By Dr Renate Volpe

Recently I was chatting to a colleague. He was offloading about his boss. The relationship between them had become so bad that his boss was ruthlessly and overtly taking credit at executive level for his work successes but giving him the cold shoulder and ignoring him on a daily basis by not replying to e mails and not responding to requests for meetings.

Listening to my friend, I was taken back to my years at the Chamber of Mines as the only senior women in a team of men. I had been one of the best performers, and in financial terms, the best performer for a decade, but my career there ended with most of the executive team “freezing me out” based on the opinion they had formed of me via my boss. (At the time I did not know what his agenda was. Three months after I resigned I understood that he had made my life unbearable because he needed my job as his had become defunct.)

Now with hind site I understand that there are two sides to this story.

The first was that I had committed political suicide by:
1. Being demanding
2. Being a PITA (being a pain the a…)
3. Being emotional
4. Complaining
5. Being overzealous
6. Resisting the rest of the executive team
7. Fighting the organizational culture
8. Taking my boss on.

My view point then was that I knew I did an excellent job. I delivered consistently beyond expectations and as such I had no need to play political games. Today I understand that exercising influence and power, (which combine to form politics) are a normal part of everyday organizational behaviour. I also realise that great leaders are superb politicians, so in essence if you are serious about having a career in an organization not of your own making then you had better become an astute politician.

The second is that it is not always easy to manage talented and intelligent people.
Mostly managers tolerate poor behaviour from such individuals because the organisation needs their talent and ability. Leaders are slow to confront such individuals about their behaviour. They are afraid of the consequences, the conversation will be difficult, and the intelligent person may run rings around them. So their behaviour is tolerated and accepted. (M Ward)

There are two categories of talented, intelligent and difficult people:
The first have strong personalities, they may be strong willed, and argumentative. They can be a great asset but they need to be managed. Their greatest strength is that they do express their often contrary opinion and these are generally worth hearing. They stimulate debate, challenge norms and practices within the organisation, and while they may be difficult people to work with, they enhance the capability of the team. (M Ward)

The second category is comprised of toxic individuals. They are strong willed, insensitive, argumentative, self centred, corrupt, divisive, anti authoritarian, power hunger and materialistic. Good leaders need to confront the difficult, but talented individuals in their organisations. They need to distinguish between strong personalities and toxic values. They should carefully manage the former, but seek to remove the latter.

Dr Renate Volpe is a facilitator, leadership coach and author. If you are interested in attending a Political intelligence (PQ) workshop, click on the "diary" button on this site and follow the links.