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POLITICAL SKILL - A SOCIAL SKILL
Marian Baltazar
Class of 1980, University of the Philippines College of Manila
AB Political Science
Each individual possesses social skills and one of them is political skill. Even when we were still children, we
have already experienced politics. That is very true when we vote for whoever we think can best do a particular
job or official in our class or the school as a whole. We don’t really vote for whose popular but we pretend to
be like grown-ups and pretend to do what grown-ups do. We actually vote for who is the most popular or
maybe for the prom king and queen. We even vote for the leaders of the student council. This is so because
politics is a part of who we are.
Politics are inherent in all of us and if you negate this statement that would be a hoax. It would be fallacious to
argue with the fact that a person is not political. There are some people who are very skilled in politics and
their accomplishments that led to their success are pretty obvious and are also unquestionable. On the other
hand, there are also those who are not really skilled in politics and their own demise can be traced back to this
lack of skill in politics. Apparently, we can say that politics are the strategies that we can employ for us to
accomplish and attain our goals in life.
Let us take the example of Julius Caesar who was profoundly a skilled general and tactician whose proclivity
towards sharing his plunder proved him to be popular as a general. When he became the emperor, his lack of
political skill ultimately killed him. Likewise, the simple acts of an individual like casting a vote or maybe
supporting a cause clearly indicate one’s participation in the political practice. Moreover, we could say that
those leaders who are not politically skilled come up as leaders who are manipulative or self-serving. How then
could we figure out a person or a leader who has political skills?
Political skill had much in common with the other social skills and emotional intelligence. Most probably it is
the first social skill that focused on behavior at work. We can view these things in a leader and this only means
that they are individuals with the ability to motivate and to encourage others through their words, ideas and
behaviors. This only means that political skill can be also described as social competence or political savvy.
Political skill is the ability to know what to do and knowing how to do it in a manner that was effective and
convincing but not obvious.
Likewise, we could say that everyone take part in the practice of politics in one way or the other. Indeed all
these things that define political skill as a social skill is very much predominant with all kinds of leaders in any
field at any given organization in a society.
Questions for discussion:
1. How do you define a political skill?
2. How could you figure out if an individual has political skill? Explain your answer.
3. What is your understanding of a person who is a political savvy? Justify your answer.
4. Do you believe that everybody take part in politics? How?
5. Do you agree that lack of political skill will not pave the way to success? Why or why not?