Last Tuesday I sat in a conference room, watching two senior managers smile at each other while their words sliced like razor blades. One wanted the Asia-Pacific lead role. The other wanted to keep it. Between the quarterly projections and polite nods, I saw a quiet war unfold. You have probably seen it too. The sideways glance during a promotion announcement. The email that carefully excludes a key stakeholder. The sudden “collaboration” that just happens to put one person in the spotlight.
Here’s the truth: competing for power at work isn’t a sign of a toxic culture or a broken personality. It’s a human constant, older than offices and org charts. We all do it, whether we admit it or not. The question is how to do it without turning into someone you wouldn’t want to work with.
Why Do People Compete for Power at Work? The Hidden Evolutionary Drive
The drive to compete for power doesn’t start with corner offices and quarterly bonuses. It starts, according to Dr. Robert Hogan, with our oldest ancestors. Hogan, founder of Hogan Assessments and author of Personality and the Fate of Organizations, puts it bluntly. “The fundamental dynamic of organizational life is the individual search for power,” he says. Power means status and control of resources. And in evolutionary terms, that equals survival. More status historically meant more offspring. More resources meant a better chance for those offspring to thrive. Our brains never got the memo that the savannah turned into Slack channels.
Socioanalytic theory explains that humans have three core motives: getting ahead, getting along, and finding meaning. Getting ahead is the competition for power. It’s the part of you that wants the big title, the seat at the head of the table, the final say on the budget. And it’s universal. The workplaces themselves aren’t the cause of why we compete at work, though. People are the common factor in all work environments everywhere. Something fundamental exists in human nature that motivates us to compete.
So the colleague who lobbies for a promotion a little too loudly? The one who always “happens” to have coffee with the VP? They are not broken versions of a modern professional. They are operating on very old firmware. Understanding this can take some of the moral charge out of the whole thing. You’re not a bad person for wanting influence. You’re a human being doing what humans have always done.
How to Navigate Power Competition at Work: 5 Practical Strategies
Knowing why we compete doesn’t automatically make the daily dance easier. The desire to get ahead of others can carry us to unparalleled heights of innovation and productivity. Yet it can destroy reputations and teams. And it can do both simultaneously. So how do you channel the drive without being consumed by it? Here are five ways.
1. Name your ambition without shame
Ambition is a personality characteristic that measures how competitive, leaderlike, and energetic you appear at your best. Some people have sky-high ambition. Others score lower and prefer leading from behind. Both are fine. The trouble starts when you deny your natural level. A high-ambition person who pretends they don’t care about power will still compete, but in sideways, manipulative ways. Just admit you want influence. Say it out loud to a trusted mentor: “I want to shape the direction of this team.” Once it’s out in the open, you can compete cleanly.
2. Feed external competition; starve internal ones
Internal competition is jockeying for status within your own group. It can turn productive if managed well, but it often devolves into backstabbing. External competition is competing against other groups for markets, reputation, or resources. Channel your competitive fire outward. Rally your team to beat a rival company’s product. Chase an industry award. Make the enemy “out there,” not the person in the next cubicle. This shift alone has saved more workplace relationships than I can count.
3. Align your power play with a value bigger than you
Why you compete shapes what you compete for. Someone who values recognition will chase awards and public praise. Someone who values security will compete to build the most predictable, stable department. Connect your ambition to a deeply held value. Say you value aesthetics: compete to make the most user-friendly dashboard in the industry. Suddenly your power move isn’t about you. It’s about beauty or safety or quality. People will follow that kind of ambition. They will resist the kind that only serves your ego.
4. Build alliances by solving others’ problems
The clumsy power-seeker network by collecting contacts like trading cards. The smart one finds a way to make other influential people’s lives easier. Offer to take a tedious compliance task off a busy director’s plate. Flag a market shift before anyone else notices. Over time, you become indispensable. Your influence grows not because you grabbed it, but because people handed it to you willingly. Power built this way is stickier and a lot less lonely.
5. Create a personal “competition audit”
Every month, sit with a notebook and answer three questions. First: What power move did I make recently? Second: Did it create value for the organization, or just advance my position? Third: Would I feel comfortable explaining it to a junior colleague? If you can’t face a 25-year-old new hire and say, “Here’s how I influenced that decision,” something is off. The audit isn’t about guilt. It’s about calibration. Over time, you’ll see patterns. You’ll see where your competitive instincts spark real organizational good and where they just feed a hungry ghost inside you.
