Question

A coworker takes credit for the excellent job you’ve performed. Frustrating! It’s probably happened to you or someone you know. How did it happen? Perhaps you shared an idea with a coworker and then hear her present it as her own in a meeting. Or perhaps you worked during the weekend to ensure that a project report is completed on time and your coworker takes credit for your initiative. Or maybe you resolved a conflict with a customer, but your department head reports the resolution as his own.

6-12. Do you think that those who take credit for your work know that what they’re doing is wrong?

Answer 1

Those who take credit for our work may or may not know that what they’re doing is wrong. Some people want to take credit of everything and may even try to exercise fraud to show them as superior. They would be knowing that they are doing wrong. But mostly it occurs by accident or out of ignorance. When I present an idea to the coworker and she presents the idea as her own in a meeting, she may not be knowing that what she is doing is wrong because she might be thinking that she has taken the help from me as a colleague or friend and need not mention my name during presentation. When the coworker takes the credit of my project work which I completed by working during the weekend, the coworker might mostly know that his act is wrong. But sometimes he might be doing it considering it as a team work. When the department head reports my resolution as his own, he might be doing it thinking that as he is the owner of the team, the resolution given by the team member also belongs to him. Hence in most of the situations, people who take the credit of the work do it unintentionally. We should try to make our contributions visible to other people also in the workplace to avoid such credit stealing. We should also request our colleagues or managers to mention our name while discussing about the ideas contributed by us.