Episode 296: Office Politics for Women Who Hate Office Politics

Office Politics for Women Who Hate Office Politics

A few years ago, I was coaching a woman — brilliant, highly respected, consistently excellent performance reviews — who had just been passed over for a VP role for the second time.

The feedback she received was vague. Something about “executive presence” and “needing to build broader stakeholder relationships.” She had heard versions of this before and she was, understandably, furious.

She said to me: “I’m not going to start playing politics just to get ahead. If that’s what it takes, maybe this isn’t the right company for me.”

And I said: “I hear you. But before you make that decision — can we get specific about what ‘playing politics’ actually means to you? Because I think you might be refusing to do two very different things, and only one of them is worth refusing.”

That conversation changed the trajectory of her career.

Today, I want to have a version of that conversation with you.

What This Episode Is — and Isn’t — About

Welcome back to Leading Women in Tech. I’m Toni Collis, and this is Episode 296.

If you clicked on this episode and your first instinct was somewhere between mild distaste and outright eye-roll, you are in exactly the right place. Because the women who have the strongest reaction to the words “office politics” are almost always the ones who most need this conversation — and the ones who are most capable of doing something powerful with it.

Let me be clear about what we’re doing today. This is not an episode about teaching you to be manipulative, to schmooze people you don’t respect, or to advance at other people’s expense. If that’s what office politics meant, I’d tell you to avoid it too. In fact I actively work towards workplaces where this is not rewarded – one of the ways I do that is by helping women just like you to show how great interpersonal relationships can discourage the manipulation and gossip that is not just unwelcome but damaging, and which we should quite rightly avoid, or where we can, challenge. 

Instead, this episode is about something more precise and more useful: understanding how influence actually works in organisations, so that you can navigate it deliberately, consistently, and entirely on your own terms — without compromising who you are.

But let’s deal with the elephant in the room: the distaste you feel for this topic is not naivety. It’s not a weakness. It almost certainly comes from a legitimate place — from watching people advance for the wrong reasons, from having your work overlooked, from a belief that results should speak for themselves. That belief is not wrong. But today, I’m going to show you where it’s costing you.

At the end of the episode I’ll be sharing details of the Office Politics Playbook for Women in Tech — a practical resource for navigating influence and power in organisations without selling out your values and staying with your integrity. But first, let’s get into the conversation.

Why High-Achieving Women Avoid Office Politics — and Why It’s Costing Them

I want to start by validating the resistance, because I think it’s important.

Office politics, as most people experience it, can be genuinely toxic. It can involve favouritism, manipulation, credit-stealing, and people advancing not because of the quality of their work but because of who they’ve charmed and whose back they’ve scratched. The distaste for this is not a character flaw. It’s integrity. And it’s especially pronounced in women who came into their careers believing — reasonably — that results would be what mattered.

The problem is not the distaste. The problem is what happens when that distaste becomes a blanket refusal to engage with anything that feels remotely political — because in that refusal, something important gets lost.

Here is what I need you to understand: the women who refuse to engage with organisational politics don’t opt out of the system. They just opt out of influencing it.

The politics still happen. Decisions are still made in rooms you’re not in. Influence is still being built and spent — just not by you. Promotions are still being discussed — but your name isn’t coming up, because the people in the room don’t know enough about your work, your impact, or your ambitions to advocate for you. Stretch opportunities are still being assigned — but to the people whose visibility and relationships mean they’re already in the consideration set.

The cost of non-engagement is real and specific. Being passed over for roles despite strong performance. Having ideas attributed to others. Being excluded from strategic conversations. Watching less qualified peers advance because they’ve invested in the relational and visibility dimensions of leadership that she’s been avoiding.

This is not conjecture. It shows up every week in my coaching practice with extraordinary women who are capable or going all the way to the top. And it shows up in the research on women in leadership: one of the most significant factors in career advancement is not just what you deliver, but how visible that delivery is to the people who make decisions about your future.

