The Introvert Leader

What to Do When Someone Takes Credit for Your Work

• Austin Hopkins

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It's one of the most frustrating things that can happen at work. You put in the effort, you share the idea, and someone else gets the praise. Whether it's your manager, a peer, or someone from another team, seeing someone else take credit for your work can hit hard. In this episode, I share why your reaction matters more than you think, the long-term mindset that will serve you best, and what to do when this happens to you.


Timestamp

2:01 — Examples of Stealing Credit: What it actually looks like when a coworker or leader steals credit, from small moments to major recognition.

3:26 — How It Feels When Someone Else Gets the Praise: The negative impact of someone else getting credit for your hard work.

4:20 — Common Mistakes to Avoid When Responding: What not to do when someone takes credit for your work, and why certain reactions can hurt more than help.

7:03 — How to Respond When Someone Takes Credit for Your Work: Simple and effective strategies to protect your reputation and take back control.

15:01 — What to Do When Your Boss Takes Credit for Your Work: Why it hits harder when your manager does it, and how to respond while protecting your career.

18:08 — Story Time: A real example from my career where credit was taken, and what I learned from how I handled it.

21:38 — Challenge for Listeners: Reflect on a time someone took credit for your work and how you can be ready to respond differently next time.



Resources

  • Download the free Brag Sheet: https://sts-coaching.com/resources/


  • Want to level up as a leader? Clients who work with us earn 57% more and get promoted 3x faster on average: Book your free career clarity call here.


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 Hello, this is your host, Austin Hopkins, and welcome to the Introvert Leader Podcast.

So I'm in a meeting with my boss, his boss, and a couple of other executives, and we're just talking about normal work stuff. And at one point during the meeting, one of the C-level executives looks over at my boss and says, Hey Stewart, you did a fantastic job on that project. We can't thank you enough for all of your hard work, and this is a project my boss had nothing to do with.

Didn't know anything about it, hadn't been involved, hadn't been to one meeting, and so as soon as that executive says that, I snap over and look at him, kind of waiting for him to correct the situation and gimme some credit, but nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. Just looks over at the executive smiles and says, thank you so much.

Oh, I was gutted in that moment. I felt a little betrayed. I felt kind of beat down. I felt taken advantage of, and it was a really icky feeling. And my first reaction, what I wanted to do in that moment is reach across that table, ring his neck, and say, what the hell are you doing? This was my project. You had no involvement.

Why are you trying to take credit for it? I didn't do that. Thankfully, uh, but I did do a couple of other things that really, really helped. And so today I wanna talk about what do you do when someone steals credit for your work? When they claim credit for your work, an idea you had. I want you to leave this episode knowing exactly how to navigate it, and here is something you might find a little weird to hear.

The number one strategy on how to deal with a situation like this is nothing that you'd expect. It's different than everything you've. Read before You've seen it in a video. It's the opposite. So we're gonna jump into it today. Really pumped to break down how to handle when someone takes credit for your work.

So what if instead of it breaking us? We actually played the long game and focused on the long-term strategy and what you should do to navigate within your company when something like this happens. So I wanna settle in and talk about some potential examples of people stealing credit for your work or your ideas at work.

So here is the first one, a peer claims that they led a project, but were only there for support while you were the one who managed it end to end. So have you ever seen someone do that where they're kind of like, oh yeah, I was, I was a big part of it. I'm super important. The project, I literally carried it on my shoulders and then you find out they weren't even at the meetings.

They didn't even. Involve themselves at all. So that one's funny. Another one is maybe during a meeting someone shares an idea that you had literally just given them like two hours earlier, like you shared an idea with them and then during this meeting they pretend like it was their own and say it in front of everyone.

Ugh, that would, that would suck to hear that. Another one could be your boss takes credit for the problem you solved for the department. So. Big problem. You solve it, your idea, your execution, and your boss comes in and says, Hey, this was mine. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. What would you do in that situation?

Ugh. Uh, another one, someone sends an email to a group pretending to be the point person. When in reality they've barely been attending meetings or doing the actual work. So again, yeah, I'm pretending to be something I'm not. I'm, I'm being a barnacle, as I like to call it. I'm attaching myself to success to a project.

I'm pretending like I'm more important than I am and doing stuff that I actually didn't do. So not good. If you've seen any of those, I'm sorry. And they're uncomfortable. So I gave you a couple examples. What I thought could be interesting is to kind of just share with you what it feels like when someone steals your credit.

