Competition
Competition plays a big role in corporate culture. From a leadership perspective, the energy that goes into competition should always have an external motivation; to beat the market competitors. To energize corporate culture, leadership will often promote superior offerings and dominance in the marketplace, over the competition.

Leadership’s view of external competition, as the company competes within the marketplace:
[√] Employees should perform like a winning sports team; combining individual performance and teamwork.
[√] Employees should try to work harder and smarter than the competitor’s employees.
[√] Employees should be loyal to the company.
[√] Employees should respect the decisions of leadership, as they attempt to win marketshare.

When it comes to company-versus-company competition, employees will have no problem rooting for the home team. The differences come into play when the topic changes to employee-versus-employee internal competition. Company leadership is well aware of the competition that exits within the ranks, but most leaders do not know the extent or understand their influence.

Leadership’s view of internal competition, as employees compete for compensation, title, respect and status within various unwritten hierarchies:
[√] Employees should fully respect, cooperate and help each other.
[√] Employees should give greater priority to company advancement over personal career advancement.
[√] Employees should follow the rules of good sportsmanship, in addition to documented company policies.
[√] Employees should respect the decisions of leadership regarding roles, responsibilities, compensation, titles and status within the company.

Now, let’s take those same leadership check boxes and add the point of view of a fiercely competitive and internally focused employee.

Leadership:
[√] Employees should fully respect, cooperate and help each other.
Employee:
… Don’t listen to William, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Leadership:
[√] Employees should give greater priority to company advancement, over personal career advancement.
Employee:
… If I get passed-up for the next promotion, I’m going to start looking for another job.

Leadership:
[√] Employees should follow the rules of good sportsmanship, in addition to documented company policies.
Employee:
… I’ll start helping the sales department when they start splitting their commissions with me.

Leadership:
[√] Employees should respect the decisions of management, regarding roles, responsibilities, compensation, titles and unwritten hierarchies.
Employee:
… Mary only got that promotion because she’s friends with the manager.

Internal employee-versus-employee competition
Employee competition has to exist, as employees need to compete against one another, as well as outside hires, for career advancement. Certainly, friendly competition and good sportsmanship are prevailing rules of conduct, however, where there can be spoils of war, there will be war. We’ve all seen situations at work where internal competition looked more like a trailer for a reality TV show. Every dispute, rude comment, reason for tears and verbal altercation that has happened on reality TV, has happened at a place of employment. This must includes shows on dating, since roughly 15% of couples have met at work. It’s true, political correctness at the workplace will control communications to a greater degree than the wrath of television censors, but changing what people say will always be easier than changing what people think.

The psychology behind jealous comparison, peer rivalry and status envy goes far beyond the reach of this web-labyrinth, however, leadership must recognize the fact that such infantile behavior will exist within their corporate culture. Signs of this behavior will include:
• Individual rivalries.
• Individual gain superseding team advancement.
• Departmental rivalries.
• Cliques.
• A fixation on status quo within cliques.
• Consistent over-valuing of management relationships (brown-nosing).
• Unwritten hierarchies holding more influence than structured titles or positions.
• Individual feelings of inferiority or superiority.
• Over-focus on the words and actions of other employees.
• Hypersensitivity to the words and actions of other employees.
• Necessary navigation of company politics.
• Perpetual gossip.

Although, a company that adopts a Culture of Experts will not be exempt from internal competition, the focus onto individual work-process does limit infantile distractions. Workers who truly forge their own path will not see competition as their direction will not be comparable.