Leadership does not happen in a vacuum. Every organisation has formal structures, informal networks, unwritten rules, competing priorities and complex relationships that shape how decisions get made.

In this episode, Rich and Dave explore why many leaders instinctively recoil from the idea of organisational politics, and why avoiding politics does not mean avoiding its effects. They distinguish between unhealthy politics, driven by manipulation, hidden agendas, and self-interest, and healthy politics, which they describe as ethical influence.

The conversation also explores the relationship between leadership and power. Power itself is neutral, acting as a catalyst that amplifies the core values, intentions, and character of the person who wields it. While power provides the structural or situational capacity to influence others, leadership dictates the moral direction and ultimate purpose of that influence.

When leadership is aligned with ethical principles, power becomes a tool for empowerment, driving collective growth, collaboration, and systemic progress. Conversely, when divorced from accountability and empathy, power easily degrades into a mechanism for coercion and self-preservation. Ultimately, leadership is not defined by the possession of power, but by the responsibility of how it is exercised to serve a larger vision.

Power needs to be consciously understood and responsibly stewarded. Emotionally intelligent leaders therefore need to understand not only the people around them, but also the wider system in which those people operate.

Rich introduces the People, Power, Purpose and Patterns framework as four lenses for reading organisational dynamics. The episode closes with five practical reminders for leaders who want to become more contextually intelligent without becoming cynical or manipulative.

Key Talking Points

• Why leaders often have such a negative reaction to the word "politics".
• Why organisations are social systems rather than machines, and why politics cannot simply be avoided.
• The difference between unhealthy and healthy politics.
• How influence, negotiation, coalition-building and securing buy-in can all be legitimate leadership skills.
• The idea of being "wise as serpents and harmless as doves" as a metaphor for combining discernment with integrity.
• Why emotionally intelligent leaders need to understand both formal and informal organisational structures.
• The importance of recognising unwritten rules, historical tensions, longstanding loyalties and informal influencers.
• Why power is neutral but becomes dangerous when it is unconscious and unexamined.
• How slowing down, observing, being curious and applying critical thinking can help leaders read organisational dynamics more effectively.
• The People, Power, Purpose and Patterns framework for understanding the system around you.
• Five key takeaways: embrace healthy politics, don't be naive about power, understand the system you work in, examine your relationship with power, and develop contextual intelligence before acting.

So, welcome back to the Connected Leadership Podcast by Zentano. As per usual, I'm here with Rich. Hi, Rich.

Hi Dave.

Now, in our last episode, Rich, we explored the shadow leaders cast and the impact leadership can have on the people around them.

Mm-hmm.

Today I want to widen that lens out once more because, as you are aware, leadership doesn't take place in a vacuum. Every organization has power structures, it has influence networks, unwritten rules and competing priorities. And many leaders are uncomfortable.

Talking about what that creates, often which is workplace politics. Other leaders get consumed by it. I know it's something in terms of bad workplace politics that I'm not particularly keen on, I have to say. and ha

No, no.

and have experienced a number of times in my life. So so today I want to sort of answer a a main question, which is how do emotionally intelligent leaders understand power and politics without becoming political? Okay, so that's really what I want to go. So let's just start you off with a a starter for ten.

When I mention politics in organizations, many people immediately recoil from that. So why do

Mm-hmm.

so many good leaders dislike this subject?

Well, the word politics, and we'll come to the definition of politics a little later in the podcast, but politics itself has a negative baggage associated with it. I think partly because of people's experience of Westminster politics in the UK, you the political parties, the the governing parties of this country. And...

I mean, I think it would be fair to say over the last sort of decade and a bit, we've had sort of very unsettled politics, lots of changes of leaders and the impression of politics, the view of politics. I think it'd be fair to say whatever your political persuasion would be, people in this country would have a very negative view of that. And

Mm-hmm.

I think I think by association, the word politics in the context of organizations

Mm.

carries with it this association of manipulation.

self-interest but actually yeah dishonesty all of that sort of stuff but actually many

Dishonesty. Yeah. Hmm. Mm.

leaders you know they want to focus on people and performance and many leaders hope their good work should speak for itself but

Yeah.

I think unfortunately organizations are social systems and not machines so although politics does have a negative baggage and does have negative associations I think

Politics are an essential part of being a good leader because you can't in an organization simply pull a lever and expect something to drop out of the end of the system, so to speak.

No. No.

