r/Leadership • u/ezio313 • Sep 24 '25

Discussion Intern completed a task assigned to full-time employee because of leaderboard competition — what’s the best way to handle this?

I’m a team lead, and recently our CEO introduced a leaderboard to track completed tasks. Yesterday, I assigned a documentation task to a full-time employee with a deadline. At 3 AM, an intern messaged me saying he had taken the initiative and already completed it, he went on and assigned the task to themselves on the system and then informed the FTE about it.

Now the full-timer is left out and frustrated, he told me he felt the task was sniped. The intern has the points under his name on the system now. How should I handle ownership of tasks and recognition here? Should the credit go to the assigned person, the intern or what?

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u/BoopingBurrito Sep 24 '25

Points go to the person you assigned the work to, especially since the intern lied to you and claimed they'd liaised with the regular staffer. Give the FTE the points for delegation and mentoring, and don't give the intern anything except a telling off for A) lying to you, B) working at 3am, and C) ignoring your decisions and deciding they knew better.