How Office Politics Became the Most Toxic Religion in Our Working Lives

If there were ever a religion that refused to die in Bangladesh—even as modernity bulldozes everything in its path—it would be the quiet, persistent, ever-evolving religion of office politics. It has no prophets, no scriptures, and no spiritual promise. But it has millions of followers, a nationwide congregation, and a level of devotion that would make ancient priests jealous.

Office politics is the most widely practised faith in this country. And like all dangerous religions, it demands total loyalty, thrives on fear, and rewards the worst among us.

This reflection began on World Mental Health Day, when a corporate “coach” on LinkedIn wrote a condescending sermon about how office politics is necessary for survival. His thesis was simple: if you are being attacked, learn to attack; if you are ignored, learn to manipulate; if you want to rise, learn to flatter.

This is not advice. It is a manifesto of cowardice.

In Bangladesh, office politics is not the background noise of organisational life—it is the main soundtrack. It overwhelms productivity, suffocates creativity, and turns workplaces into battlefields where competence is treated as a threat and mediocrity as a qualification.

Walk into any office—public, private, NGO, multinational—and you will find the same characters.
The Gatekeepers: middle managers who have never led anything but believe their true calling is obstruction.
The Loyalists: those who confuse obedience with intelligence.
The Whisperers: experts in gossip who treat misinformation as currency.
The Survivors: the few employees doing all the real work while quietly counting the days until burnout.

None of them are evil. They are simply products of a culture where fear is the primary leadership tool and insecurity the dominant emotion.

Office politics thrives here because workplaces are rarely safe spaces. Decisions are made in corridors, not conference rooms. Promotions are earned through proximity, not performance. And people in power are often too fragile to allow talent to bloom around them.

The tragedy is this: talented professionals don’t leave jobs because of workload. They leave because of emotional corrosion. They leave because loyalty is weaponised, because transparency is viewed as rebellion, and because the office becomes a stage where everyone must act—but nobody is allowed to speak the truth.

One of the most bizarre features of Bangladeshi workplaces is that adults reenact childhood traumas with astonishing dedication. Some never learned autonomy and thus become micromanagers. Some never received validation and thus become tyrants. Others grew up fearing authority and thus cling to it like a security blanket. These are not leaders. They are emotional refugees wearing ID cards.

The cost of this culture is enormous—not just financially, but psychologically.
Innovation dies.
Collaboration dies.
Curiosity dies.
And worst of all, courage dies.

When people are punished for speaking up, they learn to stay silent. When people are penalised for honesty, they learn to lie. When people are rewarded for pretending, they learn to hide. The entire workforce becomes an assembly line of caution, caution, and more caution.

And then organisations wonder why their brightest employees leave.

But the biggest myth of all is the idea that office politics is inevitable. It isn’t. It is a choice—a collective cowardice. And like all cowardice, it survives only because too many people participate in it.

There is a different path. A path where leadership is not a performance of authority but an act of service. A path where decisions are transparent, communication is honest, and mistakes are not treated as character defects but opportunities for learning. A path where people are rewarded for competence rather than compliance.

Bangladesh is full of intelligent, hardworking professionals who want to build meaningful careers. But they are trapped in systems that value survival tactics over strategic thinking. They are assessed not by the value they create but by the egos they manage.

If we want workplaces that grow instead of decay, that inspire instead of drain, that nurture instead of punish, we must stop treating office politics as a natural phenomenon. We must call it what it is: a culture of cowardice.

And cowardice has never been a leadership skill.

Not for individuals.
Not for organisations.
Not for nations.