can win. 

We’re naturally wired to be very effective at this game. We’re already good at listening, collaborating, motivating, and seeing the human side of people. We’re way ahead on emotional intelligence, which includes self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, social skills, and self motivation. And these are all necessary for workplace success. 

And there’s a need to capitalize on our high emotional intelligence, but playing the game is hard to learn because it runs counter to everything we learned growing up. But we have to face the hard stuff if we’re going to play to win. We prefer to pretend it isn’t a game. We think that it’s a meritocracy, like school was, but it isn’t. And we tend to assume that the rules are the same for everyone. So we keep our heads down and we work hard. And then we wait to be given what we want by avoiding office politics. 

Workplace sexism is not a woman problem, it’s a work problem. Because smart, capable, experienced, well-educated women can become some of the best leaders. And when deciding who to promote every year, our names might come up. Yet, they also might be denied every year. It can be inspiring to see our resilience and determination, even after we’ve been given the news of “Not this year”, yet again. 

That first year we might have accepted the rejection and used it as an opportunity to get feedback, to put in the work, and do whatever we could to become the role we wanted. All the leadership books tell us resilient, successful people do this. So, we stayed late at work. We read all the popular books on women in leadership. We attended development training for women executives, and we applied everything we were taught. We became more assertive. We started speaking up in meetings. We attempted to not apologize as much. And we started asking for what we wanted. And maybe we even perfected our handshake. 

And that second year, our efforts were acknowledged, but we were given the same corporate script to keep going, that our initiatives haven’t gone unnoticed, and to keep doing what we’re doing, because we just needed more time in our current role to round out our experience and judgment, because we’re not quite ready. But the truth is, we’re more than ready for a promotion. And it’s not our judgment or experience that’s holding us back. It’s because ‘just not ready’ is corporate speak for workplace sexism. 

And meritocracy is a myth. I spent much of my life believing in it. I thought that at work, like school, achievements would be rewarded with accolades like verbal praise, outstanding performance appraisals, promotions, and raises. The harder we worked, the more we would be rewarded. 

But this formula doesn’t work for women in the workplace. And yet, it doesn’t stop us from trying. We find a mentor. We hire an executive coach. We double our efforts at work, spending more hours in the office than at home. We take on extra projects. We participate in every work-related social event. We attend women’s conferences and we spend hours networking internally to ensure we are on good terms with all the senior leaders. To further our expertise, we might even enroll in a master’s program at a university, part-time of course, so as not to disrupt our working life. And we do everything we can to be perceived as a leader. 

And maybe after three years of being considered and then passed over, our performance is so outstanding that we can no longer be overlooked for a spot on the leadership team, or so we think. We may be long overdue for promotion, yet, we’ve seen the company supporting candidates that had nowhere near our capability. So, we think that we will finally get it, and be the only female leader in the department, but then they seem to begrudgingly acknowledge that you’re good, but not quite right. 

And it happens yet again. Because sometimes, we just don’t fit in. And there’s nothing we could do to fix ourselves, or to prove our worth that would change the fact that we just don’t fit in, because we’re not the problem. It’s not us. It’s our workplace. 

And now we’ve spent years trying to fix something that wasn’t broken, trying to understand what women need to do to advance at the same rate as men. I want to be able to support women and not discourage them, but countless qualifications and many years of experience and high-performance ratings don’t seem to be enough. Because we watch our male peers, who don’t have these credentials or accolades, progressing at a faster rate than we are.

It didn’t make sense to me. I began to believe that I was the problem, that I needed to do more, or be more, to succeed. I don’t think I’m alone in feeling defeated and not knowing what else I could possibly do. I wanted to find a practical solution to the challenges I was facing, but I didn’t find any. 

Some companies adopt initiatives with the goal of increasing the number of women in leadership positions, but this assumes that women are accountable for their lack of representation in leadership roles. Because they think we’re not networking in the right way, not speaking up, not asking for a raise, not asserting ourselves, not accessing mentors, not supporting one another, and not leaning in enough. 

There has been tremendous pressure to advance the representation of women in leadership positions, but none of it is working. Most diversity programs are not advancing equality. Many workplaces simply do not value men and women equally, and women remain underrepresented in leadership roles. And it’s far worse for women of color. Women continue to work longer hours, yet many are still primarily responsible for unpaid domestic duties and dependent care. And we continue to earn less. 

I set out to understand what women needed to do in order to not only advance at work, but to thrive in organizations. What is it that we’re missing that would enable women to advance at the same rate as men and ultimately lead? I wanted to know what’s been holding us back. 

The big answer is we’re lacking political savvy. We have political blinders on, and we need to be aware of the political dangers. There’s turbulence and uncertainty. There’s priorities, and perceptions that become reality. There’s competing agendas, as well as self-serving agendas. And there’s just downright sabotage. It happens all the time, especially in times of fear and uncertainty. 

