The workplace is a melting pot of different personalities. It’s where many people meet some of their best mates or mentors. But it’s also a place where you often have to deal with envy, unhealthy competition, and other toxic behaviors, often because some workers feel threatened by you.
6 Signs Your Coworker Feels Threatened By You
Confidence and capability often trigger insecurities in others. When you’re excelling in your role, others notice, but not always in a good way. Some colleagues may feel threatened by your success and respond with the following unpleasant behaviors.
A Coworkers Always Tries to Outdo You
Whatever it is that you’re doing, Santos is always breathing down your back. When you share during weekly check-in that you’ve completed two major tasks, he’ll immediately jump in to say he did even more work. He makes a point of being more visible to your boss (even if his behavior is a bit of a productivity theater) just to show how much better he is.
Such behavior usually stems from insecurity or fear of being overshadowed. Instead of focusing on collaboration or mutual success, threatened colleagues try to draw all the attention to them by citing unwarranted examples of how they went above and beyond. This rivalry feels draining, and it’s best to avoid it.
A Coworker Belittles Me in Front of Others
You’re on a Zoom call with the team, discussing the latest project. Just as you’re updating others on your progress, Jessica chimes in with her usual remark of how “well, this is inessential, can we move to something else please?”. Whenever you’re in a group discussion, she always makes sarcastic or condescending comments about your contributions, the quality of your work, or even your overall skillset.
Those belittling jabs come from a place of personal insecurity. She wants to assert her dominance by highlighting your perceived weaknesses. That’s hurtful and unfair.
A Coworker Starts a Gossip About Me
Your work husband slid in your Slack messages the other day with an “Oh, I didn’t know you recently had a mental breakdown at a client event.” Your response is a string of question marks. Turns out Greg discussed that during lunch with several others from your department.
A jealous coworker wants to control the narrative about you through gossip. They might be trying to taint your reputation and steer workplace drama, or deflect attention from their shortcomings. While gossip can sting, their words reflect their issues, not your worth.
A Coworker Always Takes a Point to Single Your Out
No matter what you do, Gemma always finds fault in your actions. She notices your tiniest transgressions and constantly singles you out in group talks. Others never receive the same criticism from her, no matter what they do.
By putting you in the spotlight—often negatively—such colleagues seek extra validation. They feel threatened by your abilities and use criticism to hide their discomfort. While this can dent your confidence, recognizing these behaviors can help you stay poised and focus on your strengths.
A Coworker Avoids to Do Groupwork Together
Collin never wants to be paired up with you. He always has a plausible excuse to opt out of a joint project. But he still takes a point to criticize your actions and explains how he’d do things differently. Ugh!
Such colleagues might be intimidated by your skills and worry about being compared to you. Avoidance might protect their comfort zone, especially if they feel outshined or uneasy in collaborative settings. While it might feel personal, this behavior reflects their inner struggles, not your value as a teammate.
A Coworker Tries to Put Up Others Against You
In the most grave cases, a threatened coworker may be rallying others to ostracize you. By continuously spreading rumors and criticism, they’re undermining your standing. You start facing social rejection more often and this is getting out of line. Clearly, such manipulations are harmful, even though the person is using them as a coping mechanism. Responding with professionalism and openness can neutralize their efforts and foster a more supportive environment.
What Drives Such Toxic Behaviors?
People feel threatened by others’ success due to low self-esteem. Such people base their self-esteem on external values — peer praise, on-the-job achievements, and social standing. This psychological characteristic is called contingent self-worth.
Respectively, when a person with strong contingent self-worth feels ‘danger’ from someone else getting recognition, they start acting out. Such envious coworkers can become problematic.
A recent study among nurses found that workplace envy negatively affected job satisfaction. Another one, conducted in Spain, also highlights that workplace envy can be benign or malicious, with the latter associated with hostility, counterproductive work behavior, and poor performance.
So while it’s fine to occasionally feel “green” when your colleague gets lavished in praise or rewarded with a bigger bonus. But, by no means, you should allow your jealousy or that of others to drive your agenda.
How to Deal With a Jealous Coworker?
When dealing with a jealous coworker or a colleague who feels threatened by you, it pays to be a bigger person.
Don’t play along with their passive-aggressive behaviors or add fuel to the feud by taunting them with your achievements. Instead, show that there are enough ‘resources’ for everyone to thrive on the team.
Workplace research found that envy arises when people think they must compete for limited resources like a manager’s attention, presentation time, or ability to lead a project. Naturally, some will feel threatened by a person who receives that “limited” resource more often.
You have the power to change that dynamics by sharing your “resource” with a colleague. For example, you can invite that jealous college to co-lead an initiative with you. Or casually talk to your boss that more people on your team would love to have regular 1:1 time with them for the sake of avoiding favoritism.
On the other hand, you shouldn’t also let the person’s negative sentiment get under your skin and make you question your qualifications. Keep it cool and focus on doing the great work you do. To avoid getting too much in your head about this, start a personal inbox about your achievements to document all the efforts you put in and the recognition you receive.
If the colleague persists with their negative behaviors after multiple conversations, consider talking about the problem to their manager or even reporting the problem to HR if their behaviors become really malicious and interfere with your work.
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