By: John S. Morlu II, CPA
1. The Corporate CEO: “I Don’t Do Details”
Ah, the titan of industry. He pockets $20 million a year but can’t figure out how to log in to his company’s email system. Ask him about a quarterly report and he waves a manicured hand: “I’m more of a big-picture guy.”
Translation: I’ll collect the stock options, and you — the “little people” — can mop up the mess of supply chains, lawsuits, and HR scandals.
This is incompetence with a yacht. He gets to pretend “visionary,” while his COO drowns in 19-hour days. Bonus points when he blames the market for disasters that were entirely his fault.
And when the ship finally sinks? Don’t worry — there’s a $50 million golden parachute waiting. The same man who couldn’t interpret an Excel chart is now sipping champagne on the Riviera while thousands of laid-off employees are updating their résumés on borrowed Wi-Fi at Starbucks. Corporate boards call this “leadership transition.” Employees call it “being screwed.”
The spectacle is always the same: a farewell press release filled with words like “strategic vision,” “innovative leadership,” and “next chapter.” Never once does it say, “This guy tanked us faster than the Titanic and we’re paying him to leave.” But that’s exactly what it means. It’s incompetence upgraded to a golden tier rewards program.
2. The Middle Manager: Power Through Powerlessness
The middle manager is the Michelangelo of weaponized incompetence.
- Can’t approve a budget without ten more meetings.
- Can’t resolve a conflict without HR.
- Can’t make a decision until “senior leadership aligns.”
By the time anything gets done, the calendar has reset, the employees have quit, and the problem has either fixed itself or collapsed into dust. But the manager? Untouched. Because, hey, “my hands were tied.”
This is not incompetence. This is immunity. Middle managers thrive on paralysis by analysis. They stretch one decision into six months of committee work, producing a stack of PowerPoints taller than the interns making them. The brilliance of the move? They never fail — because they never decide. Like bureaucratic ninjas, they vanish into process charts, leaving no fingerprints on the corpse of productivity.
And let’s not forget their favorite phrase: “Let’s circle back.” Circle back to what? To the same discussion you’ve been circling for half a fiscal year. The middle manager is the human embodiment of a software loading wheel — always spinning, never progressing.
3. The Political Leader: “Who Knew It Was So Complicated?”
Remember when a president stood in front of the world and confessed, “Who knew healthcare was so complicated?”
Literally everyone. Every citizen. Every doctor. Every insurance agent. The janitor at the hospital knew. But say it with enough fake innocence and suddenly you’re excused from the expectation of actually fixing it.
Weaponized incompetence in politics is genius: when everything goes wrong, it’s never malice, it’s just oops. “We didn’t know. We didn’t have the data. Mistakes were made.” No one ever says by whom.
This is why politicians love incompetence: it converts betrayal into “learning curves” and corruption into “oversights.” Whole regimes have been toppled because of it, yet the leaders walk away shaking their heads as if they just tripped on an untied shoelace instead of detonating an economy. The audacity works — voters forgive the bumbling fool faster than the calculating villain.
Every scandal becomes a “miscommunication.” Every war gone wrong becomes a “strategic miscalculation.” Every collapsed economy is a “rough patch.” History books pile up with euphemisms, while the leaders write memoirs about their “difficult decisions” — all ghostwritten, of course, by someone competent.
4. The Spouse: Domestic Disarmament
The husband who “doesn’t know how” to load the dishwasher. The wife who “just can’t” handle online banking. Each one a general in the domestic cold war.
Strategy: do the job so poorly the other partner bans you from doing it again.
Result: permanent vacation from chores.
Collateral damage: rage, resentment, and sometimes divorce lawyers billing $500/hour.
This is where weaponized incompetence hits peak artistry. Burn the chicken once, and you’ll never cook again. Mix the whites and colors in one disastrous laundry cycle, and you’ve guaranteed yourself lifetime exemption. These small acts of “oops” compound into one-sided marriages where one partner is not just carrying the mental load — they’re carrying the whole damn washing machine up three flights of stairs. Meanwhile, the incompetent partner reclines on the couch like a war hero who bravely “tried.”
The beauty of domestic incompetence is plausible deniability. “I didn’t mean to flood the bathroom with dish soap, I thought it was laundry detergent.” And just like that — one faux mistake buys you decades of exemption from cleaning duty. Household weaponized incompetence is less about failing the task and more about winning the war of who never has to do it again.