So here is one reframe I want you to take on board which could be the single biggest gift you give yourself this year. This is the same reframe that changed things for the client I mentioned at the start.

What most of us call “office politics” is actually two completely different things. And we’ve been rejecting both of them together, when we only need to reject one.

Thing one: manipulation, game-playing, undermining colleagues, taking credit for work that isn’t yours, advancing purely at others’ expense. You are absolutely right to reject this. It is corrosive, it damages organisations and the people in them, and it is not what I am going to ask you to do. But it is the thing we need to fight against.

Thing two: understanding how influence works in your organisation, building genuine relationships with key stakeholders, making your work and your value visible to the right people, and knowing how decisions actually get made. This is not office politics. This is strategic leadership. And avoiding it — in the name of integrity — is not keeping you clean. It’s keeping you invisible. But when you embrace it you actually deal better with thing one – more examples of this influence form of politics erodes the efficacy of the the nasty side of ‘politics’ that we all want to avoid. Most workplaces need more people, not fewer, embracing good quality politics and it quickly pushes out the less healthy kind. 

Invisibility and integrity are not the same thing. Let’s talk about what this second category actually involves.

What Navigating Office Politics with Integrity Actually Looks Like

Every organisation is a social system, not just a functional one. Decisions are made by people, and people are influenced by relationships, trust, perception, and proximity — not just data and results. Understanding this is not cynicism. It’s organisational literacy. And without it, you’re navigating your career half-blind.

Let me break this down into three core reframes. These are the conceptual shifts that need to happen before the practical tools make sense.

Reframe One: Influence Is Not Manipulation

Influence is the ability to shape outcomes, shift thinking, and move people toward decisions — through clarity, credibility, relationship, and trust. Every effective leader exercises influence. The leaders you most admire exercise influence. The question is not whether to build influence, but whether to do it consciously or leave it to chance.

When she said, “I’m not going to play politics,” what my client actually meant was: “I’m not going to manipulate people.” And she was right not to. But influence and manipulation are not the same thing. Manipulation operates through deception, pressure, or exploitation. Influence operates through genuine connection, clear communication, and demonstrated value. One corrodes trust. The other builds it.

Building influence at work is not a moral compromise. It is a leadership responsibility.

Reframe Two: Relationship-Building Is Stakeholder Investment

One of the things that makes high-achieving women uncomfortable about the relational dimension of leadership is the sense that building relationships strategically is somehow inauthentic — that if you’re cultivating a relationship with a particular stakeholder because they matter to your career, you’re being manipulative rather than genuine.

I want to push back on this.

When decisions are being made about projects, promotions, and resources, the people in the room advocate for the people they know and trust. That’s not corruption — it’s how human beings operate. If you haven’t invested in those relationships, you’re not in the consideration set — regardless of how exceptional your work is. Understanding that and responding to it intelligently is not manipulation, but instead it’s actually leading strategically – recognizing that getting ahead requires people to know who you are, what you are capable of and hearing your opinions in the right way. 

The goal is not to build fake relationships. The goal is to invest in real relationships with intentionality — to be the kind of leader who shows genuine interest in her stakeholders’ work and challenges, who follows through on commitments, and who is known for operating with consistency and integrity. That is not schmoozing. That is excellent leadership.

One thing I want to make clear is the difference between manipulation and influence – many of us are confused by this. To me it’s very clear cut, but there is a middle grey ground which is where it can get confusing. 

