Speak up, stay quiet, or make sure it never happens again. Vote, then see how each one plays out.
It is the Tuesday leadership meeting. You sent him the plan on Thursday: the new pricing tiers, the rollout, the risk you flagged on slide nine. He is walking the room through it now, slide by slide, and he has just said, "I've been thinking about this for a while." The CFO is nodding. Your name is not on the deck.
The conversation will move in about ten seconds. You have three choices, and each one costs something.
This is not a small moment. Credit in a leadership meeting is how a reputation gets built, one slide at a time, and the people in this room will decide your next role without ever reading an email.
Option A. Say it now
"Glad this is landing. When I drafted it last week, the piece I was least sure about was the rollout timing. Want me to walk through that?" One sentence, said as a contribution, puts your name on the work in front of the people who matter, and it does it without accusing anyone of anything.
The cost: it only works if your tone is generous. Said with an edge, it reads as territorial, and the room remembers the edge, not the idea.
Option B. Say it later
You let the meeting run. Then, in your next one-on-one: "In Tuesday's meeting you presented the pricing plan I sent you without mentioning me. I want to understand how you see that." Direct, private, hard to dodge.
The cost: the room's memory is already written. You are relying on his conscience to correct it, and if this is a pattern, his conscience has had chances before.
Option C. Fix the system
You say nothing about this one. Starting tomorrow, every piece of work goes out as a pre-read with your name on the first page, copied to the people who will be in the room. You ask for five minutes on next month's agenda to present the rollout yourself.
The cost: it is slow, and it does nothing about today. It also quietly assumes the problem will happen again, which is usually correct.
What experienced executives say
The idea is not the asset. Being known as the person who produces ideas is the asset, and that reputation is built in rooms, not in email. That is why Option A, done well, wins more often than it loses: ten seconds in the room is worth more than twenty minutes afterward.
Option C is the one most women skip, and it is the one that prevents the next time. Option B matters only if this has happened before, because silence teaches a boss that taking credit is free.
The verdict
First time: A and C. You add your name to the work out loud, and you change how your work travels. Second time: all three, and start keeping dates, because a pattern you can document is a pattern you can end. Whatever you choose, skip the fourth option, which is to tell three colleagues afterward and nobody in the room.
Which would you choose? Vote below. Next week we publish the split, and the best story a reader sent about what happened when she chose it.