Thursday, August 24, 2006

How to Handle a Boss Who Takes Credit for your Work

How to Handle a Boss Who Takes Credit for your Work

This is an article that covers a topic that most of you have faced or know someone who has. While I agree with most of the authors points about being civil and not over reacting, I also believe that preventing it from happening in the first place is key.

If you know your boss is taking credit for work or ideas, think back to when you first discussed this idea. It's most likely you had this conversation in a casual one on one or email. A great way to resolve this type of problem as an alternative to confronting your boss is to make sure that your ideas are heard by other people. They can bear witness to the fact that the idea came from you. The same applies to email. If yout boss asks you for your opinion on something, reply to him/her and add additional people to the CC. To avoid problems with improperly following the chain of command, make sure you only CC peers. If you have an open relationship with your bosses boss and you feel comfortable doing so, add that person to the list as well. Your boss will not try to take credit for something that was well publicized in front of other people because it will be very obvious. I find that this method seems to correct itself in a less confrontational way.

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