Every company has an organisation chart.
Corporate mafia is when the real power at work sits outside the organisation chart.
It usually involves a combination of:
1. Loyalty over merit – Bosses promote, protect or recommend their own people.
2. Information networks – Certain people know things before everyone else does.
3. Access to power – One member may have direct access to the CEO, board, founder or influential leader.
4. Mutual protection – If one member screws up, others defend them or make the problem “disappear.”
5. Gatekeeping – If you want that promotion, budget, project, or leadership role, remember, “support” matters.
6. Retaliation or exclusion – Challenge one person and suddenly the whole network becomes unfriendly.
7. Unwritten rules – Nobody announces that the group exists. But. Everybody. Knows.
This happens when office politics stops being social and starts becoming a power structure.
Unlike a corporate clique, the corporate power has power.
But remember, you don’t have to be part of the mafia to build influence at work.
Build your reputation, build relationships, and be good at what you do.
Understand where the power sits, but never become so dependant on powerful people that your career collapses when they leave.
People come, people go.
But your credibility, that should stay. Always.
Think about it.
xoxoxo, AuntyHR