So organizations are not machines, they're social systems. So we can't avoid politics and avoiding politics frankly doesn't remove politics either.

Point. Yeah.

And I've coached plenty of people who say they don't want to get involved in the politics. Well, OK, so maybe not. But if you ignore politics or ignore power, it doesn't remove either of those two things.

No.

And politics is closely associated with power. And we'll come to that a little bit later in the podcast, because I think good politics is associated by good stewardship of power. know, so.

I think refusing to understand influence and understanding how power works in the context of a social system, if you ignore that stuff, I think if I'm being blunt, I think it's a bit naive.

Yeah, yeah.

You I and you've made a good case actually. I think the key thing for me there is is you as you said, these are social systems, they're not machines. You just can't flick switches, pull levers and expect very predictable outcomes often, can you? So

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I would say, you know, the leaders that say that they don't play politics, and we'll unpack that phrase and understand what that means. But

Hmm.

I think they're often the people that are affected by the politics or driven by the politics without realizing it. And they can become frustrated sometimes at the outcome of decision making and wondering, you know, why, why has that happened or why has that not happened?

and not understood actually that the levers of power from a positive perspective.

Yeah, okay. So let's just you've you've made a good case that politics isn't always a dirty word. Let let's let's take that as read, yeah. So

Mm-hmm. No, Yeah.

let's let's talk about the difference between healthy politics and unhealthy politics then. yeah, so

Yeah, okay.

when does when does polit when does politics become destructive and when is it actually useful? I guess that's what I'm asking you.

Yeah so I mean let's think about the definition of politics itself you know

Mm-hmm.

where the word came from and it goes right back to the ancient Greeks I think it's that the word politics has come from the Greek word polis I think which means city so

Right.

in other words politics are if you like the systems and the structures you put in place to

to create an influence society or

Okay, yeah, yeah.

to create from a Greek perspective to create an influence inside the city that you're seeking to govern.

Yeah.

So it would be fair to say, know, we vote in place governments to influence and shape the future direction of this country and

Mm-hmm.

organizations put leaders in place to shape and influence the future

of the organization. So

Yeah.

by definition, leaders have power. Power comes with the position that they have. We talked about that on the last podcast. So

Hm.

with the office that a person that they have, the role, the budget that they have associated with that, with the office that they hold, all of those things create potential to shape and influence the system. But

Power and influence doesn't always go with the office as we're coming to in a minute. So

Yeah.

bad politics is where you use manipulation, hidden

Yeah.

agendas, empire building, information hoarding, self-protection, all of those things. You use those as a means to get what you want to influence and shape the system. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

And think that's

bad policy. And I've worked in big organizations in the past, as you've had. And we've all either seen people being manipulative and have hidden agendas and or actually I can remember getting caught up with some of this stuff myself. Until you take a little bit of a step back and look back at that, think, no, actually I got caught up in the agenda of that person unconsciously.

I've I've been

I've been a victim of it in terms of losing my losing my job, yeah. I mean yeah yeah, I do recognise it, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But

I'm not talking about just being a victim.

Hmm.

I'm talking about being a participant in that agenda. So

Yeah, yeah.

in other words, somebody has influenced and shaped you to go along with their agenda and then you become part of that shaping process. Now,

Yeah.

if that's done with good intent, so good politics is where you build trust.

You build relationships, you understand stakeholders, you create alignment.

Yeah.

And there's a transparency and an honesty and integrity to doing that. know, getting people behind your agenda, so to speak, to shape and influence a certain outcome inside an organization. Well, I would regard that as very healthy. But I think often people don't really think about politics when they're a leader.

And I think if you ignore it, the danger is you can get swept along or taken along unconsciously by the power dynamics inside your organization.

So you've made a good a good point here. So I th probably the next point is there must be some really key what we call political skills then that leaders need to develop. Yeah.

Yes, yeah, yeah,

absolutely. And I think that's part of, you know, developing your emotional intelligence. So,

Mm-hmm.

so recognize and actually that, you know, with the position that you hold and the personality traits that you've developed over over your lifetime, you'll have the ability to influence, to negotiate, you know, to build coalitions, to secure buying, all of those things, influence and negotiating, building coalitions.

getting by in their political skills, not necessarily manipulative ones. And

Yeah, no, absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

I think the litmus test for this is the degree to which integrity and transparency drives your intent. Does that make sense? Yeah. mean, no, that's okay.

