An employee working in India for a global company has sparked a discussion online after claiming that a promotion being considered for them was blocked by local leadership because of how they are perceived.
In a post on Reddit, the employee said they report directly to leadership in the US rather than to the company’s India Country Head. As a result, most of their projects, feedback and day-to-day work interactions are handled by the US team.
The employee said that they later learned that a promotion they were being considered for did not go through because it was blocked at the local leadership level. “I didn’t receive a very clear explanation at the time, and things just stayed as they were,” the OP wrote.
More recently, the employee said that a colleague told them that during a discussion about tenure bonuses, the India Country Head described them as “high-headed” and suggested they believe they are “untouchable because they work with the US.”
“This surprised me because I’ve always tried to stay professional and collaborative. I don’t intentionally bypass anyone locally, but due to the reporting structure I do interact directly with US leadership quite often,” the OP wrote, adding that they were trying to understand whether such perception issues are common in global organisations.
They concluded the post asking whether employees who report internationally but sit within a local geography often run into a friction with local leadership, and whether such perceptions could influence decisions like promotions.
“I’m not looking to confront anyone — just trying to understand the organizational politics and how someone in this type of structure can manage perceptions better,” the employee wrote.
Social media reactions
The post drew several responses from other users, many of whom said such dynamics are not unusual in multinational workplaces.
One user wrote, “Yup, I totally get where you are coming from! It’s very common in corporate.”
“This is just immature jealousy. He probably sees you or your US head as “superior”, doesn’t like it, knows he can’t control you and is taking it out on you in weird ways. Nothing new here. At a previous job, I worked a target based sales role. I was moved to a customer service role with no targets but still had the same manager. All my colleagues still had their targets, they’d pass comments saying how lucky I was etc. Manager got wind of this, didn’t like it and moved me back to sales,” shared another.
“Unfortunately, this post confirms the generalizations about how Indian bosses work. Most of the GCC heads are figure heads. They drive power through hierarchy and the only significant influence they have is negative perception setting. Your job is to manage that. Same IAS mindset. Everyone else below me. Frankly these are the people who should have gone to IAS. It is a curse that they are in tech and unfortunately, even junior managers act like that and cultivate that habit early,” commented a third user.