Influence is about making sure that people are hearing what they need to understand you. The obvious example is if you are a detailed data focused person and you present your idea through this lens, the big picture person who hates graphs and data will just not pay attention. Not because they aren’t good at their job or bad in any way, but because of the 100 things today that they’re being asked to do, this one is just a step too far. We are all guilty of this. It doesn’t make us bad, it makes us human. If however you are presenting to someone who is as detail and data driven as you you’ll likely find yourself saying ‘they just get me, and we get on so well and get so much done’. And we tend to hire people like that. Great, up to a point, because that way leads dead ends and limited ideas. We need people around us who think differently. But that means to get their attention for our great idea we will get more traction if we slow down and ask ‘what do they care about?’ and ‘how do I ensure they understand what I need them to instead of what I think I’d need to understand in their situation?’. This is the main concept behind my mantra ‘slow down to speed up’ – if you take your time, you’ll have fewer hurdles and roadblocks. 

And that’s influence. 

Manipulation sinister. It takes influence and adds an element of, well, manipulation, to it. So instead of asking ‘what does this person need to really understand what I’m saying’, you take it to the level of ‘what can I say that means I get my way no matter the cost to others?’. What you choose to do then can be in the grey area, such as omitting some information which is perhaps noise (definitely the influence end) or omitting information deliberately that you know will derail your idea but it should be known and is important (manipulation). 

So remember, influence is about slowing down and understanding. Manipulation is far more sinister and you’d know you were doing it. 

So let’s more onto the third reframe. 

Reframe Three: Visibility Is Not Vanity

Making your work visible to the right people is not self-promotion in the pejorative sense. And it’s definitely not maniupation. 

It’s ensuring that decision-makers have the information they need to make good decisions about your career and your team.

When you stay heads-down and let your work speak for itself, you’re not being humble. You’re withholding relevant information from the people who need it. And the people who need it are busy, they’re managing their own visibility challenges, and they are not spending their discretionary time seeking out evidence of your impact. If you don’t surface it, it won’t be surfaced.

This is the part of the conversation that tends to create the most resistance when we discuss this in my coaching masterminds — because visibility strategies can feel like performance, like ego, like the antithesis of the values that brought her into leadership in the first place. So let’s talk about what strategic visibility actually looks like in practice. And that brings us to the practical section of today’s episode.

Five Moves That Build Influence and Strategic Visibility Without Selling Out

These are the five moves I work through with clients who are building influence in their organisations — and want to do it with complete integrity.

Move One: Map the Landscape Before You Need It

Most women only start thinking about organisational dynamics when something has already gone wrong — when they’ve been passed over, when a decision didn’t go their way, when they realise they’re not in the room. By that point, they’re reacting. And reacting is always more costly and less effective than acting from a position of awareness.

The first move is to develop organisational intelligence proactively. To understand the landscape of your organisation before you need to navigate it urgently.

This means getting clear on a few things. Who holds influence in your organisation — and I mean real influence, not just formal authority? Who are the informal power brokers, the people whose opinions shape decisions even when they’re not the most senior person in the room? How do decisions actually get made — is it in the formal meeting, or in the conversations that happen before it? What does leadership in your organisation actually value — and I mean what it rewards and promotes, which is sometimes different from what it says it values?

This is intelligence-gathering, not manipulation. It’s the organisational equivalent of understanding the market before you make a strategic decision. And without it, you’re operating on assumptions that may be significantly out of date.

Move Two: Invest in Relationships Before You Need Them

The mistake most high-achievers make is treating relationship-building as transactional — reaching out to stakeholders only when they need something. This is the version of networking that feels gross, and rightly so, because it is extractive. People notice when they only hear from you when you want something.

The move is to invest in relationships consistently and genuinely, so that when you do need an ally, an advocate, or a decision-maker to go to bat for you, the relationship is already there. This doesn’t require you to become someone who spends all your time in coffee chats. It requires you to be intentional about the relationships that matter and to show up for them regularly.

Practically, this might look like: scheduling a brief catch-up with a key stakeholder once a quarter with no agenda other than genuine connection. Sharing relevant information or an article with someone you know is working through a particular challenge. Following up on something a colleague mentioned in a meeting three weeks ago. These are small investments. Over time, they build the foundation of genuine trust — which is the only kind of stakeholder relationship worth having.

