How Politically Skilled Are You at Work?
Reading the room, winning people over, building a network and being believed
Good work does not always speak for itself. In most organisations, what gets done depends partly on who understands the room, who can bring others along and who has built the relationships before they were needed. Organisational psychologists call this political skill, and they measure it in four parts. It is not the same as scheming: the research treats it as the ability to influence people while coming across - and ideally being - genuine.
Before you start There are no right answers. Pick what is usually true for you, not what sounds best.
Think about your current or most recent workplace, or study or volunteer setting if you do not work. Answer about what you actually do, not what you know you should do.
What it measures
The four dimensions of the Political Skill Inventory: social astuteness, interpersonal influence, networking ability and apparent sincerity. It is not a leadership test, which covers how you run a team, nor self-monitoring, which is about adjusting your image, nor the manipulative trait measured in dark-triad tests - political skill includes being seen as sincere.
Based on: Political Skill Inventory (Ferris et al., 2005)
Possible results
Social astuteness
Reading people and power at work accurately.
Interpersonal influence
Bringing people round without pushing.
Networking ability
Building and keeping useful relationships across your field.
Apparent sincerity
Whether people believe you mean what you say.
Common questions
Is political skill just a polite word for manipulation?
No, and the model was designed to separate them. Manipulation relies on deception and tends to be discovered. Political skill, as the researchers define it, includes apparent sincerity: people influence others effectively when they are seen as genuine. Someone who reads people well but is seen as self-serving scores lower overall, not higher.
Does political skill matter more than doing good work?
Not more, but it multiplies it. A 2015 meta-analysis found political skill relates to job performance, career success and wellbeing at work, with moderate effects. The practical reading is that competence gets you considered and political skill helps it get noticed, especially in organisations where results are hard to measure directly.
Can political skill be learned?
Its developers argue that it can, partly through mentoring, feedback and experience in varied roles. Networking and influence are the most learnable parts; social astuteness improves with deliberate observation. Apparent sincerity is hardest to fake for long, which is why the best route to it is simply being interested in people.
Sources
- Ferris, G. R., Treadway, D. C., Kolodinsky, R. W., Hochwarter, W. A., Kacmar, C. J., Douglas, C., & Frink, D. D. (2005). Development and validation of the Political Skill Inventory. Journal of Management. doi:10.1177/0149206304271386
- Munyon, T. P., Summers, J. K., Thompson, K. M., & Ferris, G. R. (2015). Political skill and work outcomes: A theoretical extension, meta-analytic investigation, and agenda for the future. Personnel Psychology. doi:10.1111/peps.12066
An honest note The items are Quinthea's own wording adapted from the Political Skill Inventory, so scores are not comparable to the published norms. The inventory is well supported in organisational research, but most samples are office workers in the United States, and self-ratings of social skill tend to run higher than colleagues' ratings. Links to performance and career success are real but moderate. And a questionnaire can only capture appearing sincere, not being sincere.
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