Manager level politics
Management level politics are very different from individual contributor politics. As an individual contributor, you can generally stay clear of office politics altogether if you wish. You can just keep your head down and do your work. Politics at the individual contributor level tend to be mostly related to: Who gets the best office (or cube) Who learns the newest technology Who gets the best projects Who doesn't get their sales region cut Simply said, individual contributor politics are about you and your stuff. Moving from being an individual contributor to a manager is like moving from being single to being married. Now it’s not all about just you. Yes, it's still a little about you. But now, it’s also about your spouse or your team. As a manager, your ability to play the political game not only affects you, but it also affects the people in your department. Your politics are still primarily with your peers, but now your peers are the other managers. You will find that your manager peer group is much better at office politics than the individual contributors you used to compete with. You will also find that you will still be fighting for some of the same things, like office space, projects, sales territory and the like, but they will be at the department level, rather than on an individual basis. There will also now, however, be new manager-level politics in areas such as: Who works on which company-wide initiatives How next year’s budget dollars are [...]