To acquire and retain power, a leader must skillfully organize politics—informal approaches to gaining power through means other than merit or luck. Organizational power is derived from many sources including position power (legitimate, reward, coercive, and information) and personal power (expert, reference, and prestige). Power also stems from ownership, providing resources, capitalizing upon opportunity, and being close to power. Leaders intent on increasing their power are advised to develop a plan. Such a plan includes setting a goal, measuring the cost-effectiveness of politicking, conducting a power analysis of powerful people, and analyzing what type of politics is played at the top. Certain actions are to be taken to become an empowering leader. These include providing a positive emotional atmosphere giving visible rewards, expressing confidence, fostering initiative and responsibility, building on success, and practicing super leadership. The quest for power causes political behavior. Specific contributing factors include the pyramidal shape of organizations, competition for limited resources, subjective performance standards, and environmental uncertainty. Emotional insecurity and Machiavellianism also contribute to political behavior. To make an effective use of organizational politics, a leader must be aware of the specific political tactics and strategies. Ethical methods can be divided into those, aimed directly at gaining power, building relationships and avoiding political blunders. Unethical and devious tactics, such as the embrace or demolished strategy, constitute another category of political behavior. Carried to an extreme, organizational politics can hurt an organization and its members. Being aware of the causes and types of political behavior can help leaders deal with the problems. Setting good example of non-political behavior is helpful, as it threatens to publicly expose devious politicking.

To exercise influence a leader must have power. To acquire and retain power a leader often skillfully uses politics. No matter how a leader uses ideas for constructive change, without political backing, those ideas will not be implemented. As used here the term 'organizational politics' refers to informal approaches to gain power through means other than merit or luck. Politics are played to achieve power, either directly or indirectly. The power may be achieved in such diverse ways as being promoted, receiving a larger budget or other resources like obtaining more resources for one's work group. In this contextthe definition of organizational politics is non-evaluative. This paper covers the nature of power through which leaders acquire power and empower others and the use and control of organizational politics.