June 16, 2025 • 21 mins
Some leadership challenges are solved within the relationship of yourself and just one coworker. Others impact entire teams. Over four episodes we'll discuss some of the bigger ones that can impact the dynamic of an entire team.
Link to article by Sam Adeyemi: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescoachescouncil/2024/08/30/recipes-for-workplace-recovery-4-common-leadership-problems-and-their-solutions/
Patreon Account: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=22174142
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/hacking-your-leadership-podcast--4805674/support.
Link to article by Sam Adeyemi: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbescoachescouncil/2024/08/30/recipes-for-workplace-recovery-4-common-leadership-problems-and-their-solutions/
Patreon Account: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=22174142
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/hacking-your-leadership-podcast--4805674/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Hacking Your Leadership. I'm Chris, Lorenzo and Lorenzo.
On this episode, we're continuing the discussion that we started
two weeks ago on the four common leadership Problems and
their Solutions article by Sam at Ayemi. We posted the
article in the podcast description for the last two weeks.
On this episode, we're gonna talk about the third of
fourth of the four items in that article when it
(00:23):
comes to, you know, the problems that leaders have a
responsibility to solve when they're happening on their teams. This
particular issue that we're going to talk about today is
when your team is playing politics. And I think this
is different than the previous to you know, the last
week we talked about when your team is consumed by
negativity on the on the first episode, we talked about
what happens when your team isn't listening to each other,
(00:43):
you know, the when your team is playing politics. To me,
that's a little bit different. I had a leader once
tell me that they believed that there was no such
thing as an office or a team without politics, and
and what he meant by that was just in talking
about the relationships that exist between people and the the
(01:04):
the power structure that is involved, not by where the
organization promotes people and assigns people job responsibilities and roles,
but that the but the power that we give each
other in terms of the social and emotional relationships that
we have within the office. And you know, there will
always be people who are you know, known for this
(01:26):
or known for that. You know, the guy, the guy
that does this, the girl that does this in the office,
and that that will always happen. And that person once,
you know, said that that was the definition of politics,
and I don't think he's wrong. But in the context
of this article, politics is clearly being defined as a
as an always negative thing that that you know, kind
(01:48):
of comes with a deep seated feeling that things are
being done unfairly, or that that that there's different rules
for different people, or that people aren't being treated equal
by their by their leaders, by their coworkers. So there's
a lot more to it than just kind of like ooh,
how do I navigate these relationships? It can be a
serious problem on teams when when it's uh, when it
(02:10):
rises to the negative level.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, I think, you know, there's absolutely my belief as
well that like the politics, politics exist everywhere, because really
what you're talking about is like the relationships that you
have with individuals, and then as those relationships mature across
multiple individuals, you're going to have people that see the
world and see the work similarly, and you're going to
(02:31):
have people that see the world and see the work
in different ways. And because of that, you're going to
have these natural kind of spaces that people will play
within where they start to think about like how they
would do the work, how they would lead the work,
what's the right way uh to make things happen, what's
the right way or in their own mind to to
(02:53):
be able to accomplish the task that's at hand. And
the reality is that, like over time, if you don't
address those things when you see them, if you don't
talk constantly about the value of seeing the work differently,
of seeing the world differently, if you allow those teams
(03:13):
to either divide themselves because of maybe competition, or if
you have teams that work in a way where this
team has to accomplish this before this team can do that,
before this can even can do that, then you also
have that feeling of like, well, it's we always do
it the right way, it's they do it the wrong way,
or if you have teams where somebody's responsible for getting
(03:35):
the work done, but somebody's responsible differently for the budget,
and then they kind of collide a little bit. Like
these things naturally are going to happen within your teams
when you have multiple people working together. I think to
your point, though, the kicker is that it becomes that
negative politics when it starts to have an impact on
either like the productivity of what everybody's working on and
(03:58):
or there starts to be a really kind of negative
feeling about the relationships amongst the you know, different groups
within the team, and or it becomes like in the
I guess the way to test it immediately is like
somebody new comes in, right like like like what does
that look like? Are are our teams talking positive about
(04:20):
the other teams? Our teams you know, uh, kind of
saying like hey, if if you're if you do this work,
you got to come over here, or we're the ones
who see it this way, or they're the ones who
see it that, you know what I mean? Like that's
really the best time to understand like where the politics
are within your teams is like what happens with the
new person and how do they perceive things and how
(04:42):
are they welcomed or how are they you know, kind
of almost asked immediately to figure out, you know, how
they want to do the work and which type of
group they should be with, and like that to me
is where when the politics become very negative. These are
some of the things that you see when that happens.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, I agree, but on the same token, uh, you know,
I've seen that kind of thing happen where it is
all in good fun and there is no negativity, you know,
this whole like kind of pick a side thing almost
like almost like a you know, a fan of a
