page 4: Five ways to battle the office backstabber
If you’re feeling like the fingers are getting pointed at you for things unrelated to your job duties, step back and honestly assess the situation. 
“Start by considering what you may be doing, perhaps even unconsciously, that may make you into a likely scapegoat,” says Ben Dattner, founder of Dattner Consulting, an organizational management company based in New York City.
There might be legitimate reasons that you are the one getting blamed for oversight and if this is the case take the necessary steps to make amends. “If you are being unfairly scapegoated, try to focus on your work and on proactively helping others. People are much less likely to blame and single out colleagues with whom they have norms of reciprocity,” advises Dattner.
People who do a lot of blaming do it out of insecurity— they’re often not confident in their own abilities so they try to make someone else the appear as the incompetent one.
Insecure people are often terrified of confidence and ability so if you can just let your work speak for itself, it should be enough to scare of a sneaky co-worker out to ruin your efforts.
Also realize that your other colleagues are able to distinguish real fault where it’s required. So there is no need to panic that everyone blames you for every little thing. If people haven’t spoken up to defend you against the malicious office mate, it’s because they just don’t want to get involved in office politics.
Best advice here is to shrug off silly accusations and confidently refute the more serious ones.
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