Ankit, Priyanka & Brijesh

    Ankit delivered results and had a great manager in Priyanka — so why did his salary hike never come? A true story of political awareness from Stars at India Inc.

    Ankit, Priyanka & Brijesh

    Ankit, Priyanka & Brijesh: Why Good Work and a Good Manager Still Weren't Enough

    Ankit did everything right. He hit his numbers, he had a manager who liked him and vouched for him, and he built solid relationships with the people around his desk. And yet, year after year, the salary hike he deserved never quite landed the way he expected. This is a true story from my book, Stars at India Inc., about the one blind spot that quietly caps careers even when the fundamentals are strong — and how to fix it without becoming someone you don't want to be.

    In short

    Where this sits on your Winning Kite

    Political Awareness is Trait #17 on the EQ — left — side of your Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework). It belongs to the Social Awareness cluster: the ability to read a room, an org chart, and the invisible currents of power that actually decide outcomes at work. You can be strong on Self-Awareness and Self-Management and still stall out in your career if this one trait is missing — which is exactly what happened to Ankit.

    The Story: A Multi-Office Company, a Good Manager, and an Invisible Ceiling

    Ankit worked for a company with multiple offices spread across different cities. Like most employees, his day-to-day world revolved around his immediate reporting line — and in Ankit's case, that meant Priyanka, his local manager at his branch.

    Ankit was diligent about that relationship. He delivered results consistently. He kept Priyanka informed, sought her guidance, and built genuine rapport with her over time. And Priyanka, to her credit, noticed. She recognized Ankit's work, she appreciated his consistency, and — importantly — she carried positive input about him back to the corporate office whenever she had the chance.

    On paper, this looks like exactly what career advice tells you to do: perform well, build a strong relationship with your manager, let your work speak for itself. Ankit had done all of it. But something was still missing, and it showed up at the one moment that mattered most — salary hike season.

    The Missing Piece: Brijesh

    Here is the detail that changed everything, and the one most people in Ankit's position never stop to notice: Priyanka was not the one who decided salary hikes. That decision sat one level above her, with her own boss — Brijesh — at the corporate office.

    Brijesh was the actual decision-maker. He had dozens, maybe hundreds, of people like Ankit across the company's various branches to consider every cycle. He didn't know Ankit personally. He hadn't seen Ankit's work up close. All he had, if anything, was a secondhand summary passed along by Priyanka — one data point among many competing for his limited attention and budget.

    Ankit had spent his energy almost entirely on relationships at his own level and below — his local manager, his peers, his immediate team. He never made the effort to be visible to Brijesh directly. He never found a reason to be in the same room as the person who actually signed off on hikes, never made sure his contributions reached Brijesh in his own words rather than filtered through someone else's summary.

    The result: when it came time to decide who got the bigger hike and who got the standard one, Ankit was not a known, remembered, valued name to the person deciding. He was a line item Priyanka had spoken well of. And a good word from a manager, however sincere, rarely carries the same weight as direct visibility with the decision-maker himself.

    The Lesson: Political Awareness and Political Savvy Are Two Different Skills

    I teach this distinction in every leadership session I run: political awareness is understanding how power actually works in your organization — who has it, who influences it, and what the real decision-making chain looks like beneath the org chart. Political savvy is what you do with that understanding — how you use it to build relationships, create visibility, and influence outcomes in your favour, without compromising your integrity.

    Ankit had neither, not because he lacked ability, but because nobody had ever told him to look one level higher. He assumed that because his direct manager was happy with him, the system would take care of the rest. In a small, flat organization, that might even be true. But in a company with multiple offices and a corporate layer making centralized decisions, the person who likes your work and the person who decides your hike are very often not the same human being.

    This is the trap I see again and again with hardworking professionals across India — in IT companies, manufacturing plants, banks, and government-linked organizations alike. They confuse "my manager likes me" with "I am visible to the people who decide my future." Those are not the same thing, and the gap between them is exactly where careers quietly stall.

    What Ankit Should Have Done Differently

    If Ankit had been politically aware, here is what would have changed, without him becoming manipulative or disloyal to Priyanka in any way:

    1. Map the real decision-maker, not just the reporting line

    Ankit needed to ask himself a simple question early on: who actually approves my salary hike? Not who manages me day to day — who signs off on the number. The moment you identify that person, your entire relationship-building strategy should expand to include them, even if only occasionally and respectfully.

    2. Create legitimate visibility with Brijesh

    This doesn't mean going around Priyanka or undermining her authority — that would backfire badly and damage the very relationship that was working well. It means finding legitimate, professional occasions to be visible to Brijesh directly: presenting in a company-wide review, contributing an idea in a forum Brijesh attends, sending a well-timed, well-framed update on a big win that reaches Brijesh's inbox alongside Priyanka's. Small, honest moments of visibility, repeated over time, are what political savvy actually looks like in practice.

