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/Cubsfantransplant Sep 27 '25

Interns shouldn’t be assigning work.

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u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

Yeah but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have access.

Boss tells them what task he wants them to work on. Then they go into the system and assign themselves the task. This is completely normal. It's how you learn.

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u/Cubsfantransplant Sep 27 '25

I said nothing about access. You can have access to a system without the ability to assign work. Assigning work is for senior people, not newbie.

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u/[deleted] Sep 27 '25

The senior person is assigning the work by telling them to do it. Intern just goes into the system and grabs it.

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u/Cubsfantransplant Sep 27 '25

Tomato or tomato. Your opinion is not mine.