I am the person who “gets it done.” In every performance review, I am praised for my initiative, my attention to detail, and my ability to pivot. But lately, those compliments feel less like accolades and more like anchors. I have realized that in my current office, my talent isn’t being rewarded—it is being exploited. I am a victim of a silent, pervasive, and incredibly frustrating phenomenon: Weaponised Incompetence.
Weaponised incompetence isn’t a loud refusal to work. It’s quieter, more insidious. It’s the deliberate display of helplessness or strategic “cluelessness” to avoid accountability. It’s the colleague who “just can’t figure out” the new software, the manager who is “too busy with high-level strategy” to review a critical doc, and the peer who submits work so riddled with errors that it’s faster for me to do it myself than to explain how to fix it.
This isn’t just about laziness; it’s a form of passive resistance at work that shifts the heavy lifting onto the conscientious, leaving people like me to pay a steep price.
The Dynamics of Avoidance: Who is Doing This?
Popular discourse often tries to pin this on a specific generation, the “quiet quitting” of Gen Z or the “tech-illiteracy” of Boomers. But from where I’m sitting, that’s a myth. I’ve seen it across every age cohort. The difference isn’t the year someone was born; it’s the power they hold.
- Junior Staff: I’ve mentored juniors who feign a lack of understanding regarding basic complexity. By “not knowing how,” they ensure that the difficult, high-stakes tasks never land on their desks.
- Mid-level Managers: I’ve reported to managers who use “operational ignorance” as a shield. They delegate downward constantly, pleading overload, effectively turning their subordinates into their personal assistants.
- Senior Leaders: Even at the top, I see it. Executives who refuse to engage with execution details because they are “big picture thinkers,” forcing the rest of us to clean up the logistical mess their vague visions create.
As a woman in this environment, the burden is even heavier. Research from McKinsey and Lean In confirms what I feel every day: there is a significant competence tax women workplace professionals pay. We are often socialized to be “helpful,” which makes us the primary targets for those looking to offload their invisible labour office tasks. When a colleague “forgets” how to format a report or “struggles” with a client presentation, I am the one expected to step in and save the day.
The Consequences: Burnout and the Stagnation of the Talented
The impact of this behavior isn’t just a few extra hours at the office; it’s a total erosion of professional well-being.
- Work Overload and Burnout: My to-do list is no longer mine. It’s a graveyard of tasks that others were too “helpless” to finish. This leads to chronic burnout due to overwork, as I am essentially doing the jobs of one and a half people.
- The Stagnation of Invisible Labour: Because I am so busy “rescuing” projects and fixing others’ mistakes, my own high-level strategic work is pushed to the margins. This workload inequality that the teams experience means my career progression slows down because I am too busy being the “glue” that keeps the department from falling apart.
- Resentment and Conflict: It is hard to maintain a “team player” attitude when you know your peers are strategically under-performing to protect their own leisure time. This creates a cycle of resentment that poisons the organisational accountability culture.
The Flip Side: Competence Hoarding
Interestingly, I’ve also noticed the opposite extreme: competence hoarding leadership. Some of my peers go the other way, refusing to share expertise or automate processes because they want to create “dependency loops.” They want to be the only person who knows how to run a specific report so they can control decision-making.
Whether it’s feigned incompetence or hoarded competence, both are toxic workplace behaviours that destroy team efficiency. Both result in the same thing: a bottleneck where the work either stops or falls onto the few of us willing to be transparent and productive.
Reclaiming My Time: Strategies for Boundary Setting
I’ve realized that being “too helpful” is actually enabling the problem. To survive, I’ve had to change my own behavior. If you’re like me, here is how I am fighting back:
- Documenting Scope Creep: I now keep a meticulous log of my task allocation. When I am asked to “help” with someone else’s responsibility, I document it. Data is the only way to move the conversation from “feelings” to “workload facts.”
- The RACI Solution: I’ve pushed for clear RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) matrices for every project. When responsibilities are in writing, it’s much harder for someone to plead ignorance.
- Refusing the “Rescue”: This was the hardest part. I’ve started practicing boundary setting at work. When a colleague says, “I just can’t get this formula to work,” I no longer say, “Give it here.” Instead, I say, “That sounds frustrating. You should check the internal Wiki or ask IT for a training session.” I am declining the rescues that enable their incompetence.
- Escalating Patterns, Not Personalities: When I talk to my manager, I don’t say “John is lazy.” I say, “I’ve noticed a pattern where the data entry for Project X is consistently falling to me, which is delaying my work on Project Y. We need to look at our fair work allocation.”
What the Organisation Must Do
Individual boundaries can only go so far. For a real change, the company needs to foster an organisational accountability culture.
We need transparent workload tracking where “invisible labour” is made visible. Performance metrics should be based on outcomes, not just appearing busy. Most importantly, managers must be held accountable for workload inequality teams. If one person is consistently doing 70% of the work while the others “struggle” with the basics, that is a failure of management, not just a problem with the staff.
I’m a talented employee, and I love what I do. But I refuse to be the “safety net” for people who have turned helplessness into a career strategy. It’s time we stop taxing the competent and start demanding accountability from everyone.