Getting ahead in “murky waters”: Political skill, organizational politics, and leader-rated employee promotability

Abstract

While employees with political skill are more likely to be promoted, it remains unclear how they navigate promotion under organizational politics—where promotions are based not on job performance and merit but on politics and relationships. Drawing from social information processing theory, we contend that organizational politics can enhance, rather than hinder, the promotion opportunities of those politically skilled employees. We reason that when perceiving a high (vs. low) level of organizational politics, these employees may more actively cultivate desirable leader-member exchange (LMX) relationships with their leaders, thereby earning higher leader ratings of their promotability. Using data collected from a three-wave, multi-source field survey, we found that organizational politics accentuated, rather than attenuated, the positive effect of political skill on LMX, consequently elevating leader-rated promotability. These findings suggest that organizational practices conventionally perceived as hindrances to performance-based promotion, such as organizational politics, may serve as “murky waters” conducive to relationship-based promotion for certain cohorts, particularly those adept at using political skill to build close relationships with leaders.