There is a particular kind of workplace frustration that many capable people recognise, even if they rarely say it out loud because it can sound arrogant, impolite or politically risky.
It is the frustration of looking around and thinking, “How is this person in a position to decide, block, judge, approve or undermine my work when they do not seem to understand the work as well as I do?”
Someone with less expertise may have more authority, someone with less judgement may control the decision, and someone who has not done the work may still be able to shape the perception of the work.
When this happens, the issue is rarely only professional, because it quickly becomes emotional and touches fairness, identity, recognition, security, dignity and self-worth.
This came up recently in a coaching conversation, and the question that opened the real work was not “How do we deal with the politics?”, but “What happens inside you when people you experience as less competent have more power than you?”
The answer was immediate: a deep sense of injustice, and then underneath the injustice, anger; underneath the anger, fear; and underneath the fear, the need to protect value.
On the surface, it may look like irritation with incompetence, but underneath something much more personal may be activated: “My work is not being seen, my judgement is not being trusted, my value is being questioned, and my results are not enough to protect me.”
This is why the reaction can feel so intense, because it is rarely just about the other person; it is about what their power seems to threaten in us.
For many high-performing leaders, competence becomes a form of protection: if I am excellent enough, I will be safe; if I deliver enough, I will be respected; if the results are undeniable, nobody will be able to question my value; and if I become the person who knows, solves, fixes and carries, I will not have to play games.
This strategy can work for a while, and in fact it often works very well because it gets people promoted, builds credibility, creates results and makes them trusted, respected and needed.
But at a certain level, competence alone is no longer enough, not because competence stops mattering, but because power does not always follow competence.
Power often follows relationships, timing, perception, alliances, fear, ego, history, politics, visibility, informal influence and sometimes pure irrationality, which can feel almost unbearable to people who have built their identity around merit, performance and doing excellent work.
This is where many strong professionals get stuck: they either fight harder and try to prove even more, withdraw in disgust because they decide the system is too political or dishonest, or over-function in the hope that if the work is good enough, the politics will somehow become irrelevant.
But politics does not disappear just because we dislike it, and refusing to read power does not make us more virtuous; it often just makes us more exposed.
This does not mean becoming fake, manipulative or self-betraying, and that is an important distinction because, for many people with strong values, “playing politics” feels dirty precisely because they associate it with dishonesty, ego, manipulation or covering up incompetence.
But what if political skill is not about becoming less honest, but about becoming more aware?
Aware of who really decides, who feels threatened, who needs recognition, which relationships need care before a decision is made, which fears, interests and alliances are in the room, and when telling the truth directly will help versus when it will simply make you the easiest person to attack.
That is not manipulation; it is leadership maturity.
It is the ability to protect the work without constantly exposing yourself, to stay in your integrity without being naïve, to understand power without worshipping it, and to respond rather than react.
This is where the inner work becomes essential, because when anger is driving, it can feel like clarity, but often it is fear wearing armour.
The anger says, “This is unacceptable,” and maybe it is, but the deeper question is: “What is this anger trying to protect?”
Is it your value, your dignity, your safety, your identity, your need to be seen as competent, or your fear of being excluded, misrepresented or made irrelevant?
When we can answer that question honestly, something shifts, not because the situation suddenly becomes fair or the politics magically disappear, but because we stop letting the wound lead the strategy.
This matters enormously for senior leaders, especially those operating in complex, fast-moving or highly political environments, because the more senior you become, the more your success depends not only on what you know, but on your ability to navigate people who may not think like you, decide like you or value what you value.
The next level of leadership is not simply being right; it is learning how to be effective in systems that are not always rational.
It is learning how to protect your value without constantly having to prove it, how to influence without losing yourself, how to read power without becoming cynical, how to stay strategic when your nervous system wants to fight, and how to anchor your value internally so that every external slight, irrational decision or political move does not feel like a verdict on who you are.
This does not mean accepting incompetence, staying silent or becoming passive; it means choosing your move from a place of power rather than injury.
Sometimes the right move is to speak, sometimes it is to wait, sometimes it is to build an alliance, sometimes it is to repair a relationship you did not damage simply because the relationship still matters, and sometimes it is to stop expecting competence to protect you and start building the political intelligence that allows your competence to have impact.
That is a hard lesson for many high performers, but it is a necessary one because, in real organisational life, being excellent is not always enough.
You also need to understand the room, the fears behind the resistance, who has formal power, who has informal influence and who feels they have something to lose, while doing all of this without abandoning your values.
That, to me, is one of the most sophisticated forms of leadership: not just delivering results, not just being competent and not just being right, but staying clear, grounded and self-respecting in systems where power and competence do not always sit in the same chair.
When you can do that, you stop fighting every battle as if your value depends on winning it, and you start choosing your battles because your value is already yours.
If you recognised yourself in this, maybe the work is not simply to become even more competent, but to learn how to protect your value, read power more clearly, influence without betraying yourself and stop letting every irrational decision feel like a verdict on who you are.
This is exactly the kind of work I do with leaders in coaching: I help high-performing professionals navigate power dynamics, organisational politics, visibility, influence and self-leadership without losing their integrity or their sense of self.
I am opening 5 discovery calls for leaders who are navigating this kind of challenge, so DM me with the word POWER and let’s explore whether coaching could support your next leadership shift.