sports team versus another sports team, like, oh, you know,
if you're if you're you might get you know, see,
you get invited over to a super Bowl party and
(05:18):
you don't inherently like one team or the other. You're
into it for a good game. And you get there
and half the people there are wearing one jersey and
half people that are wearing another jersey. They're all looking
at you like, all right, all right, Lorenzo, what what
side are you on? You know you're not You're not
about to be kicked out of the party, you know,
it's all in good fun. Like there's there's there are
examples of what you're talking about where it can be
kind of like a almost like a way of welcoming
(05:41):
somebody to a team is a way to judge you
put them in a situation where you are asking them
to take a side and you're trying to see whether
or not they want to be one of you. You know,
you're it's a test. It's a test to see does
this person want to assimilate into our group culture or
whatever that is. And that isn't inherently a problem as
(06:04):
long as the group culture is one of welcoming and
acceptance and and you know, one where the the the
in versus out is not based on anything that is
that a person can't control, but based on like, oh,
what music do you like? Or what kind of this
do you like? Those kind of things can be a
(06:24):
way to form camaraderie and bonds between people. But again,
it's a very fine line, and it can and it
can go off the deep end into a negative area
if it's if it's not done right or if it's
left unchecked. You know, when I think about playing politics
going into the negative, there are kind of two examples
I can think of where where where kind of like
(06:44):
the same the same things happening. One would result in
not a problem, whereas whereas another situation it would result
in a problem. One is if the person who is
supposedly playing politics is in is in a position of power.
So it's one thing to have politics between people on
a team who are peers. It's another thing when it's
(07:07):
when the perception is that the leader is playing politics.
Because if I'm not the leader and I think my
leader is playing politics, well, now that person is playing
a game that I can't compete in because they have
they have power over my role, maybe my my annual review.
If I'm if I'm feeling like I have to do
things differently because of almost trying to manage the the
(07:29):
emotional or political expectations of the leader as opposed to
just managing my job description and what's what's expected of
me by the organization. That is a problem when when
what's happening by the leader. And then the second is,
you know, we all know the difference between the person
in high school who had a lot of power because
they were the bully and the person who had a
(07:49):
lot of power in high school because the people there
gave them that power, like they were the They might have
been like a jock or like the head cheerleader, but
they were so nice. They just were they They wanted
to be nice to everybody, They wanted to be friends
with everybody, and they just had to kind of have
that gravitational pull that some people have, and that power
is given to them by people, which means it can
(08:11):
be taken by people. And those situations are ones that
can be difficult because I think in a lot of organizations,
if you have somebody like that on a team who
just kind of has this natural gravitational pull because of
how kind they are and how accepting they are and
how well they treat other people, there can be an
inherent kind of negative belief from others that that person
(08:36):
almost has something that they don't have, Like what like
I want to be the person who has that, but
I don't know how to do that. I can't do that,
I can't compete. And if I can't compete, now that
therefore that person is, you know, it's a negative element
on the team that that person is here with that
power that we've all granted them because I haven't granted
them that power. I haven't decided to do that. It's
(08:57):
the other people on the team we have. And now
I feel like I'm having to place subordinate to this
person who doesn't have a title, but who now has
this this kind of political power granted them by the team.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, well, I think what you just said there there
is like that that's the difference between like power and politics,
is right. It's not that they have the power, it's
what do they do with it? And are they either
opening the door for others? Are they using that to
bring people along? Are they using that to create spaces
for people to feel heard and seen and welcome. So again,
(09:28):
like I think in and then to your earlier example
about like kind of picking a side from a positive standpoint,
like from a jersey. For me, that's still something that
I would be conscious of because there should also be
an option of like you don't even have to wear
a jersey.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Mm, Like like if you're truly.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Talking about like inclusive, non political picking a side type
of thing, it's like you're you should just be welcome
to go to the party, right and then and then
the choice is yours the minute that a team says
you should make a choice or you need to make
a choice. Again, Like that's when you're starting to see
some of that behavior that again can can be done
in a positive way, but more than likely the whole
(10:06):
idea is like, but on behalf of everybody here, what
you choose to do, how you choose to represent, which
jersey you want to wear or not wear, whatever, Like
that's totally fine, we welcome all. So like that that's
where I think seeing those things is helpful when you're
thinking about the game of the politics and then to
your point about the kind of the authority or the
(10:28):
power structure element. When I hear like leaders playing politics,
I immediately think of two things. At number one is
that they're not being truthful and an authentic about what's
going on or what the strategies are or why we
have to do things, because I immediately like they're being
a politician. Yeah, like like they're they're just telling you
(10:49):
what they want to.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Hear spin right exactly, using the information to try to
get what they want in a way of like doling
it out in the right.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Way totally, and it's it's in authentic and people can
see through it. So I think if we are doing politics.
