Clean vs Dirty Politics: How to Play the Game Without Betraying Your Values

A lot of senior managers quietly carry this belief:

“If playing politics is the price of a bigger role, maybe I don’t want it.”

You see how some people operate:
whispered conversations,
selective information,
alliances built on convenience, not respect.

You don’t want to become that person.

So you lean the other way:
“I don’t do politics, I just focus on the work.”

It sounds noble.
But at senior level, it quietly costs you:

You are respected, but not central in big decisions.
Your ideas are used… often after someone else has sold them.
You’re invited to execute, not to shape the game.

The painful truth:
You can reject dirty politics without opting out of political reality.
If you don’t make that distinction, you either burn out or stall.

🎭 Two Different Games People Call “Politics”

Most leaders mix two very different things into one word.

1. Dirty politics – what you don’t want:

   • manipulating information to look good or make others look bad

   • using fear, shame, or humiliation to control people

   • trading favours you don’t believe in

   • saying different things to different audiences to stay safe

   This is corrosive. It destroys trust and eventually backfires.

2. Clean politics – what you actually need:

   • understanding who is under what pressure, and why

   • building alliances around important outcomes, not against people

   • timing your messages so others can hear them

   • protecting your team’s interests without attacking others

Dirty politics is about ego and survival.
Clean politics is about influence and stewardship.

If you say “I don’t do politics at all”, you often end up in a strange role:
you are morally right, but strategically irrelevant.

🧠 What Happens When You Refuse the Game Completely

On the surface, avoiding politics looks principled.
Underneath, it usually creates three problems.

• You become easy to ignore.
  You speak your mind in the room, but you don’t work the conversation before and after. Others shape the narrative; you merely react to it.

• You protect your values, but not your people.
  You dislike escalation, negotiation, and boundary-setting. Your team quietly pays the price in workload, budget, and exposure.

• You feel superior and powerless at the same time.
  “I’m not like them” gives you moral comfort.
  “Nothing changes” gives you chronic frustration.

That tension is exhausting.
Many senior managers in this place either:
freeze (stay where they are for years, half-engaged), or
leave (change companies without changing their strategy).

The question is not “Do you play politics or not?”
The real question is: “Which version of politics are you willing to practice consciously?”

🧩 Principles of Clean Politics You Can Actually Live With

You don’t need to become another person to be politically effective.
You need a clear set of boundaries and a few new behaviours.

Some practical principles:

• No lying, no spinning.
  You can choose what to say when – but what you say must be true.

• People first, game second.
  You never deliberately damage someone’s reputation to win a point.

• Transparency with your team.
  You don’t involve them in every detail, but you are honest about constraints and pressures from above. No “mysterious decisions”.

• Same core message everywhere.
  You may adapt language to your audience, but your fundamental position stays consistent.

Within these boundaries, you’re free to:

• prepare key stakeholders in advance instead of “surprising” them in meetings

• sequence information so people can digest risk before they hear your proposal

• negotiate trade-offs instead of silently absorbing them

• actively support allies in public when they take intelligent risks

That is not selling your soul.
That is doing the real job of a senior leader.

📅 Want to Design Your Own Version of “Clean Politics”?

If you recognise yourself here – values-driven, strong performer, but allergic to the way some leaders “play the game” – then your task is not to copy them. Your task is to design your way of being politically smart and still feeling proud of yourself.

In a 30-minute Leadership Clarity Call, we can:
Take one or two real political situations where you feel stuck or compromised
Clarify what you absolutely will not do – and what you might be willing to try
Design 2–3 clean, concrete moves that protect your values and your influence

You can choose a time that works for you here:
https://calendly.com/groshenkoa/30-minute-leadership-clarity-call

From there, if it’s a good fit, we can also explore deeper work – from a focused 5-session 2026 Clarity & Strategy Sprint, to a 3-month Clarity Reset transformation program for senior managers, or external Executive & Leadership / Team & Leadership coaching formats for your organisation. But the first step is always the same: define the version of leadership you are actually willing to live.

Leadership Test

Where in your current role are you still telling yourself “I don’t do politics” – and what is one specific, clean political move you’re now willing to make in that situation to protect your people and your impact, without betraying your values?