You’ve been staying late all week finishing the quarterly roadmap deck, a task your manager was supposed to lead. Earlier, they brushed it off: “I’m not great at decks… you’re better at storytelling anyway.” Now, with the executive review approaching, you’re scrambling to pull everything together with little guidance. You head home, looking forward to a chance to sit back and relax. When you arrive, you see the kitchen is filthy, with the sink completely full of dishes. Your partner says, “You always tell me that I don’t wash them properly, so I just left them in the sink.” If these scenarios feel familiar, you may have witnessed weaponized incompetence.
A Dishonest Strategy
With true incompetence or lack of skill, the person realizes that they have room to grow and takes on the responsibility of improving themselves. Weaponized incompetence, however, isn’t genuine. It is an act. The intention is that someone else will see their “inadequacies” and step in to reduce their workload. This behavior is common in both the workplace and in the home, creating a labor disparity that can quickly become the new norm.
When only certain groups, most often and especially women and minorities, absorb more invisible labor, it undermines equity, advancement, and well-being. At work, people often use weaponized incompetence to offload “low-value” or invisible tasks like event planning, admin work, and office housekeeping onto others, most often women.
Women are also disadvantaged by a lack of equitable division of labor in the home. For example, each week, women in Australia spend eight more hours doing household labor than Australian men. With the burden of a higher mental load and more responsibilities, it is not surprising that women also report low satisfaction with the division of labor in the home and experience higher levels of burnout and emotional fatigue.
Credit: Taking the Pulse of the Nation (TTPN) Survey, via Melbourne Institute
Incapable, but Only for Undesirable Tasks
There are a few ways to spot weaponized incompetence. As a leader in the workplace, you can look out for frequent use of self-disparaging speech or claims like “You are just so much better at this task.” You can pay close attention to how your peers and subordinates interact and pass tasks amongst themselves. Perhaps you might notice that one team member seems to be providing a disproportionate amount of support, or another seems to always be wiggling out of their more mundane responsibilities.
Small changes in clarity and communication can dismantle big inequities. The best way to address strategic incompetence is through clarity, accountability, and skill-building. The use of role-assignment sheets at work or shared task lists at home will allow you to lay out responsibilities in writing to ensure everyone understands what is expected of them. It can also help to ensure that invisible or tedious tasks don’t always fall on the same person and that credit is always given for a job well done. In the end, aim to cultivate the skills of your partner or team. If someone says, “I’m bad at this,” make it your first instinct to offer training instead of taking over.
Practice Makes Perfect
Weaponized incompetence is a subtle behavior that has a major impact on equity, productivity, and fairness both at home and at work. Take some time to reflect upon your actions and the actions of those around you this week. Are you taking on more than your fair share? It may feel easier in the moment, but in the long run, this only overburdens you and weakens the team as a whole.
This article was written by a guest contributor, G. Johnson.
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