    3. Use data to make your contribution undeniable

    When Brijesh does eventually hear about Ankit, the impression should not rest on Priyanka's word alone — it should be backed by numbers, outcomes, and specifics that Ankit himself has made sure travel upward. Connecting your work to the company's stated goals, in language decision-makers use in board rooms, does more for your visibility than being liked at your own level ever will.

    4. Understand cultural and organizational nuance

    In many Indian corporate structures — with multiple offices, hierarchical layers, and decisions genuinely centralized at the top — this pattern repeats constantly. The employee who assumes flat, informal fairness gets quietly overtaken by the one who understood, without cynicism, that visibility has to be built deliberately at every level that matters.

    Why This Isn't "Playing Politics" in the Negative Sense

    I want to be direct about something, because this is where a lot of good, sincere professionals resist this trait: political awareness is not about flattery, backstabbing, or manipulation. Daniel Goleman's foundational work on emotional intelligence places social awareness — reading people, groups, and power structures accurately — right alongside empathy as a core EQ competency, and that's exactly the spirit in which I teach this trait. Ankit didn't need to scheme against anyone. He needed to see the organization as it actually was, not as he wished it to be, and act on that clarity with integrity.

    The negative version of political awareness — gossip, favouritism, undermining colleagues — is a corruption of the skill, not the skill itself. What Ankit was missing was the honest, respectful version: understanding where real power sits, and making sure your genuine value is visible there too, not just at your immediate reporting level.

    How This Shows Up Across Careers

    I've seen this exact pattern in almost every organization I've trained in — the Indian Army, BRO, RBI, BARC, JSW Steel, and hundreds of corporate teams besides. The person with the best output is rarely automatically the person who rises fastest. The person who rises fastest is usually the one who combined strong output with deliberate, honest visibility at every level of the decision chain — not just the nearest one.

    This is why I built political awareness into the EQ side of the Winning Kite framework as its own trait, distinct from relationship-building in general. You can have wonderful relationships with your peers and your immediate manager — the Right, RQ, side of your kite — and still be politically blind if you never map where real organizational power sits. EQ and RQ work together, but they are not identical, and Ankit's story is the clearest proof of that gap I know.

    Bringing It Home

    Ankit's story doesn't have a dramatic villain. Priyanka wasn't wrong to like him. Brijesh wasn't wrong to make decisions with the information available to him. The gap was entirely Ankit's — a gap of awareness, not effort or ability. And that is actually good news, because awareness is the most trainable part of emotional intelligence. Once you see the pattern, you cannot unsee it, and you start building the kind of visibility that turns good work into recognized, rewarded work.

    If you are doing everything "right" at work and still feel like recognition, hikes, or promotions keep slipping past you, ask Ankit's question before anyone else has to ask it for you: who is actually deciding, and do they know who I am? For a structured way to build this and the other 24 EQ, RQ, and PQ traits into your team's everyday habits, explore our Signature Corporate Training Programs or browse the full set of corporate training topics we run for organizations across India.

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    Avinash Chate

    TEDx Speaker · Founder, The Future Corporate · Author of Stars at India Inc.

    Avinash has trained the Indian Army, BRO, RBI, BARC, JSW Steel and 1000+ corporate leaders across India. His work focuses on leadership, emotional intelligence and behavioural training rooted in Indian values and modern business needs.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    What is political awareness in the workplace?

    Political awareness is the ability to read how power, relationships, and decision-making actually work in an organization — who has influence, who reports to whom, and who genuinely decides outcomes like promotions and salary hikes — and to act on that understanding respectfully.

    Why did Ankit not get a salary hike despite good performance and a supportive manager?

    Ankit delivered strong results and had a good relationship with his manager, Priyanka, but he never built visibility with Brijesh, Priyanka's boss and the actual decision-maker on salary hikes at the corporate office. Priyanka could recommend him, but she was not the one deciding — so Ankit stayed invisible where it mattered most.

    Is political awareness the same as office politics or flattery?

    No. Political awareness is about understanding real power structures and building genuine, respectful visibility with decision-makers. Office politics in the negative sense — flattery, backstabbing, favouritism — is a corruption of the same skill. Avinash Chate teaches political awareness as an EQ trait, not a manipulation tactic.

    How can I build political awareness without feeling fake or manipulative?

    Start by observing who actually makes the decisions that affect you, then build authentic visibility — share results directly with them occasionally, ask for their perspective, attend forums where they are present. It is about being seen doing real work, not flattery. This is one of the 25 traits on the EQ side of the Winning Kite (KITE Leadership Framework).

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