5. The Employee: The Trojan Horse
Every office has one:
- The guy who “isn’t good with Excel.”
- The woman who “struggles with email attachments.”
- The intern who “accidentally deleted” the shared drive.
Meanwhile, these same people are elite hackers when it comes to Instagram reels, fantasy football stats, or booking Taylor Swift tickets in under 12 seconds.
It’s not lack of skill — it’s selective genius. They’ve figured out what not to know, and how to stay ignorant forever.
The Trojan Horse employee is dangerous. They waltz into organizations looking harmless, but inside is a time bomb of intentional cluelessness. Every task is either botched or delayed, forcing coworkers to swoop in as rescuers. The brilliance? Their incompetence cloaks them in job security. Fire them, and HR whispers: “But they’re trying so hard.” Keep them, and your productivity graph flatlines. Either way, they win.
These employees have perfected the art of dodging responsibility by “trying.” Their attempts are always visible, their results always unusable. They’re the workplace equivalent of a toddler “helping” to bake a cake — flour everywhere, eggshells in the bowl, and the kitchen on fire — but hey, you can’t say they didn’t try.
6. The Tech Bro: “It’s Still in Beta”
Ah, Silicon Valley — the only ecosystem where failure isn’t a bug, it’s a business plan. Enter the Tech Bro, hoodie-clad, jargon-armed, and spiritually allergic to accountability. His secret weapon? A single phrase that absolves him of all responsibility: “It’s still in beta.”
Launch a half-baked app that eats user data like a woodchipper? Relax, it’s in beta. Roll out self-driving cars that occasionally mistake pedestrians for traffic cones? Beta. Accidentally leak the private information of 200 million people? Oops — beta testing, bro.
Meanwhile, investors throw wheelbarrows of cash at him, nodding sagely about “disruption” and “moonshots.” Customers suffer, engineers burn out, and entire industries wobble — but the Tech Bro floats on a $2 billion valuation built on incompetence rebranded as iteration.
Every bug is reframed as a “feature.” Every crash is “user feedback.” Every catastrophic failure is “a pivot.” And when the whole circus collapses? Don’t worry — he already has another pitch deck ready, with the same broken idea dressed in fresh buzzwords: Web3, AI, blockchain, quantum, metaverse — take your pick.
The Tech Bro doesn’t need competence. He has charisma, VCs who fear missing out, and a cultural script that worships “fail fast, fail often.” Weaponized incompetence has never looked so sleek. And the punchline? He’ll still end up on a TED stage, giving a talk called “The Beauty of Failure.”
Why Societies Reward It
Here’s the cruel truth: we let incompetence win.
- Corporations reward failing CEOs with golden parachutes.
- Politicians run for reelection on “learning curves.”
- Families quietly sigh, “It’s easier if I just do it.”
And so, the incompetent stroll through life like Zen masters, free from stress, while everyone else cleans up their mess. They’re not lazy. They’re liberated.
In fact, they’re more than liberated — they’re often promoted, praised, and pardoned. Entire industries are built on this cycle: management consulting, political campaigning, and even marriage counseling exist because someone decided to shrug and mutter, “I can’t.”
We’ve normalized incompetence as charm. The bumbling CEO is “visionary.” The clueless politician is “relatable.” The helpless spouse is “lovable.” And the disastrous employee is “eager.” We hand out rewards for failure disguised as effort, turning irresponsibility into a career ladder.
Final Satirical Lesson
Weaponized incompetence is not clumsiness — it’s the deadliest martial art. A Jedi mind trick for dodging responsibility.
And the only way to beat it?
Stop picking up the mop. Let the soup burn, let the project tank, let the leader sweat. Because incompetence is only powerful if someone else steps in to save the day.
Author: John S. Morlu II, CPA is the CEO and Chief Strategist of JS Morlu, leads a globally recognized public accounting and management consultancy firm. Under his visionary leadership, JS Morlu has become a pioneer in developing cutting-edge technologies across B2B, B2C, P2P, and B2G verticals. The firm’s groundbreaking innovations include AI-powered reconciliation software (ReckSoft.com) and advanced cloud accounting solutions (FinovatePro.com), setting new industry standards for efficiency, accuracy, and technological excellence.