When I joined Citi, I was promised that my role would be reevaluated in short order. The MD would support my advancement to director, even create a new role for me.
What I later discovered, however, was that he was telling a very different story to other members of his leadership team—he minimized my leadership despite praising those same qualities to my face, publicly at that.
During the reorganization, he used other members of his team as intermediaries to deliver the blow, going as far as having another MD tell me how much my contributions meant to him before placing me under an incompetent manager in a demoting move.
By orchestrating events through others rather than acting directly, he kept himself insulated from accountability while ensuring a complaint would be more challenging to land.
Placing you under an “incompetent manager” during a reorganization while framing it as a sideways or positive move is a manipulative tactic often used to sideline talent or push someone out without a direct confrontation.
It has a name: constructive dismissal. Does membership to the Indian Mafia provide immunity against this type of misconduct?