SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 210,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter.
Have you ever had to deal with someone stealing credit for your work?
- Yes — someone has publicly taken credit for my work: 85%
- No — I’ve never had to deal with a credit thief: 15%
Confronting a Credit Thief. There are few things more frustrating than someone stealing credit for your work. Confronting that situation is dicey and uncomfortable. But you should absolutely say something. Start by assuming positive intent and a misunderstanding. If that doesn’t resolve things to your satisfaction, consider escalation approaches that are appropriate to the situation. Hopefully you can resolve the issue this time and prevent it from happening again in the future.
Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS, author of “Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results” and “One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership.”