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Playing Office Politics Without Selling Your Soul

Harvard Business Review

To borrow from the political scientist, Harold Laswell , office politics can be understood as the unwritten rules that determine who gets what, when, and how — a promotion, a budget for a project, a say in the boss’s decisions — and who doesn’t. Research by Gerald Ferris and colleagues indicates that political skills can be broken down into four dimensions: Social astuteness : the ability to read other people and the self-awareness to understand how they see you.