Office politics is not a misunderstanding. It is not “different working styles.” It is not “communication gaps.” It is not even conflict, most of the time. It is often one person quietly studying another person’s ambition, dignity, sensitivity, and self-respect and testing how much of it can be exploited before witnesses start using words like culture. Some people in offices do not merely want to succeed. They want to watch someone else become smaller in the process. That is their real appetite. Not growth. Not excellence. Emotional theft with a LinkedIn profile. Chanakya would have recognized them instantly. The smiling rival. The flattering informer. The insecure superior who cannot create stature, so they manufacture it by reducing yours.