I won't spend a lot of time here, but it is weird because it kind of guts you and it feels icky. It feels unethical, it feels depressing. Um, you know, at the end of the day, someone just stole from you, right? So imagine you're, you're walking on the street and someone steals your wallet, like, how are you gonna feel?

You're gonna feel really pissed off. Someone just took something of yours and made it their own. And you know, I don't know if you're like me, but I was tempted in those moments to do a couple of different things. I was tempted to shut down. Uh, I was tempted to maybe lash out, like I said. But at the end of the day, whatever you're feeling, you just need to feel that.

So if you're annoyed, you need to feel annoyed if you're. Feeling a little gutted. You're just gonna have to lean into that feeling a little bit because it's happened. You can't change the past. But it's what you do now, now that you're feeling shitty, now that that just happened, how you react next literally determines the success of this entire situation.

So here's what I thought could be interesting, is to share with you what not to do. Okay? So here are the things that I would absolutely not do if someone stole credit for my work. If someone stole credit for my idea, number one, react in the moment. So. At the end of the day, you should have zero reaction.

You don't care. You didn't hear it, it doesn't bother you. Nothing. Nothing. Don't say anything. And at the end of the day, anything that you say right now in that moment to try to defend it, to try to justify that it was your work or your idea, you're gonna sound desperate. So it may be tempting in that moment to quickly snap back and correct whoever just said that thing, whoever just stole credit for your work.

But here's what I would encourage you not to do, is not look desperate in that moment by trying to defend yourself and being super vocal. In fact. I would not say a dang thing. I would just be silent. I abide my time. I'd think more chess instead of checkers. I'm not making quick moves. I'm thinking the moves out, right?

Uh, another one is get people involved with the situation who shouldn't be. You should not be going around and getting people involved in this situation of who took credit for your work if you don't have to. Like, I would not be talking about this with other people. Again, it goes down to that thing of looking desperate, like, I gotta go around and prove my values.

Everyone, my, my ideas are so valuable that I need to make sure everybody knows every single idea that was mine. It's just, it's, it's desperate and honestly, it's a little junior as well. I have always believed, and maybe you agree with this, maybe you don't, but at the end of the day, the idea you had, the recent project you worked on, that is not your only value at work.

Your value is not based on the most recent thing you did. Your value is a. Culmination of all of your expertise and all of your ideas and how you show up at work and how you treat people, that's what actually matters, not just the recent idea you had, the recent project. When I see people get really attached to those ideas of the work they've done and really wanna make sure that people know it was them, I worry sometimes that they are putting too much value on one singular thing as opposed to thinking of the big picture, which is.

This is one thing that I did that was valuable. This is not my only value. So got off on a little rant there. We're back to it. Uh, number three. The last one is don't whine and complain. Nobody wants to hear you whine. Nobody wants to hear you complain. This has happened to lots of different people. You're not the first, you're not gonna be the last that this happens to.

And when you whine, you look junior, and when you complain, you're annoying. No one wants to be around someone who's whining and complaining. So. I know it's tough, but just suck it up. Don't say anything. Don't go run in your mouth to people. Just process what just happened. You just got an idea stolen from you during a meeting.

What do you do next? So here's a couple things that I would do. I wanna jump right into the strategies and give you a couple that I know have worked for me and that can also work for you. So number one, document your wins. What do I mean by that? Here are four different ways you can start documenting your wins and really making sure that the ideas you have, the work you have, there is a record of these things existing and the other person who's trying to steal credit from you won't be able to stand on anything because.

You have proof that it was your idea that it was your work from earlier. So a couple of different ways you can do that. Send a recap or a strategic email to your boss. Other business partners, senior leadership. What I don't mean is giving a detailed three page, you know, email to everybody, letting 'em know all the work you're doing.

But what I do mean is. How could you subtly, casually, informally send an email to different folks to let them know this is something you're working on. Maybe it's giving recognition to somebody on their team who is a part of it. Or maybe it's just giving a weekly update on like, Hey, here's the status of how things are going, or Here's what we're working on.

Whatever it is, find a way to subtly, casually. CC those folks that you think need to know about the work you're doing. So who are the people that need to know? It's the people that can give you promotions. It's the people that can give you pay raises, the people that can really control the future of your career.

So make sure that they are getting those kind of little drip email campaigns here and there where they understand the stuff you're working on. That has really helped me. Again, you don't need to send an email and say, Hey, look at all the cool work I've done. Be casual about it. Again, find a way to subtly bring it up, casually.

