You’ve worked hard, always delivered above expectations, received awards, bonuses and great performance reviews. Your boss has floated the idea of moving to corporate, a bigger role and of course a promotion. The promotion you’ve been waiting for.
Then, nothing happens.
Silence.
You wait.
Nothing happens.
While waiting, your counterpart in Europe is promoted to VP – more support for your promotion – you think
You decide to confront your boss "so, when will the change take place?"
Your boss indicates that the organization is restructuring and your position has been put on hold indefinitely. Your role is being evaluated and a promotion, if this were to happen, would not be for another year or so.
In the interim your boss asks, "can you help out in Europe as the new VP is overwhelemed?"
Who has power in this situation? Hard to tell but it’s easy to figure out who doesn’t.
Power is a word many dislike.
Most managers shy away from power yet ignoring power doesn’t work. Powerlessness, (borrowing from Rosabeth Moss Kanter), is debilitating, destructive and dangerous particularly in career management. Kanter states, powerlessness is prevalent in middle management. I would add – powerlessness is common in restructuring and with mergers. This is when you need to scrupulously pay attention to power – it’s not business as usual.
Power and it’s close friend politics, go hand in hand. These are two critical leadership skills. Critical because without them, you won’t get ahead. Now if all leaders understand the value of power and politics, how did they learn this? Both are rarely taught in school, not mentioned at work, but frequently whispered in the hallways and always with negative overtones – ‘a power hungry boss or a political colleague.’
When I talk about power to clients most have a visceral reaction. Calculating, disgusting or, just not interested in going down that path. Many find the road to power, well, manipulative.
It’s understandable we’ve all witnessed power behaving badly inside organizations. We learn about power through career mishaps and often, when overlooked for a promotion or moved on during a merger.
Isnt't there a painless way to learn about power? Yes, here are a few.
The first step is overcoming aversion and accept what is – understand that politics and power are alive, well, multiplying and changing inside your organization.
The second step, build a plan, mapping out influential networks inside your organization.
The third step is action – with plan in hand- do something constructive this week- recognize the value of power and make a connection to your network.
And finally, take power to lunch.
