Office politics - a musing

- vis a vis nothing in particular:

I have worked in several institutions, Christian and secular, and none it seems to me have been free of what we call 'office politics' - of which I have sometimes been an active participant, I confess. Which is to say, office politics are fairly ubiquitous feature of working life - and are often experienced with a high degree of unpleasantness and frustration. Especially, this is difficult when it occurs in a workplace which is explicitly Christian, because the expectation of a different set of working relationships can be set much higher, and thus the crash much greater. In addition, Christians have, I am afraid, a tendency to justify the office-political means by the spiritual ends.

Now, in one sense I think office politics are just a necessary feature of working with other people and needn't be always a bad thing per se. There is a strain in Christian piety which condemns politics of all kinds - but this seems to me rather gnostic, a denial of the body politic.

But, as a pastoral and spiritual issue: what can be said to and by Christian workers about office politics? Here are some further questions:

- To what extent is loyalty to the boss an absolute requirement of workplace virtue? over against, say, loyalty to the values and history of the organisation?

- Why are Christians so blind to workplace bullying in their own organisations? How can we change this? How can we be self-aware about our own personal tendencies to manipulative behaviour at work?

- How can we address the souring of workplace relationships, and prevent it?

Testimonies welcome.