That's what number one that I see. Number two then
is favoritism. That's the other part of leadership politics, which
is it's clear that this leader likes either this team
or this individual or this way of working, and they
lean strategies towards that style or that way, and then
(11:20):
it's kind of like you know, so again like that's
kind of what I see from a leadership politics standpoint
when it comes to the teams back and forth. I
think that's where as a leader, when you see that
there is some elements where you do want teams to
have a certain kind of like I don't know, maybe
(11:43):
excitement or pride for the work that that team is doing.
You do want some of that to happen. What you
have to be really conscious of is celebrating even more
so when you see those teams work together, bring each
other in, make an adjustment based upon the perspective of
(12:03):
somebody else, Like when you see the things that create
real great collaboration and a greater sense of team, you
really have to celebrate those things to bring down I
think the levels of politics that again are always going
to exist, but put put them in a space where
they're not leading the larger team into a negative space,
(12:26):
or they're not creating a lack of productivity, they're not
creating a space where people don't feel welcome or included
in the work that your larger team is doing.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Right for sure, you know, back to the first thing
you were saying around you know, like the Jersey example,
You're right, it's only it's only choice if the choices
aren't defined for you. It's the illusion of choice. If
someone's saying to you, Oh, Lorenzo, the choice is totally
yours between A and B. The choice could be it's
(12:55):
only really your choice if the choice is between A, B,
C and fourteen. Right, you get to define the choices
if the choice is truly yours, which is again, you know,
not participating at all if you don't want to, if
it's not something you feel that you feel like you
need to need to pick a side on it that
you feel truly, you know, passionate about when it comes to,
you know, the leadership kind of responsibility in this. I
(13:17):
think this is where the rubber meets the road on
this top, on this conversation, because on the one hand,
you know, we agree that there's a certain element of
this that can be positive on a team in terms
of the camaraderie that exists, if it's an inclusive environment,
if people are if it's kind of wielded the right way,
but it can very quickly derail into the negative even
(13:41):
though the intent wasn't to do so. Like the intent
could be totally positive, but it goes into the negative
if it's kind of left unchecked. And I think you're right.
The only way for a leader to effectively do this
without stamping out the good things right Like it's it's
like when you my five year is, you know, going
to change the world someday, but right now she's driving
(14:03):
me crazy, right And I could make it so she
doesn't drive me crazy, but then she won't change the
world someday. We all know that kind of that kind
of conundrum as a parent that we that we deal with.
I think it's the same thing I think when a
when a leader is looking at the positive elements of
this on a team that bring a team together, you
can make it so it never turns negative from a
political standpoint by just stamping out that behavior altogether, But
(14:27):
then you've lost some of the positive that can come
from when a team is truly cohesive. And high performing
and working together. And so as a leader, how do
you do this? How do you allow this to happen?
How do you allow it to kind of people to
have the leeway to see what can be done when
a team truly cares about each other, when a team
is inclusive, when they when they bring each other along
(14:48):
without you know, while also having kind of like the
spidy sense feelers up for looking for certain elements that
might be go, Okay, that didn't feel right. I'm not
going to jump in yet, but I need to keep
my eye on this because if I see it happen again,
then that means it wasn't the fluke, and I need
to address it right away. You know, Like there're these
those elements that have to happen, and I think that's
important to discuss, like what what do leaders look for
(15:11):
and what rises to the level of all right, we
can't do this absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
And with that it brings us this episodes Women at Hack.