Yes. Yeah. It do it does. Yeah, I wouldn't argue with those skills, sorry, I would th I wouldn't argue with any of those skills. Yeah, influencing, negotiating,

building collisions, securing buying. These are vitally important to any

good leader. Absolutely agree,

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

yeah. It's when it's done badly with the wrong intent that it it can it can suddenly turn people off. yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So going back to this idea of like ethical navigation of all these relationships and power dynamics,

Yeah. Yeah.

there was an ancient saying which went something like this that we need to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, which I think is

Go on.

a really interesting phrase. And for the ancient

Yeah.

people, the serpent

Yeah.

had connotations of being, it was the archetype of a figure who is shrewd, sometimes cunning, yeah, the

Yeah, yeah.

ability to discern but also wise at the same time. It's a bit like being streetwise, so it's a bit of an ambiguous mythical figure in the context of ancient thinking, this idea of the serpent.

Mm-hmm.

Now it's interesting in that phrase we need to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

they coupled the metaphor of the serpent with this idea of a dove and a dove in ancient thinking represents, if you like, purity of intent. know, yeah, okay.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

So in other words, if you couple purity of intent and transparency and honesty and integrity with being streetwise, discerning and wise,

Then you get good politics because good

Mm.

politics is the ethical navigation of relationships, influence and power. So why is a serpent harmless as devs? I think it's a very powerful metaphor for describing the need for a leader to tension and balance those two things. The need to be definitely transparent and ethical, but balancing that with being streetwise discerning and understanding actually that they need to navigate.

the messiness of the power dynamics in their organization.

Yeah, and what this starts to sound like to me is and we we can put the word politics to one side to a certain extent because of the connotations

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

it has. But this is about understanding the system that we're operating in, isn't it? That's what you're talking about here. Yeah.

Yes, yes, yeah, yeah.

so just unpack that a bit more for people and for people listening. What do you mean when you talk about understanding the organizational context in which you're working?

Yeah. So if go back to the Daniel Goleman model about emotional

Mm.

intelligence, where he talks, there's four aspects. Self, the ability to be self aware, the ability to self manage, and then social awareness and relationship management.

Yeah.

social awareness. So some of that is the ability to be empathetic and tune into other people. And we've talked about that in previous podcasts, but the other aspect of social awareness is the ability

to look at the formal structures inside the system that you're operating within. When I talk about the

Right.

system, I mean the social system of your organization. So

Yeah.

the ability to understand the formal structures and how they work, alongside that, almost like invisibly overlaid over those formal structures, are those informal structures that the power of conversations, if you like, that happens outside of the formal meetings.

you know, the water

Yeah.

cooler sort of conversations. Organizations will also have a set of written rules and policies and procedures, governance structures, very big organizations will have whole governance structures set up to shape and direct, you know, major projects. But there'll also be unwritten rules as well, you know, and the unwritten rules are what people tolerate in the context of their culture. So...

the cultural aspects, the values that an organization have and how those values are lived out by the leaders. They all create, they all create that system. And I think really good leaders understand actually that all organizations have those things, formal, informal structures, written rules, unwritten rules. Yeah.

Do you think though that the informal

structures and the unwritten rules are almost more powerful than the formal and the written?

Well, I'm not sure. Potentially, yes. And

Yeah.

I think that's why I articulate both of those things, because

Yeah.

the ability to skillfully navigate the formal structures is an inherent part of, say, operating inside government. I used to work for a government organization. And governance is a really important part of that and understanding how that works, because

if you just butt up against a governance structure, you're not gonna get anything done. But also if you

No.

don't engage people relationally outside of

Yeah.

the formal meetings, you're not gonna get anything done either.

No no, no, no.

So in a sense, what you're looking to do is you're looking for as a leader for trusted influencers and they could be formal or informal in your structure. Those

Yeah.

informal leaders,

So the informal leaders often are the dominant voices inside your organization. You know the sort of people that either intentionally or unintentionally shape the outcome of decision making because they're dominant voices. And it's

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

important to manage that sort of stuff. Understand key relationships, understand historical tensions.

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Because when I came into an organization, I remember there was a lot of mistrust of another organization, well, a number of organizations we had a relationship with. And new coming into that and experiencing those historical tensions, thinking, why? I mean, that's just historic. mean, let's just draw a line under this and start again. And it's very easy to get bound up in those historical narratives.

Mm.

Things like long-standard lawities as well, they can work powerfully for good and for bad. And as I said, cultural expectations shape the way people behave in decision-making.

