In today's world of constant layoffs and restructuring, it's no longer enough to just be good at your job. Leadership and career advancement nowadays requires an intimate knowledge of power dynamics and a mastery of politics, and in Power Plays, a new weekly advice column on Portfolio.com, that's exactly what we'll be providing as we help to answer your most pressing career-related questions.

Our expert columnist is Dr. Ron Brown, who's been coaching executives and managers on career management and leadership for over 25 years. Please send us your questions and we'll answer as many as possible in the coming weeks and months. 

Our company just merged with another firm and the new managers have come in to clean house. Any tips on what I can do to improve my chances of not getting taken out with the trash?

You need to find out who the players are on your side that are most likely to survive and flourish in the newly merged company, and align yourself with them. Who are they? People whose positions are all but indispensable—e.g., a marketing exec in a marketing-driven company, or the head of engineering at a tech company—but more than that, pay attention to whose budgets are approved and who plays politics well.

Not everyone has the ability or willingness to subordinate themselves to new masters, and some people are better at it than others. Also, take a look at the types of personalities that have succeeded at the acquiring firm to get a read on who at your own company is best-positioned to succeed. Then watch their moves, see who they're connecting with, pay attention to which meetings they're being invited to, and then reinforce your relationship with them—you don't want to be on their periphery.

A while back I was advising on a merger between two oil companies and there was one executive whom most people didn't expect to survive the merger because he seemed to have a domineering personality. But I saw him size up the situation and find a way to mesh his personality with a key executive on the other side and hold onto his position. I saw him a few years ago, and he's risen to become one of the top five execs in the merged organization.

At the same time, get yourself noticed by new management. Many of your colleagues are probably avoiding contact with the new bosses as they wait for the axe to fall, but now is really the time to be aggressive. Offer them a tour of your department, or make a point of introducing yourself to them at social occasions—anything to make sure they know who you are and what you do. The key is to work early to build up relationships before a more permanent structure is implemented.

My group recently got a new boss who turned out to be someone I used to work with at a previous job. For a variety of personal and other reasons, I didn't do particularly well at that other job. Should I bring that up with her, or just put my head down and show her that I can do a good job now?

Don't mention it. Your task with a new boss or within a new company is to protect and project your brand. Any discussion of poor performance in the past diminishes that brand, and opens things up to subjective interpretations of why you didn't do well, who thought you didn't do well, etc. You also don't want to bring up details about your inability to perform tasks that may still be required at your current job.

If your past experience does come up, focus on how your new job and your new company is a much better fit for you and your skill set. Any detailed discussion of the past should have the most positive reflection on your present strength, so ideally you should have a ready answer about what you learned or how you turned the mistake into an asset.

But you could also pull a little C.Y.A. by marshaling your own supporters at your current company to talk to your new boss about how well you've been doing there. The idea is to not just sit back and let events unfold, but to tilt them in your favor where possible.

Dr. Ron Brown is a leading expert in the fields of leadership development and organizational change. He is the founder and president of Banks Brown, a management consulting firm that specializes in providing skills to optimize the performance of leaders and organizations. He can be reached at rbrown@banksbrown.com and 415-788-5444.