The Pitfalls of Being Competent

It was expressed to me recently, during the course of a meandering conversation, that to be described as competent in whatever kind of activity, whether that be work, sport, art, or any other random endeavour, is to be damned by faint praise.

And while this rang true to me, it also seemed completely unjust that to be competent should be so lowly valued, especially given how increasingly rare it is in today’s world.

The dictionary puts it like this:

Competent [kom-pi-tuhnt]: having suitable or sufficient skill, knowledge, experience, etc., for some purpose; properly qualified.

Hardly a glowing definition.

And yet, every day, as we step out into the world and interact with people of all kinds, we consistently meet varying degrees of incompetence, we witness it daily at all levels of government, management, bureaucracy, education and service, let alone in our humble offices.

Incompetence, at the very least, makes us roll our eyes, but it can also make our lives tedious. So why should competence get such a pitiful rap; isn’t it time we start to give more credit to competent people? Because if there is one thing I know, you can’t be competent without being conscientious*.

Conscientious [kon-shee-en-shuhs]: careful and painstaking; particular; diligent; meticulous; scrupulous.

Now this is a characteristic that definitely deserves more credit.

Conscientiousness in and of itself does not necessarily mean competent – I’m sure we’ve all met a diligent and meticulous person who, despite their best efforts, just doesn’t have what it takes to get the job done. But to be competent requires care, commitment, effort and the desire to carry out the task well - i.e. conscientiousness*.

This should never be underestimated.

Competent people carry our society, they keep the wheels turning, the cogs oiled, the engine running. While everyone is preoccupied lauding the superstar, the “lowly” competent people are the ones getting on with the task, without the accolades. And they do it because they themselves understand how important it is that they do so.

The reality is that good enough just isn’t…well…good enough, in today’s world. We are expected to over-deliver in order to be valued, despite the obvious under-delivery of others.

Perhaps it’s a carry over from the 80s, when getting to the top was the endgame, when you had to constantly strive to be better than the person sitting next to you. Or maybe it’s a result of the competitisation of practically everything from cooking to home renovating to finding a mate to surviving in the wilderness, or “surviving” in a house full of strangers. It’s the winner we are all hungry for.

The problem with being competent is that it is expected; after all, it’s what you get paid for. But conscientiousness, which is a much rarer quality and the driver of your competence, is invisible.

When you’re conscientiously competent, the energy you pour into any activity seems to disappear, the things you do work so smoothly that they appear effortless, so effortless, in fact, that their undertaking goes completely undetected.

When you’re conscientiously competent, your achievements are taken for granted because you “make it look so easy!”. And because you make it look so easy, more and more is expected of you, your duties increase because you can be reasonably relied upon to carry them out. Meanwhile you're too conscientious to suggest you already have a lot on your plate.

The world NEEDS competent people and they are harder and harder to find – if you’ve ever been involved in recruiting people, you’ll know this to be a fact. So maybe we should give a little more credit to those competent people around us and thank them for their conscientiousness before they burn out and give up all together.

*Some people are just naturally talented and can do almost anything without too much hard work, but these people are diamonds. On occasion, you’ll get a competent person who couldn’t care less about the job at hand, and will forfeit their conscientiousness making themselves and those around them miserable. These people are to be avoided at all costs.

© Maria Orlandi 2026