6 strategies to get the credit you deserve at work
by Stephanie Eckelkamp
Tell us if these scenarios sound familiar: You bust your butt on a project — working late nights and early mornings — but your charismatic colleague gets all the credit; you share an idea to generate new business or streamline a process with your so-called work pal, but they present it as their own in a meeting; you consistently have your nose to the grindstone, and yet the higher-ups hardly know your name.
The truth is, you’re not guaranteed to get the credit you deserve at work, which is incredibly frustrating. Work isn’t like school. Your boss, or others in positions of leadership, won’t always notice when your efforts are lost in the shuffle or misattributed — unlike your former teachers whose literal job it was to document your participation and performance and grade accordingly.
So what do you do in these situations? Do you interrupt your colleague mid-meeting when they steal your idea, or is that immature? Do you say “that was actually me!” when your supervisor praises your colleague for something you did?
It can often feel like a fine line between bragging and being a doormat, so here are some expert-approved strategies to get the credit you deserve when working with a group or when someone snags your idea.
1. Someone stole your idea? Chat with your idea-appropriating coworker after (not during) the meeting.
If a co-worker you’ve confided in — or with whom you’re working on a project — presents your ideas as their own during a meeting, resist the urge to confront them in the moment. “You look petulant, like a kid who’s folded her arms and is pouting,” said Karen Dillon, author of HBR Guide to Office Politics, in an article about how to respond to those pesky credit-stealing colleagues. This will most likely backfire by taking the focus off of the meeting topic and making everyone else super uncomfortable (not something you want to be associated with!).
Instead, you want to give yourself time to calm down, gather your thoughts, and broach the subject in a more tactful manner: One-on-one with the offending colleague. Because this may have simply been an oversight on their part, give them the benefit of the doubt by asking questions, as opposed to making accusations. “Research shows that it’s much better to ask why it happened than to make a claim,” Brian Uzzi, professor of leadership at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, told HBR.
For example, ask: “How do you think the meeting went? They seemed to react positively when you were talking about what we’d discussed earlier.” This gives your colleague a safe space to acknowledge that they did, in fact, use your idea. How they react (e.g. apologetic, eager to make things right, excited to move the idea forward with you, defensive, dismissive, oblivious, etc) may give you an idea of whether that person can be trusted in the future.
2. Another strategy: Suggest ways to move your original idea forward — and don’t stress about the rest.
Depending on the particular situation, it’s not always worth worrying about a coworker snagging your idea. You’ll have to ask yourself, does this really matter? Sometimes it will, sometimes it won’t. After all, part of thriving at work depends on being a team player when it matters.
"There is a misguided belief that ideas, and credit, should be hoarded as a kind of career currency," Richard Gallagher, author of How to Tell Anyone Anything: Breakthrough Techniques for Handling Difficult Conversations at Work, told CNN. "In reality, ideas flourish when fertilized by the input of an entire team. People who worry too much about idea ownership are often putting self-interest ahead of the good of the entire workplace."
So, a better strategy may be to provide input on how to further evolve the idea, or to weigh in on questions about how the idea should be implemented. (Bonus: you’re in a prime position to do this if the idea was yours to begin with.) According to Charmaine McClarie, executive coach and founder and president of McClarie Group, you may want to send an email after the meeting to those who attended and present a few points that will move the idea forward. This way, “you're allowing others to know that you're a leader and strategic thinker who gets results,” she says.
3. Try to get your ideas out there before they can be snagged in the first place.
One of the best strategies: Get your ideas in front of the people who matter most before anyone else can (intentionally or not) present them as their own. This means you may not want to share your pitch with anyone before a big meeting where leadership will be present. Speaking up in group settings is a huge way to build confidence and get yourself noticed.
Of course, you might be nervous to be vocal in front of a wider audience without vetting your idea first. In this situation, you have several options:
Share your idea with a small group of your coworkers for input. This way, a single person is less likely to snag your idea and pass it off as their own since there will be several people that can help you prove otherwise.
Share your idea with a close work colleague, tell them you plan to present it at a future meeting, and see if they’d be willing to ask you one or two questions about the idea during the meeting to help you make your points more clearly and demonstrate interest.
If you have a good relationship with your boss, run your idea by them, but specifically ask if you can present it in the next meeting or mention it to the Big Boss. Or, if it makes more sense for them to bring it up, kindly request that your name be mentioned.
Chat with an outside mentor with no vested interest in the project.
Run your idea by a group of like-minded peers on a career-related forum (yes, we have our own!) for feedback.
4. Look for ways to become more visible during projects and meetings.
If you’ve worked incredibly hard on a project (staying late, getting in early), but your coworker received most of the credit, you know that hard work isn’t enough. The truth is, you’re more likely to get credit for good things happening — and for being a badass employee in general — if you consistently make yourself visible, ask smart questions, and deliver insightful feedback.
Even if you’re not the person who will be presenting a PowerPoint or leading meetings, you can volunteer to take on other roles that will get your name out there. For example, when divvying up tasks, offer to send the recap emails after meetings or be the point person who fields questions about the project. Basically, “whenever the project or idea is talked about — in person or via email — chime in with details or answers,” Dillon told HBR.
You may find subtle ways to boost your visibility on a project during casual conversations, too. For example, if your boss or another person in a position of leadership says your team did a great job on a project, but in reality, you and another team member were the ones that did most of the heavy lifting, you might respond: “Thanks! Jess and I pulled a few late nights on this, but it was definitely worth it.”
5. Use regular check-ins to toot your own horn.
Sure, speaking up in meetings and making yourself visible are important, but so is flat-out telling your boss what you’ve accomplished. If you don’t have a regular check-in on the calendar with your boss, get one on the books. Consider using the time to run through several recent accomplishments or ideas you're proud of, then dive into what your goals are for the next time period, and leave some time for general feedback, questions, and concerns.
Setting ambitious (but attainable) goals during this time can be particularly helpful. “If you are able to achieve the goals that you and your boss have agreed would be challenging, he or she is more likely to give you credit for having done so than if you achieve less-ambitious goals,” said Ben Dattner, author of The Blame Game: How the Hidden Rules of Credit and Blame Determine Our Success Or Failure, in an article for CBS News.
Consider sending a brief “check-in recap” email, too, so your boss can see clear bulleted points about everything covered in your one-on-one. This will become an invaluable reference when performance reviews roll around and help ensure you get proper credit for your work.
6. Readily give credit to others when they deserve it.
Remember, credit-sharing goes both ways — and you should always give credit where it’s due. Contrary to popular belief, propping someone else up won’t bring you down. In fact, if you start publicly crediting others for their key contributions on projects, your colleagues are likely to follow suit when the time comes.
"People who take a more generous approach and share credit in the short term, end up creating more loyalty, trust, and reciprocal alliances, thereby receiving more credit over the longer term," according to Dattner.