Networking Gets You In. Trust Keeps You There.

Over the past few years, while preparing Individual Development Plans (IDPs) for team members, I often recommended that they improve their networking skills. It was good advice — for visibility, collaboration, and career growth. But over time, one question kept bothering me: where does healthy networking end and organizational politics begin?

Over two decades in the automotive industry, I've seen this pattern repeat itself. Networking creates visibility. Trust creates influence. Confuse the two, and careers eventually stall.

Why Networking Actually Matters

Let's be clear about something first — networking is not the villain of this article. Careers built entirely in isolation, however talented the person, tend to plateau. Opportunities travel through relationships long before they travel through job boards. The engineer nobody knows outside their own team, however brilliant, will always be overlooked for the cross-functional project that could have defined their next five years.

Good networking does something specific and valuable: it makes your work visible to people who aren't close enough to see it every day. It connects you to context you wouldn't otherwise have — what's actually happening two levels up, which initiatives have real backing, where the organization is quietly heading before it's announced. Leaders who network well aren't just collecting names. They're building a wider field of vision.

The problem starts when networking stops being about visibility and starts being about leverage. When every relationship becomes transactional. When people meet you and can sense, almost immediately, that you're calculating what they're worth to you rather than being curious about who they are. That shift — subtle, and usually unconscious — is where networking quietly turns into something else entirely: the politics of give and take.

What the Research Shows

While reading about this topic, I came across a well-known Harvard Business Review article by Herminia Ibarra and Mark Hunter. Their research on emerging leaders strongly matched what I have observed throughout my career.

They identified three types of networking: Operational networking – building relationships with the people you need to do your current job. Personal networking – connecting with people outside your immediate team who can offer new ideas, advice, or opportunities. Strategic networking – building relationships with people across the organisation and industry who help you understand where the business is heading.

Their research found that many managers focus only on operational and personal networking. Very few invest enough time in strategic networking, yet this is often what separates future leaders from those who remain in the same role.

Another interesting point is that being busy networking is not the same as networking effectively. Attending every event or collecting hundreds of LinkedIn connections does not automatically build influence.

I also found similar advice from Dorie Clark in Harvard Business Review. She explains that people can usually tell when a relationship is built only for personal gain. Instead, she recommends building genuine relationships first and asking for help only when trust already exists.

Together, these ideas reinforce an important lesson. Good networking is intentional, authentic, and focused on learning and contributing. Bad networking isn't about meeting too many people — it's about building relationships only for short-term personal advantage.

A Tale of Two Leaders

Thinking about this more, two people I've worked with over the years come to mind, both engineering directors, promoted around the same time, both genuinely talented. The contrast between them still sticks with me.

The first call her Meera - treated networking the way Ibarra and Hunter's research would recommend, without ever having read the study. She stayed close to her immediate team, kept strong ties with two mentors from earlier in her career, and, notably, built relationships with people in finance, procurement, and regulatory affairs who had nothing to do with her day-to-day work but everything to do with where the business was heading. When a major platform decision came up eighteen months later, she was already in the room, not because she'd lobbied for a seat, but because the people making the decision already trusted her judgment on adjacent questions.

The second call him Rohan — worked just as hard at networking, by most conventional measures harder. He attended more events, sent more follow-up emails, remembered more names. But nearly every interaction had a faint undertone of positioning — who was in the room, what they could offer, how the conversation might be useful later. People noticed, the way people always eventually do. He built genuine reach. He never quite built trust. When the same platform decision came up, he wasn't in the room either — not because no one knew him, but because no one felt they knew enough about what he actually stood for to bring him into a decision that required real candor.

The difference wasn't effort. It was direction — one networked outward, toward genuine understanding of the business and the people in it; the other networked inward, toward personal advancement, and the difference showed up exactly when it mattered most.

Where Networking Turns Into Politics

The difference between networking and politics is simple. Networking asks: "Who can I learn from, and how can I build a meaningful relationship?" Politics asks: "Who can help my career, and how do I stay close to them?" Networking is about learning, collaboration, and trust. Politics is about personal gain.

Over the years, I've seen talented people damage their own reputation without even realizing it. They attend every meeting to increase their visibility rather than add value. They spend more time building relationships with senior leaders than supporting their own teams. Slowly, contribution takes a back seat to image.

The difficult part is that this approach often works in the short term. It brings visibility, recognition, and sometimes even faster promotions. But when the organisation faces a real challenge — a product failure, a missed deadline, or a difficult customer — visibility is no longer enough.

In those moments, people don't ask: "Who knows the most people?" They ask: "Who do we trust to solve the problem?" That is when the difference becomes clear. A network built on trust grows stronger during difficult times. A network built only for personal advantage quickly loses its value.

What Over-Networking Costs You and Your Organization

The effects of political networking are rarely immediate, which is why they're easy to ignore. At first, everything looks positive — more visibility, more invitations, and closer access to senior leaders. But over time, the hidden costs begin to appear.

For individuals, the first casualty is authenticity. Decisions are shaped by what will impress others rather than by what is right. Honest feedback becomes harder to receive because people stop speaking openly. Gradually, reputation shifts from "someone I trust" to "someone who is always managing perceptions."

Organizations pay an even bigger price. When visibility is rewarded more than credibility, the wrong people begin moving into the most influential roles. Promotions reflect who is seen rather than who consistently delivers. Over time, trust declines, collaboration weakens, and high performers become disengaged because they believe substance matters less than self-promotion.

Eventually, this is no longer an individual behaviour — it becomes the organization's culture. And culture always impacts performance. Poor leadership decisions, lower employee engagement, slower innovation, and the loss of trusted talent eventually find their way to the bottom line.

The best organizations don't reward the largest networks. They reward the people others choose to follow when the stakes are high.

A Practical Framework: The 5C Network

Over the years, I've found that strong professional relationships are built on five simple qualities. I call it the 5C Network. These are not networking techniques — they are habits that build trust over time.

Credibility — Your reputation speaks before you do. Deliver consistently, keep your commitments, and let your work build your network.

Curiosity — Build relationships because you want to learn, not because you want something. Ask questions, listen carefully, and understand other people's challenges.

Consistency — Don't reach out only when you need help. Stay connected, support others, and be dependable in both good times and difficult ones.

Contribution — Give before you ask. Share knowledge, make introductions, or help solve someone else's problem without expecting an immediate return.

Character — How you treat people who have nothing to offer you says more about your leadership than how you treat senior executives. Character is the foundation of lasting trust.

None of these qualities build a network overnight. But together, they create relationships that survive job changes, reorganisations, and difficult times.