Bring up the work you're doing, your idea, the value you're adding. Another one, share what you're working on and the problems you are solving with your boss during your one-on-one. So if you are going into your one-on-one and you're not sharing with your boss the stuff you're working on, then if he hears it from someone else and they claim credit for it, how will he know that it was actually yours?

But. If during your one-on-ones you're sharing the wins, the things you're working on, the problems you're solving, the ideas you have, the work you're really focusing on, then if they ever hear that from someone else, they can know, Hey, that was actually Austin's idea. They can advocate for you in the rooms that you're not in.

Super, super important. Another one, which is track your value and wins consistently so you don't forget. So, you know, I don't know if you're like me, but I would go through the year and I would do cool stuff, right? I'd get a recognition award here and I'd get, uh, an attaboy from someone there and a cool email and uh, you know, maybe I'd get some cool feedback from a customer or another, and.

Internal business partner. And for a while I just kind of thought about those things. Maybe smiled about it for the rest of the day, but then didn't do much with it. That was a mistake. So here's what I learned eventually that really kind of changed the game for me, which was track my wins myself and write those down right as they happen.

So I actually created something called the Brag sheet. It's a, a free resource that you can use to track all of your achievements, your wins, your awards, all that kind of stuff. So. I'll put the link in the description, but it's totally free. It's a good way to track it. It's called the brag sheet. I used that for the last few years of my corporate career, and it was a big game changer because at the end of the year when I had that year-end review or that mid-year review, I was able to say, Hey, look, I've got a whole piece of paper that shows all of the cool things I've done.

It has dates, it has facts, it has examples. It has, you know, emails from other people that they've sent me. Whatever it is, I have that all in one place, and then I'm able to present that effectively at the end of the year or during those review periods. Okay, next strategy. It's uncomfortable, but it's important.

Here's what I want you to do in that situation, if you are feeling like you need to correct someone who has stolen credit for your work, who's taken your idea, your work, and and said it was their own, here's what I would recommend. Number one, I'm gonna give you a tip here in a second that I think you should actually ignore it, but.

If you feel like you have to say something, if it was blatant, it was egregious, it was intentional, or you just felt like you needed to say something, you just feel something in your heart saying like, Hey, I need to have a conversation with this person. You should do it. That's what you should do. You should have a conversation so it's not snapping at them during the meeting in the moment I.

It's not even reacting at all in the moment, but instead it's saying, Hey, do you mind if we have a chat later today? There's something that's kind of been on my mind, something that's been bothering me, and so here's what I might even say. I'm gonna give you a little role play on what to actually say in that conversation.

So it may look something like this. Hey man. I wanted to ask you about that email you sent earlier today. I'm not sure if it was an accident, but when you took credit for my idea, um, it kind of bummed me out, man. And I just like wanted to know, give you the benefit of the doubt, like what was going on. It's casual.

I'm not being super aggressive. I'm not assuming the worst, because here's the reality, sometimes people steal credit for an idea or for work, and it's unintentional. They didn't mean to do it. Maybe they thought it was their idea, maybe they didn't know it was yours, maybe they forgot. And so if you just come in hot and aggressive and you just wanna yell at them and beat them up, you may potentially ruin a relationship that doesn't need to be ruined because.

It was an accident and we all make mistakes and as soon as they apologize, it could be over as simple as that. So definitely if you are feeling something inside of you saying, I need to have a conversation about it, do that. Do not avoid that. Take it from a guy who's avoided tough conversations at different points in his career.

I always regretted it. It was always way more beneficial to have the uncomfortable conversation, that little bit of uncomfortableness you experience in the moment. So little discomfort compared to the regret you're gonna face if you didn't say anything. Okay. I want to wrap up this section by telling you the most important strategy.

This is the one that I, I hinted at in the beginning that I think is different than you may have heard before. So here's what I truly believe. The thing that has worked in my career is this. When someone steals credit for my work, takes credit for my work, my idea makes it their own. I ignore it. Whoa.

Weird. Whoa. What? You ignore it. Why would you ignore it? That seems weird. That seems weak. Okay, here's the deal. It does sound a little weird because we've been taught that like when somebody wrongs us, we need to just like go and tell them that they wronged us, right? That's the most important thing. We gotta stand up for ourself, and here's what I'm not saying, don't be a pushover.

