Politics is the process of gaining and using power. As you can see from the definition, power and politics go hand in hand as they are both used to influence others to help you get what you want. The amount and importance of politics varies from organization to organization. However, larger organizations tend to be more political, and the higher the level of management, the more important politics becomes. But try to avoid and prevent unethical politics that is dysfunctional.

Political behavior is used to develop relationships that are necessary to get the job done. Three primary political behaviors commonly used in organizations are networking, reciprocity, and coalition building. Networking is the process of developing relationship alliances with key people for the purpose of politicking. Your network of people helps you get your job done.
Navigating networks of people in organizations has been shown to help win promotions. Networking is such an important topic that we discuss it in detail in the next chapter.

Politics is about reciprocal exchanges. Reciprocity involves creating obligations and debts, developing alliances, and using them to accomplish objectives. When others do something for you, you incur an obligation that they may expect to be repaid, and vice versa. Politics creates mutual reciprocity obligations. So to put the three political behaviors together, political success is about developing networks of alliances and coalitions in reciprocal exchanges. When the exchanges create a win–win situation for all members of the alliance and the organization, the goal of human relations is met.