Cell C CPO Juba Mashaba, Floatpays CPO Andisa Liba and Shirley Zinn unpack the root cause of workplace bullying and toxicity during an HR Indaba 2024 panel discussion.
Corporate politics, much like the dynamics within government, is an inevitable part of work. Whether in a multinational corporation or a small business, power struggles, alliances, and competing agendas shape how decisions are made and cultures evolve. During the 2024 HR Indaba, panellists explored the challenges of managing corporate politics and HR’s role in cultivating a positive, transparent culture amid these dynamics.
“Across the six organisations I’ve worked in throughout my career, all with different leaders, cultures, strategies and in varying industries,” Cell C CPO Juba Mashaba noted. “All of them had corporate politics.”
He explained that, when things go bad and the organisation isn’t performing well, there’s an increase in these politics. “Once an organisation starts seeing an impact on its performance, it raises the risk of people losing their jobs and they become desperate. Those who are adept at corporate politics will step up during this time.”
Juba said it ultimately comes down to leadership. “Most of the time, leaders take their eyes off the ball because of the pressure they are under. They focus on themselves and end up forgetting their leadership role. Those who don’t like engaging in or fall victim to corporate politics, end up falling away.”
Fellow panellist, Floatpays CPO Andisa Liba, agreed, adding: “Bullies are notorious high performers – some in critical positions. Sometimes there are no succession plans or replacements, making them even more important to the organisation.”
Fight fire with integrity
Corporate politics has some really tough consequences, including micro-bullying, toxic leadership and egos getting in the way of values. “Toxicity can have a detrimental cost on an organisation,” former HR leader and currently a member on various boards Shirley Zinn said. “It influences our ability to be ethical, to communicate, and to be honest, which has an impact on our decisions, behaviours, experiences, and culture.”
“If we don’t create healthy organisations, we run the risk of great resignations… or potential court cases,” moderator and The Strategist CEO Abdullah Verachia emphasised.
He explained that, over the last two years, he’s seen an increase in workplace toxicity. Abdullah asked the panel how one goes about navigating this toxicity with integrity.
“I’ve seen instances where leaders have managed to deal with corporate politics by shifting the negative aspects of it out. It requires decisive leadership,” Juba answered, using an example of one of his previous roles. “The VP of sales was hitting his numbers month in and month out, but one day his office had been cleaned out. When I asked what had happened, the organisation explained that he was not aligning with the culture, and they took their culture very seriously. He received three warnings to fix the problem before they let him go.”
The only way this works is if the exco works together, however. “It has to start with the CEO and what they are willing to tolerate. I don’t talk a lot outside of the exco. I present them with the HR agenda and we decide who is accountable for which part. Each of us then goes to our respective business units and puts it into action,” Juba said.
“People belong to line managers, which means they must manage their people: we just remind them how.”
However, many people aren’t comfortable verbalising their discomfort with a situation at work because it’s not a safe space, or because of how crucial the individual is to the organisation’s performance.
The language of corporate politics
Andisa pointed out: “If we refuse to accept that an individual is bad for the culture and we lose 10 people because of them, then where does that leave the company from an ethical and moral perspective?”
“There’s an inherent problem with the language we use when we talk about politics in the workplace. For the last couple of years, we’ve spent a lot of time revising our EVPs, but the only things we’ve changed are the grammar and buzzwords to put up more smoke and mirrors. We need to talk openly and transparently about the problems in order to solve them,” she said.
She referred to Juba’s earlier example, where the VP of sales was silently exited from the company. “There were senior leaders protecting that person’s exit, otherwise Juba would have known about it sooner. And so we have to interrogate what we’re hiding behind confidentiality agreements. We have to interrogate our values and morals, because what does it say of us when we decide to look the other way and be complicit with what’s going on.”
Juba explained that CHROs have to influence the rest of the leadership team to think beyond performance and consider culture.
