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Leadership and followership
Leadership and followership

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4.2 Politically astute leadership

As internal and external interests and politics continue to diversify and divide opinion, Hartley et al. (2015) present a framework of political astuteness skills that will benefit leaders and managers across all sectors. You’ll find a version of this framework reproduced in Activity 3.

Professor Hartley (2023) explains that political astuteness is about ‘working with contest and conflict to achieve organisational and social goals’ and describes a variety of work-based situations in which leaders might use these skills, ranging from ‘dealing with people within their organisation, including factions and disagreeing tribes’ to ‘liaising with partners and in strategic alliances.’

Activity 3 Are you politically astute?

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes

View the dimensions of the framework (Hartley, 2023) below and consider whether you already use these skills or not. Are they relevant to your context?

Y = Yes, N = No and NR = Not Relevant

Table 1 Political astuteness skills
Dimension Description Y/N/NR
Strategic direction and scanning
  1. Retaining a sense of purpose
  2. Understanding when to move fast on your agenda and when to hold off as the timing is wrong
  3. Picking up signals from others (trade press, colleagues, external sources) highlighting changes in situation and helping you to identify what is over the horizon.
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Building alignment and alliances
  1. Understanding who you can work with and who to exclude in order to achieve organisational goals
  2. Making alliances in situations of competition
  3. Knowing when to collaborate or compete
  4. Understanding organisations differences in alliances.
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Reading people and situations
  1. Being able to see others’ perspectives: what their values, motives, interests and goals are
  2. Understanding organisational goals and power structures
  3. Recognising the threat you (individually or organisationally) cause others.
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Interpersonal skills
  1. Listening to others
  2. Encouraging people to be open with you
  3. Being curious with people, making them feel valued.
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Personal skills
  1. Having self-awareness
  2. Being able to exert self-control
  3. Having a pro-active disposition, i.e. someone who tries to anticipate and develop the agenda.
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Comment

Political astuteness is important both internally (refer to Week 6 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]   to revisit internal politics) and externally. This framework presents a useful checklist of skills, attitudes and behaviours, particularly for a leader who is still developing their strategic thinking.

If you feel this is an area for personal development, Professor Hartley (2023) shares the results of a survey of 1,500 people, which found that the most frequent learning opportunities for developing political astuteness skills come from failure or mismanagement, i.e.

  • 88% learnt from their mistakes

  • 86% gained on the job experience

  • 85% learnt from handling a crisis

  • 77% followed the good example of a senior manager

  • 70% learnt through observing bad behaviour from a senior manager.

Taking time to reflect on previous ‘political’ conversations you’ve participated in or observed is another good use of your leadership journal. Think about what went well or went wrong and reflect on what could have been done differently.