But first a few words from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
All right, for this episode of one minute Hackers, I
want you to do if you're a leader of people
or a leader of leaders and you're trying to kind
of keep your eyes open and your ears open for
things that rise to the level of you feeling like, Okay,
you know what this this camaraderie, this this kind of
team element, this this positivity that I'm seeing on the team,
it possibly is rising to the level of politics in
(15:43):
a in a negative way. What you should be looking
for are things that that I kind of liken to
the field goal kicker losing the game. You know kind
of situation. You know, when we all know the situation
of the field goal kicker that loses the game because
they didn't make that last field goal in the closing
seconds of the game, and everybody blames that kicker. But
if we are being perfectly honest here, there were hundreds
(16:06):
of other things that happened in that game that caused
that team to lose, even though in that moment we
think about it as, oh, it's it's all on the
hands of this one person. When you see this on
your team, what that looks like is, you know, the
team is getting together and they start to shirk responsibility
of what they can't get done because of somebody else
that's on the outside. So, oh, we would have made
our sales targets if the marketing materials were good, you know,
(16:28):
we would have made our sales targets. If you know
something else, you know, some other element of a person
or a team that's the on the outside that can
be scapegoaded or blamed for the issues that are that
are happening on the team, as opposed to the team
members actually taking ownership of it and thinking about the
things they can do to solve the problem, even if
(16:49):
it means getting involved. It's like, Okay, maybe the marketing
materials aren't good, but there's a difference between we would
have made our targets but the marketing materials suck, or
we would have made our target. It's next month, We'll
do a better job of partnering with the marketing team
to make sure they understand our needs so that when so,
the materials that come out are are better suited to
what our customers are looking for. As opposed to it,
(17:10):
it's it's the ownership, it's I are we is the
power that we have. Are we using it to take
ownership of our problems? Or are we using it to
shirk the problems onto somebody else so that we don't
have to so that we can avoid responsibility for the
things that we need to take care of. And it's
those kind of elements you have to look for as
a leader when you're deciding whether or not what's happening
or the discussion is rising to the level that you
(17:31):
need to kind of jump in and stamp something down,
or if it's a kind of a healthy element on
the team.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, and again, it's going to happen, and it's going
to happen quite frequently and very often. And you know,
having people feel certain ways about each other, or teams
versus teams, or like, like it's human nature. There's elements
to it people, you know, especially on teams where people
want to be successful. You know, they're they're they're measuring
(17:57):
their own work. They're measuring it. Sometimes it's a of
the larger work. But like you're going to have these moments,
and I think to your point, as a leader, it's
just being conscious and listening for it and seeing it
and like when is it becoming too much? When when
if we moved on from saying like, hey, we own this,
we can work on this, here's our strategies, here's where
we have maybe some hurdles or some bumps in the road,
(18:21):
versus we can't do this because of this person. We
can't get this done because of this team, if you know,
like like it's when when all of the solutions turn
into other people or other teams, that's when you kind
of have to get your your you know, you have
to move to action as a leader and go have
some influence and have some conversations and dig through it.
(18:41):
But this is like a lot of this can also
be you know, somewhat minimized by again having the right
people's in the rooms, having conversations where you're creating spacefook collaboration,
talking through things when they come up, you know, between
individuals sometimes or when you see that there's a kind
of an initial rub that's going on. If you just
(19:02):
give it to the team and say, you guys, figure
it out and get back to me when it's done, Like,
that's not helpful, right, right, Like these are things that
as a leader you have to catch on to and
make adjustments to and address in the moment to let
the team know collectively, like we're not going to do
this to each other, and we're not going to you know,
we all have different layers and different elements of responsibility
(19:25):
to get the work done, but we have to work
together to make sure that it's done the right way
and the best way possible.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Right. If I go back to the example about the
sales targets not being hit because of the marketing team,
think about, in the context of what you were saying
Lorenzo on having the right people in the room, what
if on every sales meeting there were two or three
people from the marketing team in the meeting. There would
I would venture guests to say that under those circumstances,
the people on the sales team it didn't make sales
(19:53):
targets are far less likely to say we would have
hit these sales targets if it weren't for the marketing team.
It's a lot easy to escapecoade it when they are
they them not part of our team. You know, they're
they're they're the outsider. They're they're kind of nameless and faceless.
You know, it's a it's a it's a an entity
more so than a person. Get those people in the
(20:15):
room with you, and they become people with names and
faces and families and goals and and and shared interests.
