From Politically Naïve to Politically Mature: Conceptualizing Leaders’ Political Maturation Journey
| Published date | 01 October 2017 |
| Date | 01 October 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12219 |
British Journal of Management, Vol. 28, 666–686 (2017)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12219
From Politically Na¨
ıve to Politically
Mature: Conceptualizing Leaders’ Political
Maturation Journey
Elena Doldor
School of Business and Management, Queen Mary University of London, Bancroft Building, Room 4.21A,
Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK
Email: e.r.doldor@qmul.ac.uk
This paper contributes to the literature on organizational politics and leadership. Cur-
rent studies of leaders’ engagement in politics neglect notions of learning and develop-
ment. The current paper aims to overcomethis shortcoming by providing a developmental
perspective on leaders’ engagement in organizational politics. Using in-depth qualitative
interviews with leaders at dierent seniority levels, the study examines developmental
patterns in leaders’ willingness and ability to engage in organizational politics. The in-
ductive findings informa three-stage model of political maturation, providing insights into
the developmental nature of political will and political skill. Drawing on leadership skill
and adult development literature, the paper posits that political maturation entails not
only changes in leaders’ observable skills and behaviours, but also deep-structure changes
in mindsets and cognitive scripts regarding engagement in organizational politics. Fur-
thermore, findings demonstrate the roles of experience and significant others in facilitat-
ing learning about organizational politics. The paper discusses theoretical and practical
implications of this dynamic, developmental perspective.
Introduction
Within the field of organizational politics,
increasing attention is devoted to politics in
leadership roles. Whilst political behaviour has
traditionally been described as self-serving and
counter-productive (Ferris and Treadway, 2012),
the suggestion that leaders opt out of politics
seems unrealistic if one considers organizations
as political arenas (Buchanan, 2008; Mintzberg,
1983). Fresh scholarship reconceptualizes leader
political behaviour and skill as positive in their
means and outcomes (Ellen, Ferris and Buckley,
2013; Hochwarter, 2012), resulting in increased
leader and team performance (Ahearn et al., 2004;
Silvester, Wyatt and Randall, 2014) and eective
change management (Buchanan and Badham,
2008; Hope, 2010).
While this growing body of research demon-
strates the necessity of political action for leaders,
it largely neglects the question of how leaders end
up being able and willing to navigate organiza-
tional politics. With few exceptions (Ferris et al.,
2002; Silvester and Wyatt, 2016), organizational
politics scholarship oers insucient answers
about what learning and development in the
political arena might entail. Leadership skills
are acquired over the course of people’s careers
(Mumford et al., 2000a) and involve deep-level
complex changes in leaders’ knowledge, skills and
identity (Lord and Hall, 2005). Such long-term
developmental processes are under-examined
and under-conceptualized in the organizational
politics literature,creating a severe conceptual lim-
itation of the field. Another shortcoming of this
literature lies in its lack of methodological diver-
sity (Lepisto and Pratt, 2012). Micro-perspectives
in the field are dominated by a positivist research
tradition employing large-scale surveys to test
relationships between perceptions of politics,
© 2017 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4
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From Politically Na¨
ıve to Politically Mature 667
political behaviours/skill and workplace out-
comes. This paradigmatic dominance compounds
the conceptual shortcomings outlined above, as
it treats political skill and will as static phenom-
ena and, through its deductive logic, privileges
further validation of pre-established concepts at
the expense of in-depth exploration of leaders’
evolving personal meanings and experience in re-
lation to politics (Buchanan, 2008). Actor-centred
perspectives focusing on direct experience can
capture learning in the political arena and expand
our understanding of micro-foundations of power
in organizations (Geppert and D¨
orrenb¨
acher,
2014).
The current paper aims to address these lim-
itations in micro-level organizational politics
research by introducing a developmental perspec-
tive on leaders’ political behaviour. Drawing on
a qualitative exploratory study of 38 leaders, the
paper oers an emerging model of how leaders
develop in the political arena and extends scholar-
ship in two ways. First, the paper conceptualizes
political maturation as encompassing not only
visible behavioural and skill-level changes but also
qualitatively dierent mindsets and deep-structure
scripts leaders hold about organizational politics
and their role as political actors. Addressing
calls for additional inductive research on leaders’
political ‘logic of action’ (Buchanan, 2008) and
political scripts (Ammeter et al., 2002), these
findings extend our understanding of how indi-
viduals make sense of their politicking at work
and how time aects experiences with politics
(Lepisto and Pratt, 2012). Second, the study
identifies on-the-job experiential and relational
learning as key drivers of political maturation,
responding to Kimura’s (2015) call for research
that examines whether organizational social-
ization experiences contribute to political skill
development. This study does not test established
theories or models in the field, but rather ex-
tends theory by oering novel insights into how
leaders’ meanings and approaches to politics
evolve.
The next section reviews literature on politics
in leadership roles and highlights an insucient
understanding of leaders’ development in the
political arena. The qualitative methodology uti-
lized is then explained, and findings outlining the
three stages of political maturation are presented.
Finally, theoretical and practical implications are
discussed.
Organizational politics: controversial
yet prevalent in leadership roles
Organizational politics describe the informal
exercise of power and influence in the workplace,
often occurring in conditions of uncertainty or
ambiguity to defend individual or group agendas
(Mintzberg, 1983; Pfeer, 1992). Synthesizing the
vast literature on power in organizations, Fleming
and Spicer (2014) distinguish between episodic
(the direct exercise of power through tactics such
as coercion and manipulation) and systemic power
(power forms congealed in institutional structures
that mobilize ideological and discursive resources,
such as domination and subjectification). Akin
to micro-level research on organizational politics,
this paper engages with the former perspective.
Political models of organizations emphasize the
pervasiveness of politics in the workplace, chal-
lenging the assumption that organizations are ra-
tional entities where only organizational interests
drive individuals (Buchanan and Badham, 2008).
Consequently, there is a persistent call for more
politically skilled leaders (Ammeter et al., 2002;
Hartley et al., 2007) and evidence that political
skill facilitates leadership eectiveness (Buchanan,
2008).
Politics in leadership roles are explored mostly
by examining the nature of political behaviour
and political skill (Doldor and Singh, 2008; Ferris
and Treadway, 2012; Ferris et al., 2002; Kimura,
2015). Political leadership has both a positive and
a Machiavellian dimension (Bass and Bass, 2008)
and relies on political tactics ranging from pro-
social (coalitions, friendliness, networking, self-
promotion) to anti-social (attacking, blaming or
exploiting others, coercion, blackmail) (Buchanan
and Badham, 2008; Ralston et al., 1994; Zanzi
et al., 1991). Critical to leadership eectiveness is
not the mere display of political behaviours but the
ability to navigate politics skilfully. Defined as ‘the
ability to eectively understand others at work,
and to use such knowledge to influence others to
act in ways that enhance one’s personal and/or
organizational objectives’ (Ferris et al., 2005,
p. 127), political skill encompasses social as-
tuteness, interpersonal influence, networking
ability and apparent sincerity (Ferris et al., 2007).
Political skill is a strong predictor of leadership
eectiveness (Douglas and Ammeter, 2004; Ewen
et al., 2013; Treadway et al., 2004), particularly
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