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I once heard a line in one of my favorite films, The Red Shoes: “It’s a far worse crime to have to steal than to be stolen from.” At the time, it struck me as poetic and unsettling. It challenged the way we view theft not as a matter of simple wrongdoing but as a symptom of something deeper: inequity, exclusion, desperation.
Years later, that quote continues to echo in my mind, only now, it’s more complex. More personal. Especially in the world of business, where the lines between inspiration and appropriation, leadership and exploitation, credit and silence are often blurred beyond recognition.
In business, theft doesn’t wear a mask. It wears a name tag. It’s the pitch you made that shows up in someone else’s presentation. It’s the strategy you whispered in confidence that becomes part of someone else’s personal brand. It’s the meeting you’re excluded from while your work is discussed in your absence. It’s the client you brought in being courted by someone else behind closed doors. And yet, some of the most impactful thefts are the ones we never speak of: the emotional labor, the unacknowledged support, the hours spent fixing problems we didn’t create. These things are rarely itemized, but they’re felt. They build resentment quietly, brick by brick. I feel like I navigate this one all the time.
But here’s the thing: Many of us have taken, too.
We’ve accepted praise when we should’ve shared it. We’ve leaned too heavily on others without recognizing their contributions. We’ve let opportunities pass us by because they weren’t labeled as ours. We’ve stayed silent when we should’ve advocated for someone else.
The Rolling Stone Culture Council is an invitation-only community for Influencers, Innovators and Creatives. Do I qualify?
That’s where it gets uncomfortable. Because if we’re being honest, if I’m being honest, most of us are both the stolen from and the stealer. We’re shaped by a system that rewards taking, whether it’s time, energy, ideas or space, and rarely stops to question the why. And what if the real issue isn’t just theft itself, but the culture that breeds it. A culture that glorifies ownership but rarely examines access. That rewards those who claim ideas first, not those who contributed most. That values visibility over integrity.
Then there’s another kind of theft — the theft of potential. When people are excluded from rooms they deserve to be in. When credit is redirected before it ever lands in the right place. When the system is so tightly gated that taking becomes the only way in.
There’s a subtle and often overlooked form of stealing we don’t talk about — the kind born from silence. When we witness someone being wronged and say nothing. When we benefit from another’s labor and fail to acknowledge it. When we stay comfortable, knowing someone else is being sidelined. We dress it up in professional language efficiency, streamlining, collaboration — but at its core, it’s still theft. It’s a theft of dignity, of opportunity, of truth. We applaud visionaries and innovators, but rarely do we interrogate who they built upon. We love to reward boldness but often forget the quieter contributions that made boldness possible. In that light, integrity isn’t just about doing the right thing, it’s about telling the full story.
Leadership requires a willingness to ask the hard questions: Who have I left behind? Whose work have I benefited from? Where have I chosen comfort over confrontation? And, perhaps most importantly: How can I do better?
This isn’t a call for perfection. It’s a call for awareness — for leaders to move through the world not just with ambition but with accountability. To build with transparency, not just speed. To acknowledge that sometimes, the most ethical thing we can do is pause and give credit where it’s long overdue. Maybe leadership isn’t about guarding what’s yours. Maybe it’s about offering what you have. Time. Credit. Trust. Access. Space. Voice. And if more of us did that, consistently, intentionally, we might build a world where people no longer feel the need to take what was never freely offered.