You're far less likely to find people scapegoating those people
later when they're not in the room. I mean there's
I guess there's some examples, but very few. It's the
when you join people together like that and you create
that kind of that welcoming environment where everybody who is
(20:37):
who has a stake in the game for the outcome
is kind of in the room. When it's happening. It's
far less likely that you will see one of those,
you know, parts of it being scapegoaded as the problem
or the reason why the problem can't get solved later
on down the road. So so yes, get the right
people in the room, get the people in the room
that that matter for making those decisions, and you can
kind of stop this from happening even before it begins.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Absolutely, and with that it exist at the end of
this episode, this is hacking your leadership. I'm Lorenzo and
I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.
Welcome to Hacking Your Leadership. I'm Chris, Lorenzo and Lorenzo.
On this episode, we're continuing the discussion that we started
two weeks ago on the four common leadership Problems and
their Solutions article by Sam at Ayemi. We posted the
article in the podcast description for the last two weeks.
On this episode, we're gonna talk about the third of
fourth of the four items in that article when it
(00:23):
comes to, you know, the problems that leaders have a
responsibility to solve when they're happening on their teams. This
particular issue that we're going to talk about today is
when your team is playing politics. And I think this
is different than the previous to you know, the last
week we talked about when your team is consumed by
negativity on the on the first episode, we talked about
what happens when your team isn't listening to each other,
(00:43):
you know, the when your team is playing politics. To me,
that's a little bit different. I had a leader once
tell me that they believed that there was no such
thing as an office or a team without politics, and
and what he meant by that was just in talking
about the relationships that exist between people and the the
(01:04):
the power structure that is involved, not by where the
organization promotes people and assigns people job responsibilities and roles,
but that the but the power that we give each
other in terms of the social and emotional relationships that
we have within the office. And you know, there will
always be people who are you know, known for this
(01:26):
or known for that. You know, the guy, the guy
that does this, the girl that does this in the office,
and that that will always happen. And that person once,
you know, said that that was the definition of politics,
and I don't think he's wrong. But in the context
of this article, politics is clearly being defined as a
as an always negative thing that that you know, kind
(01:48):
of comes with a deep seated feeling that things are
being done unfairly, or that that that there's different rules
for different people, or that people aren't being treated equal
by their by their leaders, by their coworkers. So there's
a lot more to it than just kind of like ooh,
how do I navigate these relationships? It can be a
serious problem on teams when when it's uh, when it
(02:10):
rises to the negative level.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, I think, you know, there's absolutely my belief as
well that like the politics, politics exist everywhere, because really
what you're talking about is like the relationships that you
have with individuals, and then as those relationships mature across
multiple individuals, you're going to have people that see the
world and see the work similarly, and you're going to
(02:31):
have people that see the world and see the work
in different ways. And because of that, you're going to
have these natural kind of spaces that people will play
within where they start to think about like how they
would do the work, how they would lead the work,
what's the right way uh to make things happen, what's
the right way or in their own mind to to
(02:53):
be able to accomplish the task that's at hand. And
the reality is that, like over time, if you don't
address those things when you see them, if you don't
talk constantly about the value of seeing the work differently,
of seeing the world differently, if you allow those teams
(03:13):
to either divide themselves because of maybe competition, or if
you have teams that work in a way where this
team has to accomplish this before this team can do that,
before this can even can do that, then you also
have that feeling of like, well, it's we always do
it the right way, it's they do it the wrong way,
or if you have teams where somebody's responsible for getting
(03:35):
the work done, but somebody's responsible differently for the budget,
and then they kind of collide a little bit. Like
these things naturally are going to happen within your teams
when you have multiple people working together. I think to
your point, though, the kicker is that it becomes that
negative politics when it starts to have an impact on
either like the productivity of what everybody's working on and
(03:58):
or there starts to be a really kind of negative
feeling about the relationships amongst the you know, different groups
within the team, and or it becomes like in the
I guess the way to test it immediately is like
somebody new comes in, right like like like what does
that look like? Are are our teams talking positive about
(04:20):
the other teams? Our teams you know, uh, kind of
saying like hey, if if you're if you do this work,
you got to come over here, or we're the ones
who see it this way, or they're the ones who
see it that, you know what I mean? Like that's
really the best time to understand like where the politics
are within your teams is like what happens with the
new person and how do they perceive things and how
(04:42):
are they welcomed or how are they you know, kind
of almost asked immediately to figure out, you know, how
they want to do the work and which type of
group they should be with, and like that to me
is where when the politics become very negative. These are
some of the things that you see when that happens.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, I agree, but on the same token, uh, you know,
I've seen that kind of thing happen where it is
all in good fun and there is no negativity, you know,
this whole like kind of pick a side thing almost
like almost like a you know, a fan of a
sports team versus another sports team, like, oh, you know,
