The peer who's undermining you

You're not crazy.

That thing you noticed? The credit that got diluted, the meeting you weren't invited to, the praise that somehow made you feel smaller. You're not imagining it.

Or maybe you are. That's the problem.

Subtle undermining is the hardest workplace problem to solve because you can never be sure it's happening. The obvious backstab is almost easier because at least it's clear. The peer who operates in the gray zone, who does things that are technically fine but leave you diminished? That's the one who'll make you question your own perception.

Here's the thing most people miss: whether it's intentional almost doesn't matter. The impact is the same. Your visibility shrinks. Your influence erodes. Your confidence takes hits you can't quite explain to anyone, including yourself.

This newsletter is the playbook for figuring out what's actually happening and what to do about it. Not the HR version. The real version.

The Five Patterns

Not all undermining looks the same. Recognizing which type you're dealing with changes your response entirely. Get this wrong and you'll either overreact to nothing or underreact to something serious.

The Credit Diffuser doesn't claim your work as theirs. That would be too obvious. Instead, they dilute it. "This was really a team effort." "A lot of people contributed." "We all worked hard on this."

The effect is the same as theft: your contribution becomes invisible. But the method is socially unimpeachable. Who argues against collaboration? Who pushes back on someone being "generous" with credit?

Here's how to spot them: Watch what happens when leadership asks follow up questions. The Credit Diffuser positions themselves to answer. They become the face of the initiative while you become background. They'll cc you on the celebration email but somehow be the one presenting the results.

The Damning Praiser compliments you in ways that shrink your scope. "She's so detail oriented." "He's really reliable for execution." "Great at the tactical stuff." "You can always count on them to get it done."

Every compliment positions you as junior, operational, narrow. Never strategic. Never visionary. Never leadership material. It's praise that builds a ceiling.

This one is particularly insidious because you can't complain about it. "My colleague keeps... praising me?" sounds absurd. But track it over time and you'll notice a pattern: every public mention of your work emphasizes execution over strategy, reliability over innovation, support over leadership.

The tell: They praise your strengths in ways that imply limitations. "She's great at the details" implies she's not great at the big picture. "He's so reliable" implies he's not creative. Listen for what's being left unsaid.

The Selective Forgetter "forgets" to loop you in. Not every meeting, because that would be obvious. Just the ones where context is shared or decisions get made.

You're always one step behind. Always asking questions everyone else already knows the answer to. Always catching up while others are moving forward.

The pattern looks random but isn't. You get looped into the status meetings but not the strategy sessions. You're on the email thread but not the Slack channel where the real conversation happens. You're invited to the all hands but not the pre-meeting where alignment actually occurs.

What makes this devastating: information is power. The person who knows things first, who has context others don't, who can speak to decisions before they're announced? That person has influence. The Selective Forgetter systematically strips that from you while maintaining plausible deniability. "Oh, I thought you were cc'd. Must have been an oversight."

The tell: Map the meetings and conversations you're excluded from. If there's a pattern around topic, stakeholder, or timing, it's not random.

The Concern Troll raises "concerns" about your work in group settings, framed as helpfulness. "I just want to make sure we've thought about..." "I'm a little worried that..." "Has anyone considered whether..."

The concerns are often legitimate sounding but timed for maximum damage. Raised when you can't fully respond. In front of people who matter. Right before a decision point.

The genius of this approach: they're not attacking you. They're "being thorough." They're "pressure testing." They're "playing devil's advocate." All phrases that sound responsible while undermining your credibility.

Watch for the pattern: Do they raise concerns about everyone's work equally, or mostly yours? Do they bring concerns to you privately first, or save them for the audience? Do their concerns ever come with solutions, or just doubt?

The sophisticated Concern Troll will actually help you sometimes. They'll offer to "partner" on addressing the concerns they raised. Now they're involved in your work, positioned as the quality check, and have ongoing access to highlight problems.

The Parallel Builder doesn't undermine your work. They duplicate it. Their own version of your initiative. Their own relationship with your stakeholder. Their own solution to your problem.

By the time you notice, there are two of everything and leadership has to choose. Guess who's been positioning themselves while you were heads down executing?

This is common in matrixed organizations where ownership is ambiguous. The Parallel Builder exploits that ambiguity. They're not "taking" your project. They're "also working on" the same problem. They're "aligned" with you. Until suddenly there's a decision about which approach to pursue and somehow theirs has more momentum.

