Do you have colleagues who like to be involved in everything and go over their way to promote themselves within the business

[Croissantsfordinner]

…to the point of overshadowing others? It’s the first time I have this dynamic in my team, with 4 of us at the same grade and 2 of them being really good at relationship building and promoting themselves and as a consequence they seem to be involved in everything and getting all the glory, whilst the other 2 of us, just generally get on with work without great visibility.
I find it hard to navigate and I am not naturally a very competitive person so my first instinct is to just complain about it and look around.

If you want to move up, that's kind of the game, isn't it? If you're happy to just plod along where you are, do that, but I don't see why you're complaining that other people are working harder and/or smarter than you.

Your choice is to try and do what they are doing or watch them be more successful than you.
Just doing your job isn't enough if you want to develop your career.

You mean ambitious and keen to progress?

I meant that sometimes they get involved in things the others are already working on

I think that quite normal.

This is the corporate game. Unfortunately, it doesn't suit some (I count myself in that).

But I know if I want to get credit for my work & progress it's not enough just to do the work, I have to talk about the work to leadership and build relationships with them. I have to do presentations about the work etc etc.

I don't like it, but that's what you have to do.

But if you're working on something 'without great visibility', as you say yourself, it's possible more go-getting colleagues don't realise you're actively on the project, and/or that you're doing an effective job. Be more vocal about what you're doing and its effectiveness, progress etc.

Tiresome but common in corporate life I’m afraid.

Yes. I have two of these and they're so busy self-promoting that they don't actually do any work. Nobody seems to notice this other than the other 3 of us who work like stink to get everything done.