Ethics The Ethics of Behaving Politically It is difficult to tell ethical from unethical politicking (internal

politics) Three questions help: 1. What is the benefit of engaging in the behavior? 2. Does the benefit
balance out any harm done by the action? 3. Does the action conform to standards of equity and
justice?

The reality of politics

 Immoral people can justify almost any behavior.

 Recognize the ability of power to corrupt.

Factors

 Employees who are high self-monitor, possess an internal locus of control, and
have a high need for power are more likely to engage in political behavior.
 The high self-monitor is more sensitive to social cues and is more likely
to be skilled in political behavior than the low self-monitor.

High self-monitors are people who more readily modify the way they present themselves in
a social setting in response to social cues. They are concerned with how they appear to the
outside world regardless of their internal feelings or beliefs.
They are people who more readily modify the way they present themselves in a social setting in
response to social cues. High self-monitors worry more about how appropriate their behavior is in a
given social setting. Their modification of their outward appearance and behavior can be done to
impress others or to better fit into a social environment.

Locus of control
People who have internal locus of control believe that the outcomes of their actions are
results of their own abilities. Internals believe that their hard work would lead them to obtain
positive outcomes
High mach personality  are those who would be considered highly manipulative, not easily
persuaded, but persuade others more than low Machs, successful in reaching their goals and tend to
win more. People with a high Mach personality tend to be calm, unattached, calculated and look for
ways to exploit loose structures or vulnerability in people

An individual’s investment in the organization’s perceived alternatives and expectations of

success will influence the tendency to pursue illegitimate means of political action.The more that
a person has invested and the more a person has to lose, the less likely he/she is to use
illegitimate means.
 The more alternative job opportunities an individual has, a prominent reputation, or influential
contacts outside the organization, the more likely he/she will risk illegitimate political actions.

“Perceived job alternatives” is defined as the perceived ease of moving between employers.
This means that the more job availability outside the organization people think they have, the
greater the perceived ease in finding another job.
Your expectations are your strong hopes or beliefs that something will happen or that you will
get something that you want. 

Organizational Factors
When organizations reallocate money or resources,
they decide to change the way they spend the money or use the resources. [...]

Promotion decisions have consistently been found to be one of the most political in
organizations.

An opportunity is a situation in which it is possible for you to do something that you want to do.

[...]If people promote something, they help or encourage it to happen, increase, or spread.

The less trust there is within the organization, the higher the level of political behavior and the
more likely it will be illegitimate. There are situations where we cannot avoid being having to
work where we have low or limited trust of the people around us. We will typically act in such
an environment to manage the trust.

Employees who experience role ambiguity feel uncertainty about which behaviors are and are
not appropriate. They may wonder, for example, whether they are engaging in inappropriate
work behaviors. On the other hand, they may wonder whether they are failing to engage in
appropriate work behaviors. Most employees find both of these situations distressful.

Ambiguity is a term used to describe the lack of clarity, certainty and/or predictability one
might have expected with regards to behaviour in a job (due, perhaps to an ill-defined or
ambiguous job description and/or uncertain organizational objectives). Employees who work
hard on what they think is an important project only to find it shelved or placed on the back
burner, as well as employees who don’t understand the scope and parameters of their job,
the goals they should be pursuing, and what their priorities should be are more likely to suffer
from role ambiguity.
A performance evaluation system is a systematic way to examine how well an employee is
performing in his or her job. If you notice, the word systematic implies the performance evaluation
process should be a planned system that allows feedback to be given in a formal—as opposed to
informal—sense. Performance evaluations can also be called performance appraisals, performance
assessments, or employee appraisals.

Poor performance management programs can quickly erode employee engagement. For
instance, when a performance plan is unclear, employees are unsure how their everyday work
contributes to the agency’s mission. There’s no sense of growth or progress—essential
ingredients for developing engaged and high-performing employees. Also, if employees see the
program as unfair, they are likely to feel uninspired about their future at the agency, experience
lower motivation, perform at lower levels, or leave the job altogether.

The zero-sum approach treats the reward “pie” as fixed so that any gain one person or group
achieve has to come at the expense of another person or group. If I win, you must lose!

This encourages making others look bad and increasing the visibility of what’ you do.

Zero sum reward practice This is a well-known practice with a name “Win-Lose”. In this
type of reward practice artificial competition is created because two individual can never
be stand equal; one has to be winner. This practice embarks political behavior to be
winner and get lions share in reward.

Democratic decision making is when a leader gives up authority over a decision and presents a
series of options to the full group to vote on. The option accepted by the majority of the group is
then enacted. 

The democratic system, or “rule of the majority,” is usually traced to ancient Greek city states,
although it’s probable that people have been voting in one form or another throughout human
history. 

Performance pressure refers to when employees feel that they critically need to perform at a
high level. This is a quite common occurrence at many organizations. There have been many
research studies on performance pressure. Research has revealed that performance pressure
can motivate some employees to perform at a high level to gain promotions and/or salary
increases. However, research has also shown that for some employees, performance pressures
can also lead to stress that could adversely impact productivity.

The self serving leader tends to focus on their own needs and challenges more than those of
their team. Instead of aiming to support and develop their teams, their mindset turns to one of
self-interest and self-preservation.

When employees see top management successfully engaging in political behavior, a climate is
created that supports politicking.

Recent work indicates that people hold a variety of self-serving biases, believing themselves more
capable than they are in fact.
Defensinve

Overcomform

Stalling stop or cause to stop making progress.

Scapegoating is the practice of singling out a person or group for unmerited blame and
consequent negative treatment.

Scapegoating is the practice of singling out a person or group for unmerited blame and consequent
negative treatment. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals (e.g. "he did
it, not me!"), individuals against groups (e.g., "I couldn't see anything because of all the tall people"),
groups against individuals (e.g., "He was the reason our team didn't win"), and groups against
groups.