if you're if you're you might get you know, see,
you get invited over to a super Bowl party and
(05:18):
you don't inherently like one team or the other. You're
into it for a good game. And you get there
and half the people there are wearing one jersey and
half people that are wearing another jersey. They're all looking
at you like, all right, all right, Lorenzo, what what
side are you on? You know you're not You're not
about to be kicked out of the party, you know,
it's all in good fun. Like there's there's there are
examples of what you're talking about where it can be
kind of like a almost like a way of welcoming
(05:41):
somebody to a team is a way to judge you
put them in a situation where you are asking them
to take a side and you're trying to see whether
or not they want to be one of you. You know,
you're it's a test. It's a test to see does
this person want to assimilate into our group culture or
whatever that is. And that isn't inherently a problem as
(06:04):
long as the group culture is one of welcoming and
acceptance and and you know, one where the the the
in versus out is not based on anything that is
that a person can't control, but based on like, oh,
what music do you like? Or what kind of this
do you like? Those kind of things can be a
(06:24):
way to form camaraderie and bonds between people. But again,
it's a very fine line, and it can and it
can go off the deep end into a negative area
if it's if it's not done right or if it's
left unchecked. You know, when I think about playing politics
going into the negative, there are kind of two examples
I can think of where where where kind of like
(06:44):
the same the same things happening. One would result in
not a problem, whereas whereas another situation it would result
in a problem. One is if the person who is
supposedly playing politics is in is in a position of power.
So it's one thing to have politics between people on
a team who are peers. It's another thing when it's
(07:07):
when the perception is that the leader is playing politics.
Because if I'm not the leader and I think my
leader is playing politics, well, now that person is playing
a game that I can't compete in because they have
they have power over my role, maybe my my annual review.
If I'm if I'm feeling like I have to do
things differently because of almost trying to manage the the
(07:29):
emotional or political expectations of the leader as opposed to
just managing my job description and what's what's expected of
me by the organization. That is a problem when when
what's happening by the leader. And then the second is,
you know, we all know the difference between the person
in high school who had a lot of power because
they were the bully and the person who had a
(07:49):
lot of power in high school because the people there
gave them that power, like they were the They might have
been like a jock or like the head cheerleader, but
they were so nice. They just were they They wanted
to be nice to everybody, They wanted to be friends
with everybody, and they just had to kind of have
that gravitational pull that some people have, and that power
is given to them by people, which means it can
(08:11):
be taken by people. And those situations are ones that
can be difficult because I think in a lot of organizations,
if you have somebody like that on a team who
just kind of has this natural gravitational pull because of
how kind they are and how accepting they are and
how well they treat other people, there can be an
inherent kind of negative belief from others that that person
(08:36):
almost has something that they don't have, Like what like
I want to be the person who has that, but
I don't know how to do that. I can't do that,
I can't compete. And if I can't compete, now that
therefore that person is, you know, it's a negative element
on the team that that person is here with that
power that we've all granted them because I haven't granted
them that power. I haven't decided to do that. It's
(08:57):
the other people on the team we have. And now
I feel like I'm having to place subordinate to this
person who doesn't have a title, but who now has
this this kind of political power granted them by the team.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, well, I think what you just said there there
is like that that's the difference between like power and politics,
is right. It's not that they have the power, it's
what do they do with it? And are they either
opening the door for others? Are they using that to
bring people along? Are they using that to create spaces
for people to feel heard and seen and welcome. So again,
(09:28):
like I think in and then to your earlier example
about like kind of picking a side from a positive standpoint,
like from a jersey. For me, that's still something that
I would be conscious of because there should also be
an option of like you don't even have to wear
a jersey.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Mm, Like like if you're truly.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Talking about like inclusive, non political picking a side type
of thing, it's like you're you should just be welcome
to go to the party, right and then and then
the choice is yours the minute that a team says
you should make a choice or you need to make
a choice. Again, Like that's when you're starting to see
some of that behavior that again can can be done
in a positive way, but more than likely the whole
(10:06):
idea is like, but on behalf of everybody here, what
you choose to do, how you choose to represent, which
jersey you want to wear or not wear, whatever, Like
that's totally fine, we welcome all. So like that that's
where I think seeing those things is helpful when you're
thinking about the game of the politics and then to
your point about the kind of the authority or the
(10:28):
power structure element. When I hear like leaders playing politics,
I immediately think of two things. At number one is
that they're not being truthful and an authentic about what's
going on or what the strategies are or why we
have to do things, because I immediately like they're being
a politician. Yeah, like like they're they're just telling you
(10:49):
what they want to.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Hear spin right exactly, using the information to try to
get what they want in a way of like doling
it out in the right.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Way totally, and it's it's in authentic and people can
see through it. So I think if we are doing politics.