Don't let people take advantage of you. But here is the most important thing that I have found. The universe, God, karma, I don't care what you wanna call it always is working out the way it needs to. So if there are people trying to take credit for your work, trying to take credit for your ideas, do you think that there is.

Any chance they're gonna get through their entire life without ever having that come back up? No. Absolutely not. Everything we do in the dark comes to the light. Everything that we do at work eventually finds a way to show itself. And I'll give you a fun story at the end that really brings this together and, and proves to you why I think.

Ignoring it can be maybe the most beneficial. And I think a big reason as well that I, I love to just kind of ignore it, is I felt when I wasn't ignoring it, I was kind of feeding into my ego a little bit, right? Like I wanted people to know, this is my idea and this was my work that I did, and I'm super important and I want you to know that.

And guess what? I don't think that's a good thing. I don't think focusing on making sure you get the credit you deserve is a valuable use of your time. In fact, I think it's a huge waste of your time because you're focused on what people think and how they perceived you, and I understand that that's important.

But here is the trick when you are so confident in your value. And what you bring to the table that you let these things go, others start to pick up on that as well. So others start to realize, oh, this isn't a big deal. This guy's full of value. This is just one idea that somebody took no big deal. This guy's got 30 more ideas he can give you.

Like it's, you start to give off that vibe and then eventually people start to. Reciprocate that as well. Isn't that weird? What we give off, what we think about ourself is literally inviting that from others. So if I'm confident and I believe in my value and I believe that, hey, it's no big deal, somebody took credit for my work.

I, I, I got a million other ideas. This is not the only work I'm I'm doing right now. It shows confidence and it shows we're a little bit different from the average bear. So I know that seems weird, and I know you may even just think like, I don't know if that's the right thing. I don't want people taking advantage of me, and that's okay, but I'd ask you to trust me and just try it.

What if you just tried it? What if you didn't snap at someone when they took credit for your ideal? What if you just ignored it? What if you just turned the other cheek and said, eh, it sounds like they need this win more than me. I'm not worried about it. I don't know. Something to think about. Now, what if you can't ignore it because it's your boss?

That's what I wanna talk about next. So, if some other peer or other business partner in your company steals credit for your work that's uncomfortable, that's awkward, but you can navigate it. You can have a conversation. You can make sure that your boss at least knows what you're working on so that they actually can, you know, take care of you when it comes time to raise time or promotions, whatever.

But what if it's your boss? What if your boss is blatantly stealing your work, your ideas? He's pretending. She's pretending that it's their work. It's. Their effort that's turning the dial. So what, what would you do? You know, I, I'll tell you, there's a couple of things that you can do. Uh, there's three things that you can do.

In fact, and I've been through this scenario where my boss stole credit for my work. I'll tell you about it in a minute, but it's a tough situation to be in. And by the way, if you handle it the wrong way. You could risk your career, you could risk getting fired because you can't just go in there and chew your boss out, right?

You can't just tell him he's a piece of shit and you're a liar and a thief. Don't steal my shit. Leave me alone. You can't do that, right? You gotta, you gotta wear some, uh, some white gloves and use some tact. So two or three things you can do to mitigate a situation like that. I think the first thing you can do is document your contributions, making sure that you have a record of.

The ideas you came up with, the, the work that you're, you know, putting effort into the value you're adding. If you have that documented, it's gonna be less likely that your boss is then gonna try to steal credit for that because they're gonna have a record of you coming up with that earlier. So definitely something important.

Again, track your achievements, track your wins. Use the brag sheet, it's free. Next one would be discuss it with them during a one-on-one. So, uh, this is a little awkward and it takes some confidence. You can absolutely do it, and what I would probably do is just bring it up casually so I might say something like this, Hey, I wanted to give you some feedback and just kind of chat with you about something that's been on my mind, something that's been bothering me during our last all hands call.

You had took credit for the work that you did on the strategy project, and I wasn't sure why I didn't get a. Uh, a shout out, like me and my team put a lot of work into that strategy. You know, we, we put in a lot of long nights and, and hours and, uh, I'm just a little bummed that we didn't get a shout out.

And just let them explain. Maybe they did give you a shout out and another meeting to someone. Maybe they totally forgot, maybe they messed up. And if so, this is your opportunity to tell 'em how you're feeling now. It's not your chance to be an asshole to cram it down their throat, to yell, to be disrespectful.

It's casual, it's confident. It's gotta have. You remember, the more you try to defend that someone has taken credit for your work and whine and complained about it, you look junior, you look desperate, you look not good. So don't do that. Confident, casual. Here's what I'm feeling, curious what happened. You just wanna know what's going on, how, why they made that decision to claim credit for it.