And they build internal allies. People who know your work, understand your value, and are in a position to speak up for you in the conversations you’re not part of.

Move Three: Make Your Impact Visible — Strategically, Not Constantly

Let me describe two versions of visibility.

Version one is performative visibility — constant LinkedIn posts, making sure every win is loudly announced, manoeuvring to be seen in the right rooms. This is the version that feels like showing off, because often it is. And it tends to build the wrong kind of reputation.

Version two is strategic visibility — ensuring the right people, at the right moments, have accurate information about what you’re contributing and what your team is delivering. Framing your updates as strategic communication rather than status reports. Connecting your work explicitly to organisational priorities so that its value is clear without needing to be explained. Owning your wins in the language of impact rather than activity.

The difference is in the intention and the execution. Strategic visibility is not about being seen everywhere — it’s about being understood clearly by the people who matter to your career.

One practical framework: at the end of each month, ask yourself — do the three people most influential to my career progression have an accurate picture of what I’ve delivered and what my team has achieved this month? If the answer is no, that’s your action for the week. Not a performance. A communication.

Move Four: Learn to Read the Room — and the Organisation

This is about developing the kind of organisational intelligence that allows you to navigate power structures, informal dynamics, and unwritten rules without being naive about how they operate.

Every organisation has two sets of rules: the ones that are written down, and the ones that everyone navigates but nobody documents. The written rules tell you what the promotion criteria are. The unwritten rules tell you what actually determines who gets promoted. The written rules tell you who is in charge. The unwritten rules tell you who actually has influence.

Developing the ability to read these dynamics is not cynical. It’s necessary. Because operating as though only the written rules exist doesn’t protect your integrity — it just makes you less effective in the actual environment you’re in.

Practically, this means paying attention to patterns. Who gets invited to which meetings — and who doesn’t? Whose ideas get taken forward — and how are they framed when they are? When decisions are announced, who was consulted — and when? These patterns tell you where influence actually lives in your organisation, which tells you where to invest your relationship-building energy.

It also means paying attention to language. What words and frameworks does your organisation use to signal value? What does “strategic” mean in your specific context? What kinds of contributions get called out publicly, and what kind of language is used to describe the leaders who get promoted? Understanding the organisational dialect is part of operating at a senior level — and it’s a skill that can absolutely be learned.

Move Five: Build Advocates, Not Just Allies

The distinction between an ally and an advocate is one of the most important in this conversation.

An ally is someone who is supportive — who thinks well of you, who would say good things about you if asked. An advocate is someone who speaks up for you when you’re not in the room. Who brings your name into conversations you didn’t know were happening. Who actively works to ensure your contributions are understood and your career trajectory is being considered.

Allies are nice to have. Advocates are career-changing.

Building advocates requires two things. First, it requires relationships deep enough that people genuinely understand your work, your ambitions, and your capabilities — which is why the earlier moves matter. Second, it requires making your ambitions known. One of the most common and most costly mistakes I see is women assuming that the people who could advocate for them know what they want. They don’t. Most senior leaders are busy managing their own careers and priorities. Unless she tells them clearly and explicitly what she’s working toward, they’ll assume she’s content where she is.

This doesn’t have to be a big dramatic conversation. It can be as simple as: “I wanted to share that I’m working toward a VP role in the next 18 months, and I’d value your perspective on where you see gaps in my positioning.” That sentence does several things at once: it signals ambition, it invites input from a key stakeholder, and it begins a conversation that might eventually result in that person becoming an active advocate.

Advocates don’t typically emerge by accident. They emerge when she’s done the work of building real relationships, making her impact visible, and being clear about where she’s going.

How to Know You’re Building Influence — Not Playing Games

I said at the start that this episode would close the loop on the identity concern that opens it. And I want to do that now.

She came in worried about becoming someone she doesn’t recognise. About compromising the values that have always been the foundation of how she leads. That concern deserves a real answer — not just reassurance.