The tell: They ask a lot of questions about your work. They request access to your docs "to make sure we're aligned." They build relationships with your stakeholders "to understand the problem better." Then they build something parallel and present it as complementary until it becomes competitive.

The Diagnosis Framework

Here's the uncomfortable truth: sometimes you are being paranoid. People forget to cc you because they're busy. Colleagues praise your attention to detail because they genuinely admire it. Not everything is sabotage.

The difference between paranoia and pattern recognition is data. Before you respond to anything, you need evidence that distinguishes accident from intent. Otherwise you risk two bad outcomes: looking paranoid if you're wrong, or looking petty if you're right but can't prove it.

The Three Strike Rule. One incident is noise. Two is coincidence worth noting. Three in the same pattern is a signal worth acting on.

Track what happens, when, and who was present. Don't trust your memory because it's biased toward confirmation. Once you suspect someone, you'll start seeing evidence everywhere. Write it down with dates. Be specific. "Felt excluded" is not data. "Was not invited to the roadmap review on 10/15 despite being the feature lead" is data.

The Asymmetry Test. Does this person treat everyone this way, or just you? This is the single most important diagnostic question.

If they "forget" to loop in everyone, they're disorganized. If they only forget you, that's information. If they raise concerns about every project, they're a skeptic. If they only raise concerns about yours, that's targeted. If they diffuse credit for all work, they have a philosophy about collaboration. If they only diffuse credit for your work, that's strategic.

Do the research. Watch how they interact with others. Ask trusted peers if they've experienced similar patterns. The asymmetry test will tell you whether you're dealing with a personality trait or a targeted behavior.

The Benefit Test. Who gains from this behavior? Follow the incentives.

If their actions consistently benefit them at your expense, intent becomes less relevant than impact. You don't need to prove malice to address the problem. You don't need them to admit it. You just need to see the pattern clearly enough to respond to it.

Ask yourself: If this continues for another year, what happens to my visibility? My influence? My trajectory? If the answer is "nothing good," you need to act regardless of whether you can prove intent.

The Third Party Check. Find someone you trust with visibility into the situation. Not to complain, but to calibrate.

"I've noticed X happening a few times. Am I reading too much into this?" Their outside perspective can validate your concern or save you from an embarrassing overreaction. Choose someone who will be honest with you, not someone who will just agree.

The best third party check is someone who has worked with both of you. They can see patterns you might miss and can tell you if what you're experiencing is unusual or just how this person operates.

The Counter Moves

Once you've confirmed a pattern, you have options. The right response depends on the type of undermining, your relationship with the person, and the political dynamics of your organization. Here's what works.

For the Credit Diffuser: Preemptive framing. The battle for credit is won before the meeting, not during it.

Send the update email before the meeting. Present your own work whenever possible. If you can't present, send a pre-read that establishes authorship. "Ahead of tomorrow's review, here's the approach I developed for X." The written record exists before anyone can blur it.

Build direct relationships with the stakeholders who matter. Don't rely on the Credit Diffuser to represent your work. When leadership knows you, knows your thinking, has heard directly from you, credit diffusion becomes much harder.

For the Damning Praiser: Expand in real time. When someone praises you small, add to it gracefully.

"Thanks. The detail work was important, but I'm most proud of the strategic framework underneath it." "I appreciate that. What I'm actually excited about is the broader implications for our roadmap." Don't argue with the compliment. Build on it. Redirect without rejecting.

Over time, start establishing your own narrative. In your updates, in your presentations, in your conversations with leadership, consistently frame your work in strategic terms. Don't wait for others to position you correctly. Position yourself.

For the Selective Forgetter: Create unavoidable inclusion. Stop relying on them to loop you in. Build your own information channels.

Develop direct relationships with the stakeholders they're meeting without you. Set up your own recurring syncs. Get added to the Slack channels. Make it so that excluding you would be noticed by others, not just you.

When you discover you've been excluded, don't complain. Just show up informed anyway. "I heard from Sarah about the decision on X. Here's my input for next steps." The message is clear: excluding you doesn't work. You have other channels. You're informed regardless.

For the Concern Troll: Pre-answer the objection. If you know they're going to raise a concern, raise it yourself first.

"One thing we considered but decided against was X, because of Y and Z." Now their "concern" looks like they weren't paying attention. You've already addressed it. You've shown your thinking. They're left with nothing to add.

