This is one of the harder workplace skills to develop.
Everyone has one. Not everyone admits it.
At work, people present themselves as focused on team success, customer satisfaction, or company growth. But if you watch closely, you’ll notice something else running in the background. A personal agenda that shapes their real priorities.
I learned this the hard way during a project where everyone was supposedly aligned on “delivering value to customers.” Sarah kept pushing for more market research. “We need to understand user needs better,” she’d say. Tom insisted on additional security reviews. “Customer data protection is paramount.” Lisa wanted expanded testing phases. “Quality can’t be compromised.”
All noble priorities, all seemingly customer-focused. And all completely stalling the project.
It took me weeks to realize what was really happening: Sarah was protecting her reputation after a previous product launch failed. Tom was avoiding any decision that might make him accountable if something went wrong. Lisa was positioning herself as the quality champion to advance her case for a promotion.
None of them were lying.
They genuinely believed they cared about customers. But their unconscious priority was managing their own professional risk and image.
This isn’t necessarily malicious. It’s human. People are optimizing for something—career advancement, recognition, security, control, or just being right. The problem comes when there’s a gap between what they say they care about and what they actually prioritize.
What I’ve learned about reading hidden agendas: it’s one of the harder workplace skills to develop, but the payoff is huge. Most hidden agendas revolve around ego, not business goals. People are protecting their image, advancing their status, or avoiding threats to their self-concept.
The more skilled someone is professionally, the better they get at disguising their real agenda, even from themselves. When you can see what’s really driving someone’s behavior, you can analyze their interests, weigh them against yours, and determine your strategy accordingly.
The gap between surface presentation and actual priorities isn’t always conscious. People often believe their own narrative. But their actions reveal what they’re really optimizing for.
Great post as always.. I will surely use this in my future role(s).