Here is the test I offer my clients.

Before any move — a conversation, a relationship investment, a moment of visibility — ask yourself: would I be comfortable if the people I most respect could see exactly what I’m doing and why? Not just what I’m doing, but the intention behind it. If the answer is yes — proceed. If the answer is no — that’s important information. It’s telling you that the move has drifted from strategic influence into something else.

The reason this test works is that it cuts through the rationalisation that can happen in politically complex environments. It’s easy to convince yourself that a particular move is strategic when it’s actually just self-serving. The transparency test forces honesty.

And here is what I want you to hold onto: strategic influence and personal integrity are not in tension. The most trusted, most effective leaders are the ones who are known for operating with clarity and consistency — who say what they mean, follow through on what they commit to, and build relationships that are genuine. Those things are the foundation of real influence. Not tactics. Not performance. Character and consistency.

When she operates from that foundation — when she maps the landscape, invests in relationships, makes her work visible, reads the organisation, and builds advocates — she is not playing games. She is leading at the level her career requires.

Going Deeper on Communication and Influence

I want to point you to one episode that I think is a really powerful companion to what we’ve covered today. Episode 243 — Struggling to Be Heard? Master Leadership Communication Strategies and Coach Upwards — goes deep on the communication dimension of influence: how to make your voice land in rooms that haven’t always been listening, how to coach upwards without overstepping, and how to frame your ideas in the language that resonates with the leaders above you.

If what we’ve discussed today has landed and you want to go further on the practical communication side — how to actually show up differently in the rooms that matter — that episode is your next stop.

The Office Politics Playbook for Women in Tech

Before I close today, I want to share something with you.

Everything we’ve covered in this episode — mapping the landscape, building relationships with intentionality, making your work strategically visible, reading your organisation, building advocates — these are skills. And like all skills, they’re more effectively built with structure, support, and a clear framework than by trying to work it out on your own.

The Office Politics Playbook for Women in Tech is exactly that: a practical, integrity-grounded framework for navigating influence and power in your organisation — built specifically for women who want to build real influence without playing games or selling out.

It covers how to map your organisational landscape, how to build the stakeholder relationships that actually move your career, how to make your work visible in ways that feel authentic rather than performative, and how to build the advocates who will speak up for you in the rooms you’re not in.

You can find the details at tonicollis.com/playbook — the link will be in the show notes.

And if you’re at a point where you want to work through this in the specific context of your organisation, your leadership, and your career — where you want a thought partner rather than just a framework — I’d love to talk. You can book a strategy call with me at tonicollis.com/lets-chat. We’ll look at where you are, where you’re trying to get to, and what’s actually standing in the way.

What Office Politics for Women Who Hate Office Politics Actually Means

Let me bring this back to where we started.

That client — brilliant, frustrated, on the verge of walking away from a company and a career she’d worked hard to build — wasn’t wrong about office politics. She was right that the manipulative, extractive version of it was something she shouldn’t do and wouldn’t do.

What she hadn’t seen was that her refusal had inadvertently included something else: the strategic, integrity-consistent, leadership-level work of building influence, visibility, and genuine relationships. And that decision — made with the best of intentions — was quietly costing her the career she deserved.

Once she could see the distinction, everything changed. Not because she became someone different. But because she started bringing the same rigour, intentionality, and excellence she brought to her functional work to the relational and political dimensions of leadership too.

That’s what I’m inviting you to do today.

Not to play games. Not to compromise your values. Not to become the version of political that made you distrust this whole conversation in the first place.

But to lead fully. To show up in the organisational system you’re actually in, not the idealised version of it. To build influence the way the most trusted and effective leaders build it — through clarity, consistency, genuine connection, and a complete refusal to be invisible.

You have worked too hard and you are too good at what you do to let the political landscape of your organisation determine your ceiling.

Learn the system. Navigate it on your terms. And lead at the level your career actually requires.

I’ll see you next week.