For recurring Concern Trolls, go further: invite them into the process early. "I'd love your input on this before I present it." Now they're co-owners. Their concerns become your concerns. And if they still sandbag you in the meeting after being included, you have a much clearer case that something's wrong.

For the Parallel Builder: Force the explicit choice. Don't let two initiatives coexist in ambiguity.

Surface the duplication to leadership. "I noticed they're also working on user activation. Should we combine efforts or explicitly divide scope? I want to make sure we're not duplicating work." This forces a decision. Either you get clear ownership, or the political game becomes visible.

The key is framing: you're not complaining, you're being efficient. You're not territorial, you're avoiding waste. Make it about the work, not the person.

The Direct Conversation

Sometimes the right move is to address it head on. Not aggressively, not accusatorially, but directly. Most people avoid this conversation because it feels confrontational. But done right, it's often the fastest path to resolution.

Focus on behavior and impact, not intent. You don't know their intent. You can't prove their intent. You don't need to. You do know what happened and how it affected you.

The script: "Hey, I wanted to talk about something I've noticed. In the last few [meetings/emails/projects], I've felt like [specific behavior]. I'm sure that wasn't intentional, but the impact has been [specific impact]. Can we figure out how to avoid this going forward?"

Notice what this script does: It's specific. It focuses on your experience, not their character. It gives them an out ("I'm sure that wasn't intentional") while making clear you've noticed. It asks for collaboration on a solution rather than demanding accountability for the past.

Most people will course correct when confronted directly. Even if they were being intentional. Nobody wants to be seen as the person who undermines colleagues. The fact that you noticed and named it changes the dynamic.

If they get defensive or deny everything, you've still accomplished something: they know you're watching. That alone often changes behavior. And if it doesn't, you now have more data for the next step.

When to Escalate

Going to your manager about a peer is high risk. Do it wrong and you look like you can't handle your own relationships. Do it too late and the damage is already done. Do it without evidence and you look paranoid. Do it without having tried other approaches and you look like you're escalating prematurely.

But sometimes it's necessary. Here's when:

Escalate when: The pattern continues after a direct conversation. The behavior is affecting your ability to do your job. There's a specific incident with clear documentation. Multiple people have noticed or experienced the same thing.

Don't escalate: As your first move. Without specific examples. When the issue is really about ego rather than effectiveness. When you haven't tried addressing it directly first.

The escalation script: "I want to flag something I've been navigating with [peer]. I've noticed [specific pattern] happening [specific frequency]. I tried addressing it directly by [what you did], but [result]. I'm bringing it to you because [specific impact on work]. I'm not looking to create drama. I want to figure out how to work effectively."

This script shows you tried to handle it yourself. It focuses on work impact, not personal grievance. It asks for help rather than demanding punishment. It positions you as solution oriented, not combative.

What happens next depends on your manager. Good managers will take it seriously, investigate quietly, and either facilitate a resolution or give you air cover. Bad managers will dismiss it, tell you to work it out, or worse, share what you said with the other person. Know your manager before you escalate.

The Long Game

Here's what the best operators eventually figure out: the best defense against undermining is making it irrelevant.

If your reputation is strong enough, if your relationships are deep enough, if your visibility is high enough, no single peer can diminish you. The Credit Diffuser can blur one meeting, but your skip level knows who actually did the work. The Selective Forgetter can exclude you from one conversation, but you have five other channels to the same information. The Concern Troll can raise doubts, but your track record speaks louder.

This is why everything we've talked about in previous newsletters matters here. The visibility strategies. The relationship building. The documentation systems. They're not just career accelerators. They're insurance against exactly this kind of problem.

Build a career where no single peer has the power to diminish you. That's the ultimate counter move.

The Bottom Line

Subtle undermining is real. So is paranoia. Your job is to tell the difference.

Track patterns before you react. Use the three strike rule, the asymmetry test, and the benefit test to distinguish signal from noise. Choose responses that address the behavior without making you look petty or paranoid.

Have the direct conversation when warranted. Most people back off when they know you've noticed. Escalate only when you've tried other approaches and have clear documentation of impact.

And remember: the goal isn't to "win" against your peer. The goal is to do great work, build your career, and not let anyone else's behavior derail that. Sometimes that means addressing the problem directly. Sometimes it means building around it. Sometimes it means outgrowing it entirely.

Don't let anyone make you small. But don't shrink yourself by obsessing over it either.

~ Warbler