Okay, so I recently joined this group. My boss who I reported to, left a while ago and my colleague was made the team lead. We both now report to the same head, but she heads the team I work in. I am not sure on how to deal with various situations. I would imagine a team lead who motivates the rest of the team, and not someone who would take credit for what others do. I am the only one who works at the same geographic location. She is very smart, no doubt about it. Things get to me, for example I work on an issue and email a dev team, she would respond on top of my emails and as she is the lead, people respond to her rather than to me. If there is an email addressed with the head on it, she would get it to faster than I do, even when she knew I am looking into it. The rest of the team keeps asking me questions or help. I find it hard to say no, and I try to help them as i feel I might need their help someday as well. I slack in my own work or I could have used the time to learn things. I feel that she should be the go to person and not me. If one gets the benefits of being a lead, why not the work that goes with it? I feel I am stuck in a very unfortunate situation and am totally helpless about it. Everyday it is something or the other. I work on a project for months and finally when it is about to go live and there was a minor issue and the head started asking questions, she completely stole my thunder on a call. She would not let me speak and I have to actually cut her off to speak up. The ideal would be not to give it a thought and just do the best I can,but I feel I am capable of much more and not able to give my best because of this constant war at work.

Neetu