Someone working against me.

[NinetiesHero]

Hello, I’d be grateful for any thoughts on this situation at work.

I’ve been with the org for about 18 months and have always had a question mark over this person. They had temporarily covered my role before I was employed. There were some issues with them for the first 6-8 months where they clearly struggled to hand over the reins etc.
i don’t like or trust them but I’ve found a way to work with them.

Lately they’ve clearly disliked a few jobs I’ve been asked to do - I’m very senior in the org and I think they resent this - as the jobs are high level. They’ve again started to undermine me in subtle ways such as being part of a meeting but introducing the new initiatives I’ve discussed as possibilities with them, or by acting as though they’re running the place.
I very bored with it now- they’re acting like a kid and they’re in their 40s!

I can’t avoid discussing things with them as we’re not a huge org and they’ll be involved in conversations but I genuinely don’t know if can be bothered to continue in this role and deal with people like this. They don’t report to me and they’re not very good at organising themselves, which can be problematic for the wider team- and just makes it more annoying when they act like they’re running the place!

I think I’m just having a rant- apologies for the long post.

I manage someone like this who works against me at every turn, what you say is all very familiar to me. It's very wearing isn't it.

For mine it's definitely about a power struggle - undermines me wherever possible, really resents that I'm privy to more info that they aren't as I'm more senior, hates that I spend most of my time working with the most senior people in the org.

Mine is in their late 50s - they don't get any better! As well as childish they are also very narcissistic, play all the games.

I also got to about 18 months and then shrugged my shoulders and said to my manager that I simply don't want to spend my life dealing with that person and their games so I'm looking to move on.

Luckily his response has been to move the problem child person out of my team - which is a good result for me but only possible because of the size of org we work in. I can't wait until they are gone, people like that are so damaging.

Hi @youveturnedupwelldone, very grateful for your reply.

I don't have the opportunity to move this person on unfortunately- would you have stayed in your role if you'd been in similar situation? Just interested in feedback.

No, I wouldn't have stayed, they make it impossible to get anything meaningful done. I was deadly serious about leaving, there's easier ways to earn money.

This person leads a team of 10 very well paid people costing us over £1mil and thanks to their games and behaviour the team is totally disorganised and unproductive, I have had to work round them to get anything done.

I told my manager it wasn't worth my time anymore, I spent most of my time working out what games are being played and doing damage limitation.

Now I have to pick up the pieces but at least I don't have to deal with the root of the issue anymore!

This person is very good at smoke and mirrors and had a lot of people fooled, it took me a while to get concrete evidence to demonstrate to my manager what I was dealing with. I consider myself very lucky that his reaction was to move the problem away.

We chose very carefully where to move them so they won't be able to have the same reach and level of influence again. I'm sure they will cause issues wherever they are but it won't be on a organisational level now.

Yes this is all too common. I started a job a year ago and many staff tried to warn me about, let’s call them W. I know W was given a bad review from Senior leaders yet took the manager (who’d tried to give her a decent review) to HR of which I was brought in and interviewed (never had to do that in my life). Anyway, after weeks of undermining toxic and narcissistic behaviour, an HR case had been brought against W by head of HR as w sent out many examples of showing they believed their own lies. W is accused of causing a hostile environment and going against the code of conduct. We’re awaiting to see outcome but it’s a daily struggle as W has now brought in others into the case to say the leaders are the issue just because W is now not in the inner leadership circle. It is exhausting and had to say I’d walk. However seems the behaviour has gone unchecked for ages and w has caused many people to leave as W cannot take constructive feedback. Hoping for a positive outcome so we can get on with our work and make the department a success. T

@NinetiesHero it is exhausting particularly when not in your line management chain.

You can still give feedback to their line manager along the lines of x could do more of???, x would benefit from developing and presenting more of her own her own initiatives. The silent implication is everyone knows she is stealing your ideas.

Secondly when she does present your initiative say “thank you x for concisely summarising the possible proposal/initiative I discussed with you. I am still working it through and for the benefit of everyone I just wanted to add a little more detail/rationale/pros & cons etc.

Alternatively get it on the meeting agenda with your name against it.

I have something similar, a higher graded, younger colleague who didn't agree with my role being appointed to but will regurgitate my ideas/conversations with no credit to me. Always claiming to be doing everyone else's job, but missing key elements a lot of the time. I am trying really hard to not go into too much detail about my ideas/projects, but I have always been a team player and it feels like I am the one in the wrong.