Welcome back to the Look and Sound of Leadership, an ongoing series of

executive coaching tips designed to help you be perceived in the workplace

the way you want to be perceived.

I'm Tom Henschel, your executive coach,

and today we're talking about

Leading with Political Savvy,

Part 2.

Quimmin was tired. 2.

Quimmin was tired of losing.

As an art director in animation, she was constantly competing for scarce resources.

She saw other people get what they needed

when she didn't. Our conversation took place in the earliest days of her

contract to build an art department at a growing studio. She didn't want to lose

again. She hated the idea of having to play politics, but if that's what it took to

stop losing, she would do it. During our conversation about politics in Part 1, I had asked,

Wemin, what exactly does playing politics mean to you?

She answered,

It means doing whatever you have to do to win.

I've said it to some of the women I mentor.

To me, politics looks like a street fight in an alley at midnight. Bad things happen in politics. People get hurt

in politics. As we talked on, I told her my view of politics was much brighter because to me the only reason to play politics

was to act on behalf of your career.

...