Yeah, and and as you articulate that, I'm think I'm thinking, yeah, actually if you to just take those last two points about historical tensions and longstanding loyalties, you really do need to understand what these things are because you

Yes.

can't just you just can't, you know, plow through it

Mm-hmm.

without some kind of collateral damage. the other way you I think you

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

have to negotiate you have to sort of try and navigate through that stuff, don't you?

Yes, yeah. I remember some of those relationships that I wanted to reset, yeah,

Yeah.

because I remember one particular where we were in partnership with an organization that were providing certain IT services back to us and there was real mistrust and tension in that customer sort of supplier relationship in inverted commas. So I wanted to reset that because I thought frankly the people...

in the other organization were good people with good intent. It's just that the relationship wasn't set up very well. But what I needed to do in order to reset that, I needed to manage expectations back inside my organization. You know, so if you like to lance the boil around those historic tensions before I could reset the relationship. So I worked at both ends of that historical tension. So that's an example of politics in action.

Well

yeah, and I was thinking as you were talking, I'm thinking th there's a balancing act here, you know, and because

Yes.

because yes, there are times when we do need to change things, we do need to reset and go again, we need to sort of break down stuff that maybe has it existed for a long time but isn't particularly helpful. But

Mm-hmm.

you've got to do that in a certain way. So there

Yes.

is definitely a fine balancing act between getting just getting that out of the way and doing something new and actually not breaking everything in the i in the meantime. yeah.

Yeah, yeah, because

I needed to engage both parties at both ends of that relationship because if I simply

Yeah.

just reset it the people on our side, so to speak, there was a potential there that they wouldn't want to engage on a day-to-day basis in the context of a reset relationship. So I needed to influence them as well as to influence them. So that's understanding the power dynamic that's going

Mm.

on.

and seeking to influence the key stakeholders before I could sort of reset the relationship. And then what I then did was put informal structures like service level agreements, you know, that defined the new relationship. So that's an example of working with the informal and the formal structures. Both are important.

I'm guessing y when

you were doing this there would have been some kind of organizational chart. So you could you could see how the system that you're in was supposed to work, but I guess inside of that, what you were trying to do is decide well who's got authority here, who's got influence? Are those

Mm-hmm. Yes, yeah.

the same people? 'Cause they might not be the same people. You were trying

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and

it's working with both of those things, you're right, exactly.

Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Okay, so systems contain power.

Yes.

perhaps we should talk about power a bit more itself, yeah.

Yes.

so power is another word that makes people uncomfortable because it

It is, yeah.

sometimes it's overused, badly used, etcetera. What does a healthy relationship with power look like from your perspective, Rich?

Yeah. So for those of you that have heard us speak about our connected leadership model, we know that there are two axes in our connected leadership model. And one of those axes is developing a healthy relationship with power. So when we defined that model, we came at it from a perspective that power is neutral. Yeah. Okay.

Yep. Yep.

So sometimes with

Lack of integrity and honesty and all that sort of stuff. Power can be used to control, protect status and dominate. And in certain situations you could argue actually there might be a need to control, might be a need to protect status. Okay.

Well there probably

is. No, to be fair, there probably is times when that is okay. Yeah.

Well,

I mean, if you think about the context of, having a police force or an armed service in our country in order to protect the control and the status they have to keep our society safe.

Yeah. Yeah.

you know, so so power can be used to that, but you can easily see what you know, when you look at the the history of sort of the patriarchal system in the context of our society.

power can be used to control and to dominate in a very unhealthy way. But also,

Yeah. Yeah.

conversely, it can be used to serve, enable, as I said, protect others, create clarity and to empower people. using power and understanding how power works is a very subtle thing, I think. And hopefully we've encapsulated that tension.

inside our connected leadership model. So I think there's an inherent leadership trap around this idea of power.

Okay. Yeah.

And I think it's important that leaders don't have unexamined beliefs around power. I really think it's important they think about it and how it works. Because power can be dangerous.

Yeah.

Power can be selfish. And let's

Yeah, yeah.

be clear, power corrupts.

Okay, yeah, yeah. Even

Yeah. Yeah. Absolut well absolutely it does. Yeah, yeah, absolutely it does.

in the context of organizations, I'm not talking now necessarily government politics. Inside

No.

organizations, where people have power, they have access to money. This is why you see money laundering and why regard money laundering and fraud inside organizations is such a bad thing because power really can corrupt. So I think an emotionally intelligent person understands power.