The Power Shift Framework: Turn Competition Into Contribution
When you feel that sharp competitive urge rise in your chest during a meeting, try this three-step mental switch I call the Power Shift.
Pause. Recognize the feeling. “Okay, I want to win right now. I want to be seen as the smartest person here.” Give it a name.
Shift. Ask yourself, “Who benefits if I get what I want?” Not just you. The client? The junior team members? The mission? If the list begins and ends with your own title and salary, shift the target. Find an outcome where your win also creates an organizational win.
Align. Reframe your next comment to land on that shared win. Instead of saying, “I think we should go with my proposal,” say, “This approach might help the customer get onboarded faster, which would reduce churn for the support team.” You still advance your idea. But now the power you seek is connected to a broader good.
This framework doesn’t suppress the drive to compete for power at work. It harnesses it. After a few weeks, colleagues start to trust your instincts even when you push hard because they sense your ambition is tethered to something bigger.
Internal vs. External Competition: Which Energy Are You Feeding?
The types of workplace competition matter more than the intensity. Internal competition pits team members against each other for limited status and resources. In a badly managed team, a single promotion cycle can turn friendly colleagues into paranoid spies. External competition, on the other hand, focuses energy outward. When a pharmaceutical team races to out-innovate a rival company, the competitive fire fuels creativity and resilience. Dr. Hogan notes, “Competition between groups is fierce. The most important problem in human affairs is who can put together an effective group and maintain their group’s viability over time.”
Look at your last big conflict at work. Were you fighting for a bigger slice of internal pie, or were you fighting to make your organization the best in its field? One drains energy. The other builds a legacy. The shift isn’t always easy. It takes a deliberate choice and a leader brave enough to point the competitive arrow outward instead of inward.
What Does a Competitive Personality Actually Look Like?
Ambition shows up on the bright side of personality as energy, social confidence, and drive. The Hogan Personality Inventory measures it as a scale that is neither good nor bad on its own. High scorers often rise quickly. They take charge. But they can also become overfocused on their own advancement, ignoring the collateral damage. Low scorers prefer to belong to a team and lead quietly, which can be highly effective in stable environments but might be overlooked in fast-moving, aggressive cultures.
The key insight: ambition predicts performance best in roles where getting ahead is a core requirement. A sales director who doesn’t compete for market share will struggle. A research scientist whose power moves are all about prestige might neglect the real science. Knowing your ambition profile isn’t about labeling yourself. It’s about choosing a context where your natural drive fits the game.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do people compete for power at work without being obvious about it?
They often use subtle strategies: strategically volunteering for high-visibility projects, aligning themselves with powerful mentors, framing their ideas as benefiting the group rather than themselves, and controlling the flow of information. The most effective power-seekers make their ambition look like service. But if every act of “service” coincidentally places them at the center of attention, that’s a pattern worth noticing.
Can competing for power at work actually improve team morale?
It can, when competition is external and the leader frames it as a shared mission. A team united against a competitor or a market challenge often feels more camaraderie and purpose. Internal competition can also boost morale temporarily if rewards are based on fair metrics and everyone feels they have a shot. But the moment competition starts feeling zero-sum and personal, morale crashes. The trick is designing competition so that everyone’s status rises together when the team wins.
What if I hate competing for power at work? How do I survive without playing politics?
First, recognize that “not competing” is still a stance that affects your power — it often means you cede influence to those who actively seek it. That can work if you’re in a role where quiet, reliable expertise is valued. But you can also build influence without playing games. Become indispensable through deep knowledge. Develop a reputation for fairness and reliability. That is a form of power, just a quieter one. And when you do need to advocate for a resource or a role, frame it as protecting the team or mission, not as a personal grab. You can compete for power at work and still feel like yourself.
Standing in that conference room last week, I watched the competition unfold and remembered something simple. Power isn’t just about access. It’s about what kind of environment you leave behind when the meeting ends. The ancient drive doesn’t go away. But you can aim it at something that matters.
