Is office politics just a part of being human?

What I learned from examining my own instinct to opt out

Office politics is normal, it's just part of being human.' An old colleague said this to me in passing recently. I disagreed instantly. Then I couldn't stop thinking about why.

Because for most of my corporate career, those words would have felt like a contradiction. 'Office politics' was a dirty phrase – it sat in my mouth with a faint taste of disgust. It meant inauthenticity, dishonesty, people manoeuvring for power at the expense of everyone else. And I was very clear about where I stood: I refuse to play the game.

I said this with some pride, and no small amount of moral superiority.

And yet the word itself tells another story.

The word we love to hate

The etymology of the word comes from the Ancient Greek word polis meaning city. And it was Aristotle who gave us Politiká: the affairs of the city. The science and art of governing a community in order to achieve the common good.

Not self-interest or manipulation – the common good.

Our broad use of the word holds a complex tension. Politics is defined both as ‘the art or science of government’, and as ‘activities characterised by artful and often dishonest practices’ – the latter being closer to what most of us picture when someone mentions office politics.

The word has always carried both meanings. We just tend to lean towards the second one.

The reframe

And here's what my friend’s reframe cracked open for me.

We are always part of the office politics, because we’re always part of the system.

The people in any organisation are a community with shared interests and shared stakes – not so dissimilar to Aristotle's polis. And whether we're conscious of it or not, we are constantly making political choices as part of this community. How we manage our relationships. How we present ourselves. Whether we publicly celebrate our achievements or keep them quiet. How openly we communicate our ambitions. How much space we take up, or don't.

These are all political choices. And they're shaped by our values, our perception of others, and our motivation to grow.

Perhaps my opting out of office politics wasn’t only a values-led position. It was actually a political choice – just a passive one.

Where it gets messy

Retrieving the noble etymology of a word doesn't automatically rehabilitate what it describes. Aristotle's polis was a philosophical ideal. Most organisations are not. And the gap between ‘politics guided by integrity’ and ‘politics that's purely self-serving’ is a lot murkier in practice than I make it sound on paper (/screen).

We don't always agree on where that line sits. What reads as confident self-advocacy to one person looks like shameless self-promotion to another. What one leader calls ‘building relationships,’ a colleague might experience as calculated manoeuvring. The uncomfortable truth is that the same behaviour can be both things at once – genuinely well-intentioned and quietly self-serving – and most of us are not as clear-eyed about our own motivations as we'd like to think.

What I am more confident about is this: when political choices become solely self-serving – when the common good stops being part of the equation entirely – something real is lost. Trust erodes. Psychological safety shrinks. And that kind of toxicity, once it takes root, is highly contagious.

The inconvenient truth

So what was really going on when I declared myself above it all?

Partly genuine value-led decision. But it was also something else. Citing my disinterest in the game of politics was, at least in part, a very convenient excuse to stay less visible. To not advocate for myself. To not be seen.

Because underneath the moral high ground was a quieter fear: that if I did show up more fully – if I made my ambitions known, celebrated my work, took up more space – I might be judged for it. Or worse, found wanting.

Stanford organisational psychologist Jeffrey Pfeffer, who has spent decades studying power in the workplace, puts it bluntly: "Power shouldn't make us uncomfortable. It's foundational to success at work – for CEOs, managers and new hires alike." His argument, essentially, is that discomfort with political behaviour is often a skill deficit dressed up as a moral position.

That stings a little. Because I don’t think he’s wrong.

Fear wearing a power suit

And that's where it gets interesting. If that was true for me – someone who opted out – I started wondering what it looked like for the people who opted in. I wonder now whether a lot of what we call toxic office politics isn't actually the behaviour of people who are supremely confident and cynically self-serving. I wonder how much of it is the behaviour of people who are frightened.

People who don't believe they can get where they want to go by simply being themselves – so they find other routes. They manage perceptions aggressively because they don't trust that their actual work will speak for itself. They undermine others because they're quietly terrified of being outpaced. They claim credit not out of greed but out of a gnawing insecurity that if they don't, no one will notice them at all.

Imposter syndrome, in other words, might be one of the engines driving the very political culture most of us say we dislike.

Which means the passive opter-out and the toxic opter-in might have more in common than either would like to admit. Both behaviours can be responses to the same underlying fear – of not being enough, of being found out, of losing ground if we're truly seen. One person disappears. The other performs.

It’s a culture problem, not a politics problem

If that's true – even partially – it changes the question.

The problem isn't just about individual choices to be more or less ethical. It's about the conditions that make people feel unsafe enough to operate that way.

Cultures that reward visibility over substance. Structures that pit people against each other for limited recognition. Environments where being vulnerable about your limitations feels genuinely dangerous.

Which means that being more intentionally political – in the original sense – isn't just a personal development goal. It's potentially an act of cultural resistance. Showing up honestly, advocating openly, taking up space without apology: these things create a slightly different kind of permission for the people around you.

Perhaps the alternative to toxic politics isn’t to remove yourself, but to engage differently – more honestly and more intentionally.

Passivity isn't integrity

I don't think there's a clean answer here. I don't think there's a version of organisational life where politics disappears, or where the line between ‘good and bad’ motivation is always obvious. But I think there's a difference between navigating that complexity with awareness and just opting out – and telling yourself the opting out is the principled position.

That's the thing I got wrong. Not that I prioritised my values. But that I mistook passivity for integrity.

A healthy relationship with office politics isn't about avoiding it or weaponizing it. It's about developing the skill to navigate it intentionally and honestly, and the culture that makes honesty the easiest option, not the bravest one.

Questions for your own leadership:

What does office politics mean to you?

When you think about the politics of your workplace – how much of your relationship to it is shaped by your values? How much might be driven by a fear of being seen?

And if some of the toxic political behaviour you've witnessed might have fear at its root, to what extent might that change how you respond to it?

If something in this piece resonated with you – about how you show up at work, about fear of visibility, about your own place in the system – a coaching conversation might be the right next step. You're welcome to book a free intro call to explore working together.