Pay attention to who protects your name in rooms where protecting it earns them nothing.

How someone speaks about you when there is no benefit in defending you is the clearest measure of their loyalty. In rooms where gossip is the currency, standing up for an absent person costs social credit and returns nothing. The ones who do it anyway are showing you what they actually are. It is worth noticing, because they will not tell you.

Pay attention to what people report back to you and how they handle other people’s reputations in your presence. Someone who protects the absent will likely protect you. Then be that person for others, which is the part actually within your control.