Variation of Political Skill Dimensions Across Different Industries

The purpose of this study to ascertain if there is any variation in political skill dimensions ((a) social astuteness, (b) interpersonal influence, (c) networking ability and (d) apparent sincerity) exhibited by employees in India’s seven industry sectors. In this study, the Political Skill Inventory (PSI) is used to examine such variations. Five hundred fifty survey respondents are employed in seven sectors viz. automobile, education, finance, fast moving consumer goods, health, information technology and telecom. The results exemplify that statistically significant differences are exhibited in these political skill dimensions by the employees in different industry sectors chosen for this research. Since these differences are reflected on four dimensions of the political skill, this study makes a unique contribution by developing an understanding of individual dimensions of political skill, thus, enabling greater insight into skill enhancement at various levels. Further, this study contributes by furnishing insights on skills useful for practitioners to understand dominance and lack of industry-specific skills within PSI inventory. The implications of this study could be in the areas such as personnel selection, framing skill development tools and programmes, enhancing job performance, achieving organizational goals and improvising organizational culture.

Managing the Uncertainties Inherent in Prohibitive Voice: How Leadership Interacts With Employee Political Skill

Drawing from the uncertainty management theory, we examine how authoritarian leadership and humble leadership interact with employee political skill to predict prohibitive voice. We conducted a two-wave survey study of 43 managers and 176 subordinates in a power company in China. Our findings indicate that authoritarian leadership has a minimal negative effect on the psychological safety of employees with higher political skill, which in turn leads to a minimal negative effect on their prohibitive voice. Moreover, humble leadership is positively associated with prohibitive voice for employees with lower political skill. For employees with higher political skill, no type of leadership behavior has a significant influence on their prohibitive voice. We outline the implications of these findings for both theoretical and managerial practices.

Forty years of political skill and will in organizations: a review, meta-theoretical framework and directions for future research

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to review the scholarship on political skill and political will so that the authors might inspire future work that assesses these constructs individually and in tandem.Design/methodology/approachThe “political skill” and “political will” concepts were introduced about 40 years ago, but they only have been measured and produced empirical results much more recently. Since that time, substantial research results have demonstrated the important roles political skill and political will play in organizational behavior. This paper provides a comprehensive review of this research, draws conclusions from this work and provides a meta-theoretical framework of political skill and political will to guide future work in this area.FindingsScholarship in this area has developed quite rapidly for political skill, but less so for political will. The authors hope that recent developments in a political will can set the stage for scholars to create a theoretical and empirical balance between these two related constructs.Originality/valueThe authors corral the vast and widespread literature on political skill and will and distill the information for scholars and practitioners alike.

Undermining alienative commitment through spiritual leadership: a moderated mediation model of social capital and political skill

PurposeThe purpose of the present study is to examine the relationship between spiritual leadership and employees' alienative commitment to the organization, both directly and indirectly, via employee social capital. We also test the role of employee political skill as a boundary condition of the indirect spiritual leadership–alienative commitment link.Design/methodology/approachTime-lagged data were collected from 491 employees in various manufacturing and service organizations. Data were analyzed using structural modeling equation in Mplus (8.6).FindingsSpiritual leadership was negatively associated with alienative commitment, both directly and indirectly, via social capital. Employee political skill moderated the indirect relationship between spiritual leadership and alienative commitment, such that the relationship was stronger when employee political skill was high (vs low).Practical implicationsThe demonstration of spiritual leadership's behaviors by both managers and employees can develop employees' social capital at work, which in turn can reduce employees' negative commitment to the organization. Likewise, improving employees' political skills can help leadership diminish alienative commitment.Originality/valueThe present work contributes to the literature on spiritual leadership by foregrounding how and why spiritual leadership undermines employee alienative commitment to the organization. By doing so, the study also enhances the nomological networks of the antecedents and outcomes of social capital and contributes to the scant literature on negative alienative commitment. Given the prevalence and negative repercussions of alienative commitment for employees' and organizations' productivity and performance, our findings are timely and relevant.

Linking Identity Leadership and Team Performance: The Role of Group-Based Pride and Leader Political Skill

Recent trends in the leadership literature have promoted a social identity approach of leadership that views leadership as the process of representing, advancing, creating, and embedding a sense of shared identity within a group. However, a few empirical studies explore how and when global identity leadership affects team performance at the workplace. To address this lacuna, we used multi-source and two-wave data among 81 teams to explore the role of group-based pride and leader political skill in the association between identity leadership and team performance. The results suggest that identity leadership positively predicts team performance through a mediating role of group-based pride. Furthermore, leader political skill moderates the indirect effect of group-based pride such that the effect is stronger when leader political skill is high rather than low. Finally, several theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed, and future research directions are also suggested.

Is Political Skill Always Beneficial? Why and When Politically Skilled Employees Become Targets of Coworker Social Undermining

The benefits of political skill at work have been extensively documented and highlighted. Existing research also reports unexpectedly equivocal and even positive relationships between employee political skill and coworker social undermining, suggesting that politically skilled employees can become targets of coworker social undermining. However, there is a lack of research explaining why and when employee political skill can lead to coworker social undermining. This research, drawing from social rank theory and the theory of rivalry, offers a novel lens to answer these questions. Specifically, I theorize that employee political skill evokes coworker social undermining by affecting coworker perception of status threat, particularly when the coworker views the focal politically skilled employee as a personal rival. Findings from four studies—one correlational two-wave study and three experiments—provide support for these predictions. Further, nonrival competition and interpersonal disliking as alternative potential explanations to the hypothesized moderating effects of rivalry were ruled out. This study provides a theory-driven explanation of an unintended consequence of employee political skill and offers a more balanced understanding of the effects of political skill at work. Theoretical and future research implications are discussed.

The Impact of Citizenship Pressure on Organizational Citizenship Performance: A Three-Way Interactive Model

Citizenship pressure has recently been a hot topic in organizational citizenship behavior research since it aids in understanding the driving mechanism of organizational citizenship behavior. However, previous research has revealed discrepancies in the connection. This article develops a theoretical model of the impact of citizenship pressure on organizational citizenship performance based on expectancy theory. A leader–employee paired questionnaire was used to evaluate the hypotheses. The results indicate that organizational citizenship performance is positively influenced by citizenship pressure. The connection between organizational citizenship performance and citizenship pressure is positively moderated by transformational leadership. The better the transformational leadership, the greater the influence of citizenship pressure on organizational citizenship performance. Furthermore, the impact of transformational leadership on the link between citizenship pressure and organizational citizenship performance is dependent on the political skill of employees. When individuals with strong political skill encounter transformational leadership, the relationship between citizenship pressure and organizational citizenship performance is minimal. On the contrary, this relationship is enhanced when personnel with limited political skill are confronted with transformational leadership.

Machiavellian Leader Effectiveness

Research on the effectiveness of Machiavellian leaders has found contradictory results. By linking socioanalytic and trait activation theory to the Machiavellianism and leadership literature, we argue that political skill may explain these findings by moderating the relation between Machiavellianism and leadership effectiveness. Using a multisource design and moderated mediation analyses with 153 leaders, 287 subordinates, and 153 superiors, we show that leaders who are both strongly politically skilled and high on Machiavellianism successfully enact transformational leadership, mediating improved leader effectiveness. However, when leader political skill is low, high Machiavellianism is negatively associated with (subordinate-rated) transformational leadership, resulting in lower leader effectiveness ratings by superiors. We discuss these results in light of current research on Machiavellianism in leadership and work contexts.