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When Your Coworkers Want to Snuff Out Your Mojo

The “threat of excellence” dynamics at work, yeah, it’s a thing. You know it is. You’ve experienced it. We all have.

Here’s how it goes.

When you work very hard at work, perform well, insist on producing quality work, that you are a threat to the other people you work with – it’s almost like having a target on your back because often – in a dysfunctional culture – those are the people who don’t work hard and practice negative campaigning in the workplace. In extreme examples, insecure and often low-EQ coworkers use smear tactics, gossip, undermining and badmouthing thinking tearing someone down is going to lift them up.

It’s unfortunately a common dynamic in many workplaces, where high performers, especially those who consistently demonstrate strong work ethic, quality output, and a commitment to excellence, can become targets for negative behavior from their colleagues.

This type of workplace toxicity often stems from a variety of psychological, social, and cultural factors that influence group dynamics. These negative behaviors, strangely, are more rooted in fear than in intentional malice.

“You can work hard enough to the point where you become a threat to someone who isn’t working hard enough. If you’re not working hard enough you’ve only become a threat to yourself. Never sacrifice your ideas and the quality of work to self-sabotage and pull yourself to the middle of the bell curve. Stick to your guns. Avoid the peer pressure. Don’t trade your work and your integrity for ‘fitting in.’  If working hard makes you a target, you’re in the wrong culture and you need to move on to a place with more ‘managerial maturity.’” –Paul Fioravanti, CEO & Managing Partner, QORVAL Partners LLC.

1. The Threat of Excellence

When you excel in your role, you raise the bar in terms of expectations and performance. This can unintentionally highlight the gaps in others’ work, especially those who aren’t putting in the same level of effort. High performers become a threat because they set a standard that others may feel unable or unwilling to meet.

Here’s why this might happen:

• Jealousy and Insecurity: Colleagues who feel insecure about their own abilities or efforts may perceive your high performance as a reminder of their own shortcomings. Instead of seeing it as motivation to improve, they might feel resentful, fearing that their value or position in the workplace is in jeopardy.
• Fear of Being Outshined: Some workers may feel that if you shine too brightly, it will draw attention to their lack of effort or contribution, threatening their standing within the team or organization.
• Perception of Favoritism: In competitive work environments, high performers can sometimes be seen as favored by managers or leadership, whether that’s true or not. This perception can lead to resentment from coworkers who feel overlooked or undervalued.

2. Negative Campaigning and Smear Tactics

Negative campaigning refers to the deliberate efforts of individuals to undermine the reputation or image of another, often in subtle and insidious ways. When colleagues engage in smear tactics, gossip, and badmouthing, it’s usually driven by the need to weaken the position of the high performer to make themselves feel more secure or improve their own standing.

Here are some common ways these tactics manifest:

• Gossip: This can take many forms, from subtle remarks to outright fabrications. Coworkers might spread rumors about your personal life or question your work ethic or capabilities. The goal is to create doubt about your competence, integrity, or suitability for the role.
• Undermining: This involves sabotaging your work directly or indirectly, making it harder for you to succeed. A coworker might withhold information, give you inaccurate details, or deliberately mess up the flow of a project to create problems for you that wouldn’t have existed otherwise.
• Badmouthing: Some coworkers might take it a step further by actively criticizing your work or your character to others in the office, especially in front of managers or higher-ups. The aim is to tarnish your reputation, often through exaggeration or distortion of facts, in the hope that others will lose trust in you or question your abilities.
• Playing the Victim: In a passive-aggressive way, some coworkers might portray themselves as victims of your success. They might claim you’re “making them look bad,” or suggest that your achievements are a result of favoritism or that you’re somehow undermining their contributions without meaning to.
• Spreading Doubt: A subtle but effective tactic is to question your motivations, intentions, or commitment to the team. For example, colleagues might suggest that you’re “only in it for yourself” or that you’re “too ambitious” for the team dynamic, painting you as someone who doesn’t play well with others.

3. Psychological Dynamics Behind Negative Campaigning

The underlying psychology of this behavior is rooted in a zero-sum mentality—the idea that success is a limited resource, and if someone else wins, you lose. When coworkers feel that success is a competition or a finite resource, they may feel that your success diminishes their own value or opportunity for advancement.

