Why should I not participate in office politics?

It’s almost impossible to find an organization that does not practice a form of politics. Office politics have some positive effects on your career. In the same vein, office politics can have negative influence on your career. Here are some reasons why you shouldn’t participate in office politics.

Office politics promotes disunity in the place of work; it creates a division between the workers. Being a part of it means you are promoting disunity in the organization. This will damage relationships between workers, which in turn affects the productivity of the organization.

Office politics will cause financial loss for the organization, instead of focusing on higher profits and turnover; you will be focusing your attention on being part of office politics. You become a victim of distraction and spend less time to work. This puts your job on the line. Office politics will drain your mental energy and it will create unnecessary tension for you.

You should participate when you have been told by those in charge that this is expected of you. You need to be clear in your own mind, or ask for guidance, about when and where your opinions about these things should be given, if at all.

There are those whose ambitions make it essential that they play office politics in order to rise up to the next perch. If you believe you can best rise up the ladder this way, if you are ruthless and place less value on office friendships, then by all means participate. If it goes wrong, you will know you only have yourself to blame.