Are Your Colleagues Undermining Your Success?

You work hard at the office, and try to get ahead in your career, but haven’t been able to do so as of yet.

It is important to evaluate your efforts and successes, or lack thereof, and figure out the reasoning for either.

If you haven’t received the promotion you have been working towards the last few years, why might that be?

There are many reasons that may be the cause, but one important one may be the fact that your colleagues could be undermining your success.

Although you never want to jump to that conclusion, it is important to watch out for these two signs to fix the situation so it stops hindering you from climbing the corporate ladder.

They are Overly Competitive

While healthy competition is good for the workplace as it motivates employees to work at their most productive levels, overly competitive colleagues can undermine your success.

There are those that are so invested in getting ahead, that they will do anything to make their coworkers look bad.

An overly competitive colleague will sign up for all the projects they can get their hands on, so others won’t have the ability to show their willingness to help.

They will take all the credit for an idea or a completed project, even if it was a team effort.

And, they may even attempt to sabotage your work, to make you look bad compared to them.

If you feel that you are dealing with an overly competitive coworker, address the situation by talking to that individual and letting them know you are on to them.

They Don’t Include You

Another clue that your success is being undermined by another employee is if you notice them not including you in anything.

There are a multitude examples of how this can occur, including not passing the message from your boss about changes to a project, not inviting you to group lunches or forgetting to let you know about an important meeting.

By not including you in work-related activities, this individual can make you look bad in front of other colleagues and your boss.

To prevent this from occurring, make sure you are in the know of everything that is going on in the office.

If you make it your job to be privy to this information, you will not allow anyone to leave you out.

Remember that one case of a colleague being competitive or leaving you out of an event is not a telltale sign that they are undermining you.

Accidents do happen, and people do make mistakes.

Just make sure that there is not a continuous pattern of this occurring, which is a problem.

Thanks again

Mark Williams

Head of Training and Development

MTD Training