How I Learned to Stop Doubting Myself in Rooms Full of Doubt
Gaslighting isn’t just personal—it happens in projects, programs, and boardrooms. And if you’re not ready for it, it erodes more than trust.
If you’ve ever walked out of a meeting questioning your own memory, you probably know the feeling already.
It was more than a decade ago, and I was in a project review when it happened for the first time.
We’d gone over the scope twice in earlier sessions. Everyone had agreed. Or at least I thought everyone had agreed. Yet in the review, one senior stakeholder leaned back, folded his arms, and said with a straight face:
“That’s not what we decided.”
The air shifted. Heads turned toward me. Suddenly I was defending what felt obvious just minutes earlier. Except the more I defended, the less sure I sounded — even to myself.
By the end of that meeting, the decision wasn’t overturned, but something inside me was: a crack in my confidence, a whisper that maybe I was the one who’d misremembered.
That’s the thing about gaslighting. It’s not always the dramatic, movie-version kind. In projects and programs, it shows up quietly: someone rephrases history, questions your recall, or plants doubt in a room where certainty is your currency.
And if you’re not prepared for it, you start working twice as hard just to prove you can remember.
Gaslighting in the workplace wears a suit and tie
The term “gaslighting” gets thrown around a lot in personal contexts. But in projects? It’s subtler.
A manager insists they never approved a decision you captured in minutes.
A client claims you missed a requirement they never articulated.
A colleague says, “We all agreed to this last week,” when you know for certain no such agreement was reached.
It’s not always malicious. Sometimes it’s forgetfulness, ego, or political maneuvering. But the effect is the same: it destabilizes you.
For project and program managers, this is particularly dangerous. Your job is to be the steady hand — the person who knows what was decided, when, and by whom. The “memory of the project.” If someone shakes that foundation, it doesn’t just rattle you. It rattles the whole room.
What happens inside you
Psychologists say humans are wired to seek social harmony. When someone confidently contradicts us in a group setting, our brain does something strange: it weighs their certainty against our memory.
And here’s the kicker — we often trust their certainty more than our own. It’s called the illusion of truth effect: repeat a claim with confidence, and people begin to believe it, even if it contradicts evidence.
I learned that the hard way. I spent months over-preparing. I started carrying around binders of meeting notes. I’d pull up old emails mid-discussion. I started printing emails. I became less of a leader and more of an archivist.
It was exhausting. And worse, it didn’t work — because a person who wants to rewrite history will always find a way.
The shift that saved me
One day, after another meeting where the past was conveniently “forgotten,” I stopped arguing. I didn’t scramble for the email chain. I didn’t raise my voice. I just said:
“We may remember that differently. Let’s check the record after this session.”
And then I moved on.
Silence. A pause. Then the meeting continued.
It was such a small response, but it shifted everything. I wasn’t playing defense anymore. I wasn’t letting someone else’s confidence eclipse my own. I was anchoring myself in calm.
That became my north star: don’t wrestle in the moment. Re-anchor after.
What I’ve learned since
Over the years, I’ve collected approaches that keep me grounded in these situations. They’re not bulletproof shields, but they are habits that protect credibility.
Documentation as oxygen. Not for bureaucracy, but for sanity. Meeting notes, action trackers, shared boards, screenshots — not just for the team, but for yourself.
Calm as a signal. If you stay steady while someone else spins, the room notices. The more they escalate, the more your composure stands out.
Questions instead of defenses. “Help me understand which part you’re referring to” is harder to argue with than “That’s not true.”
Silence as punctuation. Not every accusation deserves an immediate reply. Sometimes the most powerful response is none at all.
Boundaries as leadership. When discussions veer into personal attacks or endless loops, I draw the line: “Let’s stick to what impacts delivery.”
But the most important lesson was this: don’t hand over your self-trust.
Gaslighters, intentional or not, feed on that. They want you second-guessing so they can set the narrative. The moment you start believing their version of you is the moment you start losing yourself in the project.
Protecting your team
The other side of this is your team. Sometimes manipulation bypasses you and targets them. A senior executive downplays their work. A peer says, “That analysis was flawed” without evidence.
When that happens, you become the shield. Not by fighting, but by calmly reasserting reality:
“I’ve reviewed their work. The data holds up. Let’s address the actual findings.”
Every time you do that, you’re not just protecting deliverables. You’re teaching your team that they don’t have to bow to revisionist histories. You’re showing them how leadership holds the line.
The long view
Projects end. Programs wrap. Stakeholders move on.
But your credibility, once cracked, follows you. People remember whether you lost your cool. They remember if you folded under pressure. They remember if you always had the receipts.
What they rarely remember? The person who tried to twist the past. Manipulators get short-term wins. Leaders build long-term trust.
That’s why handling gaslighting isn’t just about self-preservation. It’s about reputation management in its purest form.
I used to think being the most prepared person in the room was enough. It’s not. The real skill is knowing how to stay centered when someone else tries to shake the ground under you.
Gaslighters rewrite the story. Calm leaders write the ending.
And in projects, just like in life, the ending is what people remember.