That's what number one that I see. Number two then
is favoritism. That's the other part of leadership politics, which
is it's clear that this leader likes either this team
or this individual or this way of working, and they
lean strategies towards that style or that way, and then
(11:20):
it's kind of like you know, so again like that's
kind of what I see from a leadership politics standpoint
when it comes to the teams back and forth. I
think that's where as a leader, when you see that
there is some elements where you do want teams to
have a certain kind of like I don't know, maybe
(11:43):
excitement or pride for the work that that team is doing.
You do want some of that to happen. What you
have to be really conscious of is celebrating even more
so when you see those teams work together, bring each
other in, make an adjustment based upon the perspective of
(12:03):
somebody else, Like when you see the things that create
real great collaboration and a greater sense of team, you
really have to celebrate those things to bring down I
think the levels of politics that again are always going
to exist, but put put them in a space where
they're not leading the larger team into a negative space,
(12:26):
or they're not creating a lack of productivity, they're not
creating a space where people don't feel welcome or included
in the work that your larger team is doing.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Right for sure, you know, back to the first thing
you were saying around you know, like the Jersey example,
You're right, it's only it's only choice if the choices
aren't defined for you. It's the illusion of choice. If
someone's saying to you, Oh, Lorenzo, the choice is totally
yours between A and B. The choice could be it's
(12:55):
only really your choice if the choice is between A, B,
C and fourteen. Right, you get to define the choices
if the choice is truly yours, which is again, you know,
not participating at all if you don't want to, if
it's not something you feel that you feel like you
need to need to pick a side on it that
you feel truly, you know, passionate about when it comes to,
you know, the leadership kind of responsibility in this. I
(13:17):
think this is where the rubber meets the road on
this top, on this conversation, because on the one hand,
you know, we agree that there's a certain element of
this that can be positive on a team in terms
of the camaraderie that exists, if it's an inclusive environment,
if people are if it's kind of wielded the right way,
but it can very quickly derail into the negative even
(13:41):
though the intent wasn't to do so. Like the intent
could be totally positive, but it goes into the negative
if it's kind of left unchecked. And I think you're right.
The only way for a leader to effectively do this
without stamping out the good things right Like it's it's
like when you my five year is, you know, going
to change the world someday, but right now she's driving
(14:03):
me crazy, right And I could make it so she
doesn't drive me crazy, but then she won't change the
world someday. We all know that kind of that kind
of conundrum as a parent that we that we deal with.
I think it's the same thing I think when a
when a leader is looking at the positive elements of
this on a team that bring a team together, you
can make it so it never turns negative from a
political standpoint by just stamping out that behavior altogether, But
(14:27):
then you've lost some of the positive that can come
from when a team is truly cohesive. And high performing
and working together. And so as a leader, how do
you do this? How do you allow this to happen?
How do you allow it to kind of people to
have the leeway to see what can be done when
a team truly cares about each other, when a team
is inclusive, when they when they bring each other along
(14:48):
without you know, while also having kind of like the
spidy sense feelers up for looking for certain elements that
might be go, Okay, that didn't feel right. I'm not
going to jump in yet, but I need to keep
my eye on this because if I see it happen again,
then that means it wasn't the fluke, and I need
to address it right away. You know, Like there're these
those elements that have to happen, and I think that's
important to discuss, like what what do leaders look for
(15:11):
and what rises to the level of all right, we
can't do this absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
And with that it brings us this episodes Women at Hack.
