It took you a couple of months to realize you were replaced as team manager? At no point did anyone tell you what was happening? So what’s your question? Ask manager what the next step is, you admitted, there was tension John might need a little more effort from you to get over that tension

The point of the post is not me being replaced as team lead. My manager didnt told me (old lead) that john was gonna be the new team lead, and neither told John (new lead) that I was the current lead. Also, i assumed i was still the team lead because i've been the one in charge and working also extra hours for emergencies and weekends when asked to while my others subordinates not. The point of the question is: i dont truly care about the leading role... as i said i have now more free time and less responsibilities. My new lead says im rude to him but i dont have reason to act rude!!

@ohno Something isn't smelling right with this. If you'll excuse my tin-foil hat, they may be trying to either force you to leave or building a case to get rid of you.

Has he given examples of what he perceives as rude behaviour?

Who did you think John was, before you realized he was your replacement? You said things were already tense with John, but you never clued onto it happening due to a power collision? The fact that it took months for you to even identify friction on your authority calls a lot into question about your powers of observation, both reflected in (a) how much we can trust your account of the events to be accurate and (b) how aware you are of your actions as a leader, and by extension your actions now that you are no longer a leader, which can very easily explain what's happening here.

[..] I'm struggling to not see this as being problematic on your end (i.e. what it is you do in your team), unless John was actively avoiding making it obvious that he replaced you. More likely, I'm wondering if you never truly took on the full role of leadership, instead continuing to work like you did in your previous position and only rarely making executive calls; which would explain why it took so long for you to notice any collision, while at the same time John had been focusing on other parts of the role that you hadn't been doing (and thus did not notice any conflict).

@Asherah, i asked him and he couldnt recall a specific episode. Told me that i dont smile enough .. which is just absurd to hear.

@Flater is a software dev team. My manager omitted to both of us that i was the current lead and he was hired to replace me. I was not hired as lead, i was promoted as a lead when the previous one left and i was not told it was temporary. When i was "promoted" my manager did a meeting to announce it, when john arrived he was just the new guy.. no meeting or emails. So. excuse me, but i think my power of observation is not strong enough to read people mind or deliberate omitted info because, you know, i'm a bit busy at work dealing with juniors, code review and i dont think maliciously

I have a suspect that (since we were understaffed and needed people) to attract his senior profile, my manager offered him the lead role and give him a "good reason" to choose us over other offers. But again, i'm not involved in HR or manager stuff, if he doesnt shares info i can never know.

Where in the world do you live? Did your contract not reflect your new lead position? Or can a contract just be changed by one side alone in your country? Do you still make as much money as before, or was that a pay cut, too? So much of your story would be illegal where I live, but maybe you live in a country with no labor laws or written contracts?

@nvoigt There are many companies (in the EU, with tons of labour law on top) where a "team lead" position is purely informal, everyone's contracts say just "Senior Engineer" or so, so it ẃouldn't be illegal to tell OP "you're not the lead any more, John is" without adjusting any contracts.

If "team lead" has any disciplinary oversight,or a workload other than their normal job, it should be in their contract. Especially since as a "lead" you should get paid more. If "lead" is just a fancy name for no change in job description, no real bite and no extra pay... yeah, I guess it doesn't matter... but then it doesn't matter whether you are or not, if nothing changes.

it is as @tooTea explained indeed

@ohno If John was hired as a lead, are you then implying that he failed to mention this for months, while presumably believing that this kind of lead role was not unique? I.e. multiple leads, not "the" lead. Something smells here. Either your company allows for multiple leads, which means John did not drive you out; or they don't and then John would have very much been aware that you were conflicting with him.

So when the team had meetings, who ran the meetings? When decisions were made (like "Joe, please handle bug ticket 12345") who was doing that? Or if this wasn't happening, just what does the "team lead" do at your company?? It just doesn't make sense to me that two different people really think they were "team lead" for months, or that a manager would allow that to happen.

Who did the other team members think was the team lead? Were other people surprised when they found out that you were no longer the lead?

@Ohno, Would you please describe some specific examples or situations where John believes that you were rude to him ?

@DaveG: Comment below my answer says indeed, "when the new guy arrived, nobody knew he was the new lead... everyone was surprised as well when i shared this new found info".

@WernerCD OP in another comment says "(roughly after a week) i had sooo much less meeting calls, reports to present to the higher ones. Less responsibilities to meet". So their calendar is a record of the reassignment of duties.

@ohno I just really don't understand. If neither you, nor the team had no idea that the new guy is the leader, how was the new lead supposed to, you know, lead? In the eyes of the team he's just a random new guy. I don't understand how this did not lead to immediate issues that would in turn reveal the situation. The first time there's a decision to be made, be the smallest one, you two would have had to clash, discuss the leadership, and realize ...

... you both think you are in the decision maker position. This is at most 1-2 interactions. The fact that he has a personal problem with you because of this suggests that you had much more than that.

@ohno I think you really should put the detail about the team lead position back in the question. The answers don't make sense anymore. And it's important background that indicates what kind of environment you're working in and who you're dealing with.