This behavior can be exacerbated by:

• Lack of self-awareness: People engaging in these tactics may not realize they are projecting their own insecurities or fears of failure. They might genuinely believe that bringing someone else down will make them seem more competent or valuable.
• Groupthink: In office cultures where conformity is valued, individuals who don’t fit the mold or perform too well outside the norm can become targets simply for standing out. In this case, undermining them is seen as a way of “bringing them back down to earth” and preventing them from threatening the established group hierarchy.
• Fear of Change: A person who consistently performs well may become associated with new processes, innovations, or changes within the organization. Coworkers may feel uncomfortable with these shifts and use negative campaigning to protect the status quo.

4. Why Tearing Someone Down Doesn’t Lift Others Up

In toxic environments, the idea that “tearing someone down will lift me up” is often based on flawed logic. The primary reason this doesn’t work is that it focuses on destruction, not creation or growth. When someone engages in negative campaigning, it often stems from a lack of confidence in their own abilities and a desire to avoid feeling inadequate. The saying “blowing out someone else’s candle doesn’t make yours burn more brightly” is a powerful metaphor that conveys the idea that undermining or harming others in order to boost your own success or position does not genuinely improve your standing. Instead, it often diminishes the overall environment or situation for everyone involved, including yourself.

In its simplest form, the message is about competition without malice: succeeding on your own merits rather than trying to diminish or destroy someone else’s success. The metaphor suggests that when you try to bring someone else down, you might temporarily feel like you’ve gained something, but in the long run, it doesn’t add any real value to your own life, career, or self-worth. Unfortunately, this creates a hostile environment that is not conducive to mutual growth or team success.

• Damage to Team Morale: Even if a high performer is temporarily targeted and their reputation is damaged, the negative energy created by such attacks can spread throughout the team, lowering overall morale. It might even result in the high performer leaving or becoming disengaged, but it doesn’t necessarily help others improve their own performance.
• Long-Term Consequences: Smear tactics, gossip, and undermining create a toxic cycle of mistrust. While they might work in the short term to push someone down, they ultimately degrade the integrity of the workplace. People who engage in these tactics are often viewed as untrustworthy, and over time, the toxic culture can make it difficult for anyone to thrive.

5. How to Navigate This Situation

If you find yourself in this kind of environment, there are a few strategies you can use to protect yourself and maintain your integrity:

• Set Boundaries: Be clear about your work, but don’t engage in drama. Avoid gossip or retaliatory behavior, as this can escalate the situation. Maintain professionalism and focus on the quality of your work.
• Document Your Work: Keep a record of your contributions, feedback, and accomplishments. Having a detailed log of your achievements can help counter any false narratives or attempts to undermine you.
• Seek Support: Find allies within your team or organization. Building strong, supportive relationships with other colleagues who appreciate your contributions can help create a buffer against negativity.
• Consider Talking to Your Manager or HR: If the behavior becomes toxic or crosses into harassment, consider talking to your manager or HR. The goal isn’t to make a scene but to address patterns of behavior that are damaging to your work environment. (Hopefully your manager or HR isn’t part of the problem.)

Ultimately, navigating these dynamics requires a mix of self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and strategic thinking. While it’s unfortunate that high performers can sometimes become targets, staying grounded in your values, maintaining professionalism, and focusing on the quality of your work can help you weather these challenges and protect your well-being in the workplace.

6. How This Applies in a Competitive Internal Workplace

In a workplace, this idea becomes especially relevant when the environment is competitive or cutthroat—where individuals or teams feel pressure to outperform each other. Strong culture appreciates managers and employees who challenge the mindset of using sabotage or undermining tactics to get ahead, something that is unfortunately not uncommon in toxic or hyper-competitive work cultures.