So the final thing you can do is again, ignore it. After you share the feedback, you can choose to keep giving them feedback, right? You've given them feedback Once you can keep doing it, or you can eventually just say. I'm gonna ignore it. I'm gonna let it go. I'm not gonna worry about this if my boss is stealing credit for my work.

I can't control his actions. I've given him the feedback. I've done what I can do now. I'm just gonna trust that the universe is gonna take care of everything and that I don't need to worry about it. I don't need to make sure people get what they deserve, yada, yada, yada. That's not on me. And again, I know it's weird to hear, but it works and I'm gonna tell you why it works.

Here's a story. So I am sitting in a leadership conference and there's a room of a couple of hundred leaders, and I see my boss's name flashed up on the screen as an award winner, and under his name are four or five bullets of the achievements he had during the year. And four of the five achievements were my own.

He didn't have any involvement with them. They weren't his projects. He didn't come to meetings. He wasn't attached to them in any way. So on the screen showed all of my achievements, but they were his and his wins. And as soon as I look up on the screen, I felt sick to my stomach. I thought, my goodness, this guy is literally getting credit for my amazing work, my ideas, what the heck, Austin?

And so my boss starts to walk on stage and one of the people at the table with me leans over to me and says. Hey, man, don't worry. We all know that that's all your work that you did. And I thought, whoa, okay, this is weird. So people know this. Like I thought at first it was just me thinking this. I thought no one else knows what's going on.

I gotta maybe defend myself, defend my honor. And it was cool to just have somebody right at my table being like, dude, we, we know this isn't his work. Don't even worry about it. So my boss goes up there, accepts his award, and um, you know, I'm kind of stewing about it a little bit, you know, luckily about an hour later I get announced as a winner.

So, you know, at least I have a prize of my own, which is kind of cool. But I'm still annoyed that my boss did that right. And you know, I just kept telling myself later that day and over the next couple of months, like Austin, it's okay. People know the reality. I. They know what's really happening. You don't need to go in there and tell everybody why you know you're so important and why your ideas are amazing and that your boss didn't actually help at all.

Don't do that, Austin. Just keep your mouth shut. Things are gonna play out the way they need to. I kept telling myself that, and I don't know if that's my faith or if that's just me being positive, but I truly believe God's got a plan for my life. He's focused on what I need and what I'm here to do, and the less I worry about that stuff, the more successful my life.

Tends to be. So anyways, I don't do anything. I keep my mouth shut. A little less than a year later I decide to part ways with the company I leave. So six months later I get a call from an old coworker and he says, Hey Austin, do you know what happened to your old boss? And I, I said, no, I, you know, I haven't been keeping up with it.

I've been busy with the podcast, whatever. And he said, dude, he got demoted and his teams were taken away from him. Title was taken away from him, and he's now back to where he was before. And I thought to myself in the moment, my goodness. I was not wrong. The universe had a way of taking care of itself.

Now, I don't wish Ill on anyone. I don't want my boss to have to suffer. I didn't want this to have to happen to him. But if I'm being honest with you, it did give me a little bit of peace that like people aren't getting away with shit forever and stuff is eventually gonna catch up with you. And if you're stealing credit from people, people are gonna find you out eventually.

So, you know, I, I told you. My biggest advice is to ignore it, and I really believe that's the best path if you ignore it and, and really believe in your heart. My value is my value. I'm not tied to the most recent project. My value isn't tied to the most recent idea I have. My value is a culmination of all that I bring to the table.

If you really believe that, and then in those moments when somebody tries to take credit for your work, you just ignore it. You just turn the other cheek and say, it's okay. It's all gonna work out. I don't need to get in the mix with this. I don't need to worry about this. It might just turn out that everything works out the way it should.

So I hope that story was entertaining and, and hopefully you got some strategies today on how to navigate when someone takes credit for your work. It can be so tempting to respond the wrong way, but how you respond after someone steals credit for your work is everything. So I wanna give you a challenge to wrap up.

Next time someone takes credit for your idea. I want you to say nothing. Let your work speak for itself. Don't defend, don't justify. Your value isn't tied to a moment. Your value is everything about you. So I wanna say thank you so much for listening. Make it a great day.

This has been The Introvert Leader podcast. Subscribe for new episodes every other Wednesday.

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Austin Hopkins

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