And sometimes our careers can feel endangered. We treat others with care and respect, but we have little organizational impact. We’re intelligent, technically capable, company-loyal, high-integrity women, yet we’re clueless about office politics, and we refuse to engage. We’re naive about the importance, and we lack organizational savvy. 

So we struggle to survive in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment. We’re being underestimated, passed over. We’re being victims of downsizing because we don’t understand the rules. We’re not getting credit, and our ideas don’t get traction. But telling it like it is, is not appreciated. We’re just not part of the in-crowd. And we allow ourselves to become victims of sabotage, because we just don’t see it coming. 

So, we have to develop a political style. And it’s advantageous that so many of us are able to read people well. We need to learn to influence and work well with colleagues, direct reports, and managers. And we need to adapt our own political style and behavior to those around us.

There’s a need for us to gain insight into our own behavior, our strengths, our motivations, and our mindsets. We need to understand how we view power, politics, and ambition. We naturally tend to be less politically driven, hoping that our results and ideas speak for themselves. And we really want the working world to be based on merit. 

Our view of power resides in facts and logical analysis, intuition, creativity, innovation. We think that true power is in the work itself, in doing a good job. So we take pride in our competence and our ideas, and we have enthusiasm for our work, and a strong work ethic, and a commitment to quality. And we value honesty and would prefer to say what’s on our mind in a forthright manner, or at least we wish we could.

But we need to be more politically driven, doing more self-promoting and making more relationship-based decisions. Doing what works, by focusing on image and perception, and having a more private agenda of our own. 

And increasing our positional power by focusing on who has the power, and who doesn’t. We need to be more well-connected by studying those who are, and aligning with them. We have to assess the official power structure, while also understanding the unofficial, informal power dynamics, by understanding that decisions are made based on perceptions, so that we can strategize ways to improve our reputations.

And this starts with understanding the unwritten rules so that we can make decisions to avoid being at a disadvantage, by being more strategic with our agendas, and waiting for the optimal time and place to share critical information, and recognizing the value in promoting ourselves and our ideas, as a requirement for advancing. 

So we need to stop making ourselves an easy target. We are vulnerable anytime we face off against, or work with, a person who is more politically savvy than ourselves. And we keep getting the short end of the stick. We can’t keep our heads down, doing our job, believing in meritocracy. We will just lose out to people more political when competing for power, credit, promotions, or resources. It’s not even a competition. 

And having a low profile, being passive, modest, self-deprecating, we’re seen as weak, inconsequential, undeserving of respect. We need to learn self-promotion, because thinking our results and ideas will speak for themselves just diminishes our recognition. We become invisible. We’re not working the system with insufficient networks. We fail to work effectively and form cross-organizational alliances. So, we suffer from lack of exposure, because promotions and bonuses are decided on factors beyond purely competence. 

And our lack of awareness of how we come across to others, affects our reputations, which contributes to our poor executive presence. We have to consider the potential consequences of telling it like it is. And we need to be more discerning about who we’re talking to, because we tend to be easily deceived, and we get burned by others. And that just turns us into a victim. 

We’re the ones who trust people who should not be trusted. And that’s when we become an easy target, where we’re vulnerable to having our ideas stolen, and blamed for things we had no part in. So we need to protect ourselves. 

There’s a balance between putting the company good over our self-interests. Because we need to balance being selfless, with being a bit more selfish. There is room to compromise. Idealism needs to be balanced with practicality. 

Our goal is to get our ideas implemented, in order to increase our organizational impact. And when we don’t understand how to work the system, we miss opportunities for recognition and credit. And we’re creating a severely low profile, where we’re nearly invisible to those with the power to make decisions. 

So we’ve covered some practical tools and savvy tactics, and you’ll find a checklist in the show notes on my website. Most of us need help in learning to be more politically savvy, but there are some who are overly political, who need to reign in their excessive maneuvering traits that create distrust or alienation.

There is value in studying the formal and informal power within the company in order to better detect sabotage and manipulation, and the maneuvering people do to further their own agendas. So foster your creativity and adopt a learning attitude. And find a way to elevate your status, power, and influence with integrity, so you can protect yourself from undue scrutiny, and create success on your own terms.

And that’s it for this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success. Remember to download your Checklist for Becoming More Politically Savvy at cindyesliger.com/podcast, episode six.

Thank you to our producer, Alex Hochhausen and everyone at Astronomic Audio. Get in touch. I’m on Instagram @cindyesliger and my email address is info@cindyesliger.com. And if you liked the show, please tell a friend, subscribe, rate, and review. 

Until next week, I’m Cindy Esliger. Thanks for joining me.