1. Undermining Colleagues Doesn’t Secure Your Success –In a workplace, it might feel tempting to discredit, gossip about, or sabotage a colleague who is performing well or getting ahead. Some people might think that if they “knock out” a rival, they will gain recognition or opportunities that otherwise would have gone to the person they undermined. However, even if these tactics result in temporary benefits (like being noticed by management), it doesn’t build sustainable success for you. Your achievements will always be tainted by how you got them—through undermining others rather than through your own hard work and value. Example: If someone at work spreads a rumor about a high performer to make them look bad in front of the boss, the perpetrator might briefly benefit from the high performer’s misfortune. But in the long run, this behavior will make the perpetrator seem manipulative or untrustworthy, which can harm their reputation and relationships with other colleagues.
2. Creating a Negative Environment Decreases Everyone’s Success– When a work environment becomes hostile, negative, or toxic because people are trying to sabotage each other, everyone’s performance suffers. This makes it harder for anyone to succeed in a meaningful or positive way because the energy of the team is spent on negative behaviors rather than collaborative growth. Example: If everyone is competing to “blow out” each other’s candles, the overall quality of the team’s output could drop. Trust, collaboration, and morale would decrease, which would directly affect productivity, creativity, and team success. Even if someone wins in the short term, they may find themselves isolated and constantly battling the next colleague looking to undermine them.
3. True Success Comes from Building Others Up– A far more effective approach to career growth is focusing on your own development while supporting and encouraging those around you. People who build others up, share knowledge, and lift their colleagues tend to gain more respect and goodwill. In contrast to a competitive, “zero-sum” mentality (where one person’s gain is another’s loss), this approach encourages collaboration and mutual success. Example: A colleague who is consistently supportive, helps others grow, and celebrates others’ successes while working hard themselves is far more likely to inspire loyalty and admiration. Such people create a work environment that is positive, and as a result, everyone’s potential is amplified, including their own.
4. Internal Competitions That Rely on Tearing People Down Are Short-Sighted– When you focus on internal competition that revolves around negative tactics, it’s a sign that the workplace culture may be built on short-term wins and a scarcity mindset. This kind of competition doesn’t breed long-term success because it depends on an illusion: that someone’s gain always requires someone else’s loss. But in the real world, especially in complex, dynamic work environments, success is often about innovation, teamwork, and sustainable results—none of which can be achieved by simply tearing others down. Example: If one employee consistently manipulates office politics to gain recognition or promotions at the expense of others, they might “win” in terms of immediate rewards (such as bonuses or public recognition). However, these kinds of tactics often come back to bite them. Colleagues and leaders start noticing the toxic behavior, which can lead to long-term damage to the person’s reputation, lack of trust from teammates, and ultimately, stagnation in their own career.
5. How You Can Use This To Your Advantage

To embrace this principle and make it work in your favor, you need to focus on your own merits while also cultivating a spirit of collaboration and mutual respect in the workplace, and here’s how:

• Develop your skills: Focus on improving your own capabilities and growing in your role. Rather than obsessing over how to outshine others, put energy into your own self-improvement.
• Support others: When someone does well or achieves something, celebrate it. Encouraging your colleagues and helping them achieve their own goals can build strong professional relationshipsand a more positive work environment.
• Set the standard with integrity: Be the person who works hard, delivers quality results, and maintains a positive, collaborative attitude. Let your work speak for itselfrather than relying on gossip or office politics to elevate you.
• Promote teamwork: Rather than seeing your coworkers as competition, focus on how you can work togetherto achieve shared success. High-performing teams that are built on trust and cooperation tend to outperform teams that are constantly undermining one another.

In the end, the idea is that success isn’t a limited resource—there’s room for everyone to thrive. If you focus on your own growth and foster a positive environment for others to do the same, you will end up creating a much more fulfilling and sustainable path to success for yourself and your colleagues. You can work hard enough to the point where you become a threat to someone who isn’t working hard enough. If you’re not working hard enough you’ve only become a threat to yourself. Never sacrifice your ideas and the quality of work to self-sabotage and pull yourself to the middle of the bell curve. Stick to your guns. Avoid the peer pressure. Don’t trade your work and your integrity for ‘fitting in.’  If working hard makes you a target, you’re in the wrong culture and you need to move on to a place with more ‘managerial maturity.’

Paul Fioravanti, MBA, MPA, CTP, is the CEO & Managing Partner of QORVAL Partners, LLC, a FL-based advisory firm (founded 1996 by Jim Malone, six-time Fortune 100/500 CEO) Qorval is a US-based turnaround, restructuring, business optimization and interim management firm. Fioravanti is a proven turnaround CEO with experience in more than 90 situations in more than 40 industries. He earned his MBA and MPA from the University of Rhode Island and completed advanced post-master’s research in finance and marketing at Bryant University. He is a Certified Turnaround Professional and member of the Turnaround Management Association, the Private Directors Association, Association for Corporate Growth (ACG), Association of Merger & Acquisition Advisors (AM&MA), the American Bankruptcy Institute, and IMCUSA. Copyright 2024, Qorval Partners LLC and/or Paul Fioravanti, MBA, MPA, CTP. All rights reserved. No reproduction or redistribution without permission.

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