Undermined from the Inside: A Cautionary Tale of Organizational Dysfunction

When I first stepped into management, I was told, “I know how bad it feels to be undermined—I’ve been there. I’d never do that to you.”

At the time, I appreciated the honesty. It felt like a promise of support.

But months later, I stumbled on a private Slack thread—weeks old—where my direct reports were being directed by that same someone to work on a feature my team didn't own. I wasn’t looped in. I wasn’t informed. I wasn’t even considered.

That sinking feeling? That’s the moment you realize you’ve been undermined.

It wasn’t the only time. And it wasn’t always as blatant. Sometimes it was someone outside the team deciding the implementation details. Sometimes it was a manager overriding a design decision without asking. Sometimes it was a quiet, subtle shift—just enough to make your role feel optional.

This post is about those moments.

🧩 Organizational Undermining: You’ll Know It When You Feel It

That moment stuck with me—not just because of what happened, but because of what it represented.

Undermining doesn’t always come as a big betrayal. Sometimes it’s subtle.

It’s when a TPM starts designing the implementation instead of the system.
It’s when a manager dictates layout instead of trusting the frontend engineer’s expertise.
It’s when the work gets steered from outside the team—without context, collaboration, or consent.

These moments leave a mark. They tell the team, “Your input is optional. Decisions happen elsewhere.”

🚩 Why It Matters

1. Trust erodes.
   Even with good intentions, these moves signal that expertise doesn’t matter—and that direction can come from anywhere.
2. Roles blur.
   Who’s responsible? Who owns the solution? When the answer is unclear, execution slows and accountability vanishes.
3. It sidelines subject experts and creates leadership chaos.
   You're left cleaning up work already in motion or stepping in and looking like a blocker.
4. People check out.
   Why advocate for the right approach if someone outside the team will just override it?

🔁 Patterns Worth Noticing

If these things happen once, they might be a mistake. If they happen often, they’re a pattern:

• Someone outside the team regularly pulling the strings.
• Decisions made in isolation and delivered as directives.
• Engineers solving problems they didn’t choose, using designs they didn’t create, under timelines they didn’t agree to.

Empowerment without autonomy is a trap.
Accountability without authority is theater.

🛠 What Healthy Organizations Do Instead

• Stay in your lane, and strengthen it.
  Being cross-functional means partnering, not overpowering.
• Build trust with visibility, not control.
  Ask questions. Share context. Trust the team to solve it.
• Respect expertise.
  Don’t micromanage design, implementation, or decision-making. Guide, don’t dictate.
• Decentralize ownership.
  The people closest to the problem are best positioned to solve it—if you let them.

💬 Final Thought

Most dysfunction doesn’t start maliciously. It starts with someone trying to help… but not knowing when to stop.

If you’re in a position of influence, use it to clear paths—not override them.