Incompetence in the workplace is a serious matter. A badly placed individual – who isn’t capable of handling their job – can have a damaging affect on the entire operation, and the higher up said individual is the more damage they can make.

Identifying incompetence in management and executives can be difficult, as we as human beings tend to view people differently depending on where they are placed in our socially constructed hierarchy. The Pratfall- and Halo Error* are big players in this matter, where our perception of an individual clouds our rational judgement.

* The Pratfall- and Halo Error will not be discussed in this article.

Being able to identify possible incompetence despite our personal feelings for an individual is important to maintain an unbiased filter on possible detrimental factors in our workplaces.

Let’s list several factors that can be identified, regardless of our personal feelings towards an individual.

Dunning-Kruger Effect

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias that describes how individuals with low ability tend to overestimate their own capabilities.

Due to this cognitive bias, most incompetent managers are incapable of identifying themselves as being incompetent. At most, an incompetent manager might be aware of their incompetence on a subconscious level, which results in specific behavioral patterns that can be used to identify their incompetence.

Opinions Equal Expertise

Incompetent managers who suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect not only overestimate their own capabilities, but they also tend to think that their personal opinion equals them having expertise on a matter.

This quite often means that specialists or professionals will find themselves having arguments with the manager regarding work related matters, not because the specialist or professional isn’t capable of doing their work, but because the manager doesn’t understand their work and feels it is “wrong” as it doesn’t follow the manager’s opinion.

This will be evident in a high turnover of specialists and professionals, who feel that their professional integrity is at stake while working under the incompetent manager. Or, said specialists and professionals will start showing less professional integrity as they unwillingly oblige to whatever the incompetent manager says in order to keep their employment.

Word Salads

An incompetent manager often times simply doesn’t understand what is going on, what is being said to them, or how to tackle a situation. In order to combat this, the in incompetent manager will increasingly turn to using word salads to sound more knowledgeable in their position. This will result in a confused workforce and ill fitting action plans that raise more questions than answers.

Micromanagement

One thing incompetent management seems to lean into is micromanagement.

An incompetent manager isn’t always consciously aware that they are incompetent, so they cannot tell themselves that they need to delegate a certain task to make sure it is done properly.

Some incompetent managers simply aren’t even aware how a hierarchy of tasks in an organization functions, and therefore don’t know that they can delegate tasks to their subordinates.

And some delegate tasks, but feel that if they lose their grip on said tasks they will seem incompetent, or lose sight of what is happening and therefore sound incompetent if questioned about it.

Micromanagement is also evident with individuals who have issues with teamwork, are excited about the work and don’t know how to back off, are battling anxiety, or even just don’t understand boundaries, so using micromanagement as a single indicator of possible incompetence isn’t enough.

Trust Issues

Incompetent managers sometimes see their subordinates as mirrors of their own behavior.

If a manager feels unsure in their position, feels that they haven’t quite gotten the hang of their job, or isn’t sure if they are doing well enough, said manager will perceive their subordinates in the exact same fashion – regardless of their subordinates capabilities.

A manager that shows active trust issues towards their subordinates, despite their subordinates showing no signs of not being able to handle their jobs, is most likely projecting.

It is important to point out that as culture is made top-down, in a workplace where an incompetent manager has been in charge for a long time, even the most competent subordinates will appear incompetent as well, and all behavioral issues evident in the manager will be seen in the subordinates. This happens as the subordinates start to mirror the culture that is set by the manager, and from the fact that high potential employees generally do not last long in such an environment.

Sycophants

An incompetent manager tends to surround themselves with equally incompetent individuals in order to mask their own incompetence. And these incompetent individuals all learn to kiss up to the incompetent manager, so that their fawning over the incompetent manager keeps them employed, not their skills in doing their jobs.

The higher up the incompetent manager is, the worse off the entire workplace will be as there will be more managerial positions that are hired into based on if the individual will operate as a sycophant towards the incompetent manager, rather than if the individual has the necessary experience and skills to have a positive outcome in their position.

Nepotism (or Cronyism)

Nepotism is when favoritism is shown to relatives, and even friends. In the job market, said favoritism is often in the form of job opportunities, raises, and promotions. Nepotism therefore often leads to an incompetent individual being promoted – or hired straight into – a senior role that they are incapable of handling.

What is evident with an incompetent nepotism manager, is that said individual will in turn surround themselves not only with sycophants or other incompetent individuals in order to hide their own incompetence, but they will themselves use nepotism to further establish the sycophantic circle around them.

This doesn’t mean that all individuals who get ahead due to nepotism are incompetent. There are instances of when an individual is a nepotistic hire and has the necessary skills and background, but due to the nature of nepotism such instances are few.

Codependency

The best way to identify incompetence in managers is by watching the workplace culture. Sycophantic behavior and signs of codependency between the workforce and with one or more manager, are always clear indicators of managers that are being coddled from their own incompetence, and used for possible cronyism connections.

High Turnover, Economic Hemorrhage

Even without ever looking at behavior or the culture in the workplace, incompetency from a manager can be easily pinpointed by a high turnover of economic hemorrhage.

With an incompetent manager in charge, a high turnover becomes evident as employees choose to seek employment elsewhere, that values their potential and grit, and as an incompetent manager sets the stage for an incompetence culture to take over in the workplace. And should the workplace become known for its incompetent manager, hiring new employees can even become an issue.

Economic hemorrhage is often found to relate to the high turnover, but is often also from “various unrelated issues” such as high cost from poorly managed systems, unnecessary purchases or pet projects, or even personal use of business funds.

If a single department that otherwise should be doing well suddenly starts showing less profits or higher costs or turnover after a new manager takes over, it is safe to say that said manager is most likely incompetent. The higher up the incompetent individual is, the more damage there will be as more departments, projects, and services will be affected by their incompetent decisions.

State of Mind

Incompetent manager don’t only disrupt the workplace with the aforementioned behavior, depending on the temperament they can also become actively and purposefully abusive towards their subordinates should their incompetence ever become an issue. And for management, incompetence affects all their subordinates, and even parallel subordinates and management from support departments, meaning a single incompetent manager can have a cascading detrimental effects on the entire workplace.

Mood swings can become apparent, the incompetent manager will lash out on anyone who even remotely touches on the subject of their incompetence, even if it’s only by showcasing their own competence. What might at first be a simple tantrum from an incompetent manager to establish authority over subordinates, will quickly become a power trip that establishes an active abuse culture in the workplace that will negatively affect all operations and individuals alike.

“Everybody But Me”

The problem with incompetent managers is that they often control the narrative surrounding the downfall of their decisions. When their projects and services start showing less profits or ROI, it will become normal to see entire departments take the blame rather than the incompetent manager, and employees will become fearful of speaking up as individuals who go against the incompetent manager risk being terminated.

Keep in Mind

Incompetence isn’t necessarily born in malice. There are instances where an individual purposefully uses incompetence to gain the upper hand by pretending to be unable to do a task and therefore overloading another with too many tasks. But most often, incompetence is simply an ambitious individual who doesn’t realize that they’ve accepted tasks they’re incapable of doing.

However, for a workplace to be subjected to an incompetent manager that does not seek to rectify the matter, will become indistinguishable from a workplace that operates from purposeful abuse culture.

It is important that all employers are actively aware of possible incompetence in their management team, and that they actively work against maintaining an incompetent manager as the situation can quickly spiral from a cheerful new hire into a successful position, to high costs from dealing with the fallout from incompetence.