But first a few words from our sponsors.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
All right, for this episode of one minute Hackers, I
want you to do if you're a leader of people
or a leader of leaders and you're trying to kind
of keep your eyes open and your ears open for
things that rise to the level of you feeling like, Okay,
you know what this this camaraderie, this this kind of
team element, this this positivity that I'm seeing on the team,
it possibly is rising to the level of politics in
(15:43):
a in a negative way. What you should be looking
for are things that that I kind of liken to
the field goal kicker losing the game. You know kind
of situation. You know, when we all know the situation
of the field goal kicker that loses the game because
they didn't make that last field goal in the closing
seconds of the game, and everybody blames that kicker. But
if we are being perfectly honest here, there were hundreds
(16:06):
of other things that happened in that game that caused
that team to lose, even though in that moment we
think about it as, oh, it's it's all on the
hands of this one person. When you see this on
your team, what that looks like is, you know, the
team is getting together and they start to shirk responsibility
of what they can't get done because of somebody else
that's on the outside. So, oh, we would have made
our sales targets if the marketing materials were good, you know,
(16:28):
we would have made our sales targets. If you know
something else, you know, some other element of a person
or a team that's the on the outside that can
be scapegoaded or blamed for the issues that are that
are happening on the team, as opposed to the team
members actually taking ownership of it and thinking about the
things they can do to solve the problem, even if
(16:49):
it means getting involved. It's like, Okay, maybe the marketing
materials aren't good, but there's a difference between we would
have made our targets but the marketing materials suck, or
we would have made our target. It's next month, We'll
do a better job of partnering with the marketing team
to make sure they understand our needs so that when so,
the materials that come out are are better suited to
what our customers are looking for. As opposed to it,
(17:10):
it's it's the ownership, it's I are we is the
power that we have. Are we using it to take
ownership of our problems? Or are we using it to
shirk the problems onto somebody else so that we don't
have to so that we can avoid responsibility for the
things that we need to take care of. And it's
those kind of elements you have to look for as
a leader when you're deciding whether or not what's happening
or the discussion is rising to the level that you
(17:31):
need to kind of jump in and stamp something down,
or if it's a kind of a healthy element on
the team.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Yeah, and again, it's going to happen, and it's going
to happen quite frequently and very often. And you know,
having people feel certain ways about each other, or teams
versus teams, or like, like it's human nature. There's elements
to it people, you know, especially on teams where people
want to be successful. You know, they're they're they're measuring
(17:57):
their own work. They're measuring it. Sometimes it's a of
the larger work. But like you're going to have these moments,
and I think to your point, as a leader, it's
just being conscious and listening for it and seeing it
and like when is it becoming too much? When when
if we moved on from saying like, hey, we own this,
we can work on this, here's our strategies, here's where
we have maybe some hurdles or some bumps in the road,
(18:21):
versus we can't do this because of this person. We
can't get this done because of this team, if you know,
like like it's when when all of the solutions turn
into other people or other teams, that's when you kind
of have to get your your you know, you have
to move to action as a leader and go have
some influence and have some conversations and dig through it.
(18:41):
But this is like a lot of this can also
be you know, somewhat minimized by again having the right
people's in the rooms, having conversations where you're creating spacefook collaboration,
talking through things when they come up, you know, between
individuals sometimes or when you see that there's a kind
of an initial rub that's going on. If you just
(19:02):
give it to the team and say, you guys, figure
it out and get back to me when it's done, Like,
that's not helpful, right, right, Like these are things that
as a leader you have to catch on to and
make adjustments to and address in the moment to let
the team know collectively, like we're not going to do
this to each other, and we're not going to you know,
we all have different layers and different elements of responsibility
(19:25):
to get the work done, but we have to work
together to make sure that it's done the right way
and the best way possible.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Right. If I go back to the example about the
sales targets not being hit because of the marketing team,
think about, in the context of what you were saying
Lorenzo on having the right people in the room, what
if on every sales meeting there were two or three
people from the marketing team in the meeting. There would
I would venture guests to say that under those circumstances,
the people on the sales team it didn't make sales
(19:53):
targets are far less likely to say we would have
hit these sales targets if it weren't for the marketing team.
It's a lot easy to escapecoade it when they are
they them not part of our team. You know, they're
they're they're the outsider. They're they're kind of nameless and faceless.
You know, it's a it's a it's a an entity
more so than a person. Get those people in the
(20:15):
room with you, and they become people with names and
faces and families and goals and and and shared interests.
You're far less likely to find people scapegoating those people
later when they're not in the room. I mean there's
I guess there's some examples, but very few. It's the
when you join people together like that and you create
that kind of that welcoming environment where everybody who is
(20:37):
who has a stake in the game for the outcome
is kind of in the room. When it's happening. It's
far less likely that you will see one of those,
you know, parts of it being scapegoaded as the problem
or the reason why the problem can't get solved later
on down the road. So so yes, get the right
people in the room, get the people in the room
that that matter for making those decisions, and you can
kind of stop this from happening even before it begins.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Absolutely, and with that it exist at the end of
this episode, this is hacking your leadership. I'm Lorenzo and
I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.
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