Concern for a rival's workload or well-being becomes the argument against giving them a new opportunity, voiced by someone competing for the same role, and decision-makers find it hard to disagree.
An example
The search committee for the director of a new cardiac service line at a teaching hospital met in closed session. The leading candidate, an interventional cardiologist, was not in the room. A senior surgeon on the committee, who had been promoting a protege for the same post, raised a concern: the candidate had just taken over the fellowship program and had been working weekends since spring, and the surgeon worried about burnout. Several members nodded. No one wanted to seem indifferent to a colleague's well-being. The chief medical officer, chairing, recalled that the surgeon had raised the same worry about another candidate the year before, for a different post the protege had also wanted. The chief medical officer adjourned the vote and called the cardiologist that afternoon. The cardiologist wanted the job and had already arranged to hand off the fellowship program.
Why it works
Concern for a colleague gives the decision-makers a virtuous reason to withhold the opportunity, so the block costs them nothing morally. The opportunity itself gets recast from a promotion earned to a burden piled on, so advancing the rival looks worse, and saying yes risks looking callous, so it costs more. The speaker needs to plausibly know the rival's situation, in a culture that treats expressions of care as hard to challenge, with the rival absent and decision-makers who dislike appearing harsh.
The thinking behind it
Erving Goffman Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1956) describes how people manage the impressions others form of them, performing in a front region while contradicting facts stay backstage. Concern for a colleague's well-being is a front-region performance that is hard to question in public. The competing interest stays in the back region, which is why the defense goes to the absent person directly and keeps a record of who raises such concerns about whom.
Robert B. Cialdini Robert Cialdini's Influence (1984) describes social proof: when unsure, people look to what others around them are doing, and the more who seem to agree, the more correct it looks. Once a few committee members nod at a worry about burnout, others follow, and disagreeing starts to feel like indifference. A chair who asks the candidate directly brings in the information the room's agreement was standing in for.
Warning signs
Concern about a peer's bandwidth or well-being is raised only when that peer competes for the same opportunity as the speaker or the speaker's ally. It comes up when the peer is not in the room. No one has asked the peer what they want. Across decisions, the same person's concern keeps tracking their own interests.
How to defend yourself
If you are the one being discussed, you may never hear of it, so make your wishes known in advance. Tell decision-makers directly when you want an opportunity and how you would manage the load. If you sit on the committee, go to the affected person before any vote and ask whether they want the role and can take it on, so a third party's concern does not decide for them. Ask the speaker, in the meeting, whether they have discussed it with the person. Keep a note of who raises such concerns and about whom; the pattern is the evidence.
How a leader shuts it down
Adopt a simple rule for promotions and assignments: concerns about a candidate's workload are raised with the candidate before they are weighed. Keep people with a stake in a role off the committee that fills it. Watch for concern that recurs from one person about rivals of their allies.