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126 It’s Not a Glass Ceiling, It’s a Sticky Floor

This chapter, in contrast, is about the external awareness women
need to focus on regarding their organization and its players. Some
say that being politically savvy is like reading the tea leaves. Maybe so.
It’s certainly not always straightforward and it’s never found in an
employee handbook. But, for sure, the people most adept at leaf-read-
ing are the ones who get promoted, are recognized for their hard work,
and are most likely to achieve their personal and organizational goals.
Many women are not sure how to grasp this concept and some
are reluctant to be political because they associate politics with peo-
ple who are controlling, self-serving, dishonest, or even fake. But
actually, the opposite is true. Gerald Ferris, a management and psy-
chology professor at Florida State University says, “What sets apart
a leader who is politically skilled from one who isn’t is that the for-
mer can skillfully execute behaviors that are associated with politics
and perceived as genuine, authentic, straightforward, and effective.”
Gerald says that, “Leaders who are not politically skilled are those
most often seen as manipulative or self-serving.”
Often women are reluctant to be political because early in their
career they saw someone, probably a manager who had a direct
impact on their work, use his or her political power in a way that
spurred distrust or that had a negative effect on the people around
them. Certainly there are people who use their political power for
their own benefit, but this approach seldom works in the long term
and sometimes backfires even in the short term. In contrast, to have
ethical political savvy is to operate in a way that achieves the right
business results for the organization, its people, and for you. If you
apply your political savvy this way, you will always be able to offer a
great value proposition for how you fit into the organization.
Good, ethical political savvy boils down to a few things: always
having sources of reliable information so that you are ahead and on
top of coming changes instead of chasing after them. It means dis-
seminating information that makes you visible and garners the sup-