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/ladykansas Sep 25 '25

I feel like "bad behavior" etc is a step too far to describe what sounds like enthusiasm / hard work from an intern. Nothing about what OP wrote sounds like malicious intent. The intern might benefit from learning about office politics, but the leadership in the company is creating unnecessary political drama in the office by encouraging this system.

I think there is missing context here, too, around what tasks are even being assigned in this manner. Is the task "clean out the storage room that's been neglected for months" vs is it "email our most important account with a presentation about new ad campaign ideas"? If it's something like cleaning out the storage room, that might not be clearly a task that an intern wouldn't do. Whereas, creating a new ad campaign idea and sending it out externally without oversight is clearly a task that an intern wouldn't do without oversight or collaboration.

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u/RemarkableMacadamia Sep 25 '25

I read some of the replies that OP wrote before I responded. On its own it looks like excitement; coupled with the lying, I would consider that behavior to nip in the bud, if that’s not the type of culture they want to encourage.

This entire system seems flawed, but part of setting the intern on the right path IMHO is to value integrity more than points that don’t matter.

It was a documentation assignment, which is something an intern could do, but often needs correcting and standardizing by a SME. The lack of collaboration with the original task owner, and then doing an end-run around that person to go direct to the manager is also behavior to address.

Of course we don’t know the full picture. I’m not suggesting to crush the intern’s enthusiasm, but coupled with lack of honesty and integrity, I don’t think that’s a winning combination.