They own it, okay? And they understand

Yeah. Yeah.

their place in that system. They understand the impact that they create with the power that they have, but they steward it responsibly. Okay,

Hm, yeah.

so they steward the power responsibly. know, wise is serpents, harmless is doves.

Mm-hmm.

The idea behind that purity of intent and acting with integrity.

You still need to be streetwise and get stuff done and operate within the messiness of our world and our organizations, you know, because, you know, sometimes political answers are not easy answers and they sit uncomfortably and they contain with them inherent sort of tensions and ambiguity that frankly are not easy to live with. And that's why those two things, you know, the purity of intent with, you know, with the wisdom and the

and discernment, why you have to hold those two things together because you rarely get a really pure decision.

No, I go back to your point about and I know you were quite bullish about it, but I agree with you about, you know, being naive about this stuff. Power

Mm-hmm.

actually isn't the problem. Listening to you speak there now, power isn't the problem. It's the unexamined power which is the potential problem here, isn't it? Yeah,

No. It is exactly right. Yeah, yeah.

yeah. And I guess then then that there's a question there, and anybody listening to this is maybe you should ask yourself this: is how do you typically respond to power? Both your own, if you've got if you feel you've got some, but certainly

Mm-hmm.

other people's as well. so

Rich, let's move this on to the next question I've got for you then. If somebody listening to this wanted to get better at reading context and reading organizational dynamics, where on earth do they start?

Yes, so slow down and observe would be the first two things I would say.

Okay.

So I talked earlier about, you when I look back in my career, how I got unconsciously caught up in sometimes other people's hidden agenda and not realize the ill intent behind some of those agendas. OK.

Okay.

Yeah.

So

perhaps with a little bit more of insight and slowing down and observing and being curious and applying a little bit of critical thinking to actually what's going on, I might have noticed me getting sucked in. Okay, so I think it's important to slow down to observe, be curious, to apply critical thinking to what you're doing and understand the role of those power dynamics before you start to act.

Hmm.

So

It's looking beyond the surface. It's looking beyond the surface.

Okay.

So it's a little bit like, know, when we encourage people around developing self-awareness is to stop, to breathe, take a moment to notice and observe what's going on underneath their behavior, what's driving their behavioral responses.

Mm. Mm-hmm.

It's a little bit the same, you know, it's

Yeah.

stopping.

but looking beyond the obvious surface dynamics of the system you're engaging with. So you can ask practical questions like, what's happening here? Who matters?

Mm.

What matters? What's at stake here? I think another interesting question you can ask is, what's being rewarded? So.

Who's got skin in the game here and what do they get from this? And again, with those things, they cut both ways. You don't wanna use that knowledge to manipulate, but to understand actually who benefits from this decision making. What is to be discouraged? I think also asking questions like what conversations are happening outside the room? Because they will inevitably happen.

just formal meetings are not the only thing that happens inside organizations. Outside of the formal meeting, people will go to their desk, they go to teams, and they'll start chatting with their peers and

Mm.

the rest of the team. So what are those conversations, and how can you surface those and understand what's happening? And I think as well, ask the question, what are people trying to protect? Because people's identity gets wrapped up with their role.

And, you know, so sometimes, you know, people might think, well, I'm just doing this for the good of the organization and trying to stay, you know, keep the organization safe. But actually what they're trying to do is they're trying to keep their role safe, unconsciously.

Yeah.

You know, so it's understanding, you know, what's going on here and what lies behind, you know, these protective behaviors.

I think that point about don't accept things at face value. I mean I can think of a point in my career where I can think of two particular people that that that are, you know, part of this situation. One who I decided for whatever reason I'm not sure about that guy and I'm not sure he's got good intent, I'm not sure he's

Mm-hmm.

got my best interests at heart. Another guy who I thought the complete opposite of. When I look back now with hindsight, I was wrong.

And actually I d I

Okay, right, okay.

don't know about the guy with well, what I th said was bad intent. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, but I think I could have been wrong now. The one I thought

Mm-hmm.

had my best interest at heart actually didn't and I didn't see it and I d and

Okay, yeah.

I didn't I didn't let you say look beneath the surface enough, have the

Mm-hmm.

bravery to maybe or or or the curiosity to just ask more questions. and I found that almost by accident in the end. Something I really

Yes, yeah.

should have seen by just being a little bit braver, a little bit more curious and delving beneath the surface.

Yeah.

Because

these things can appear very complex and you know, how on earth do I d how how do I navigate this stuff? It c it can feel very

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

complex, can't it?

So hearing you talk there, I'd not planned to say this as such, but I think it would be important in the light of what you've just said, is to, what am I trying to say here? It's important to build trust. And I'm a great

Yes.

believer in building trust in an organization, but don't naively build trust. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well that's my point. I think I the person I put the trust in, I think looking back

now, I'm thinking,

Yes.

Were you were you naive in trusting that person the way that you did? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I think

that going back to wise as serpents and harmless as doves,

Mm.

the wise as serpents, you know, the serpents we're seeing is this discerning sort of streetwise archetype for human beings. And there's a sense in which we've got to be careful we're not too dove-like when we build trust. And it's a combination

Mm.

of the both, you know? So a little bit of skepticism, healthy skepticism in the context of

the relationships you build and how you build trust with people I think is important.

I know you've got a practical tool for this. I think you call it People, Power, Purpose and Patterns. Do you just wanna sort of talk the listeners through that, how to use that in this context?

Yeah, so it's the four P's and if you like, regard these four things as four lenses through which to look at your system.

Okay.

So people first ask questions like who holds influence? You know, that might be both formally and informally.

Yeah.

Power, the next P, is

Mm-hmm.

how are decisions made? And again, there may be a whole

structure

Yeah.

of formal governance in place and then overlaid on that sort of all sorts of informal relationships that are influencing decision making behind the scenes. It often happens inside government. There's a lot of maneuvering before a like a big governance meeting. So if you like people's thinking are shaped before they even go into the meeting. Okay so that's

Yeah, yeah.

power. Purpose is the third P so

what outcomes matter most? And this is where this idea of integrity, I think,

Mm.

and being transparent and not seeking to be manipulative in the agenda you're setting. So what outcomes matter most, not for you, for the team and for the organization and even society and the wider world, frankly, yeah.

Yeah. Well, on the wider world, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

And the fourth is patterns. So what keeps happening here?

So that's the ability to read the power dynamics and the power structures inside an organization. So pattern spots

Yes, yeah.

and notice what's going on.

Yeah, and I think, you know, I I don't know if if I'd have asked those sort of types of questions back at this situation I was referring

Okay.

to, w would I would I have seen things differently? The answer is probably yes, I would have done. I didn't see

Mm-hmm. Okay, yeah.

it at the time. And it and you know, and and there was there was some fallout from that. So yeah, this is

Yeah, yeah.

I think this is really important. As you said, we don't take things at face value, we we

Mm-hmm.

do become wise

Yes.

by by by just scratching beneath the surface and seeing what's there. Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Right, so Rich, what would be your key takeaways from this discussion? If someone's thinking, Yeah, I I totally get this, what are the key things I need to bear in mind as I go away and apply this into my organization?

Yeah. So I would say embrace healthy politics. So

Yeah.

politics isn't always a manipulation. Good politics

Yeah.

is ethical influence.

Okay. I like that, yeah.

Ignoring power doesn't make power disappear. So don't be naive.

No, very true. Nebula.

Leadership requires us to understand

not just the people but the system.

Yeah.

And the people are part of that system as well as all the other stuff that creates the system. So understand the system.

Mm. Yeah.

Power is most dangerous, the fourth point I was making, the power is most dangerous when it's unconscious and unexamined.

Right.

And when I look back at my own career, I would absolutely concur with that point.

Yeah.

and great leaders develop contextual intelligence before the act. So that's the scratching beneath the surface idea.

Right. Yeah. I think there's some brilliant things there. That those five points I think if you take that away from today's discussion and just try to apply that. Thanks, Rich. So today we've explored a side of leadership that many people find uncomfortable, but which every leader eventually will encounter it sooner or later, yeah. Power,

Yeah.

influence, relationships in context. They're just part of organizational life. And

Mm-hmm.

understanding those does not make you political. No? What

Yes.

What it does actually is makes you more effective, let's be honest,

Mm-hmm.

isn't it? Yeah. So in future episodes, we'll continue exploring what emotionally intelligent leaders look like in these complex environments, including how leadership develops broader perspectives and navigates competing views of the world around them. So, Rich, that's for another day. But for today, thanks for your time and thanks for

Yeah, okay. Thank you.

everyone listening. Thanks for listening to the Connected Leadership Podcast by Zentano, and we'll see you next week.

Thank you.

Thank you.