the ultimate fear of many emerging leaders is the fear of looking incompetent the fear of not being able to do the job or of having your boss regret hiring you the truth is you could be contributing to this outcome you could be making a number of leadership mistakes that make you look incompetent starting with being self-depreciating how many of you are guilty of this where you try to make yourself your abilities and your achievements seem less important for example when someone compliments you on the amazing presentation that you gave you might reply with are you kidding I did terrible I forgot to talk about two important things in the middle of the presentation instead of thanking that person with confidence and Grace you criticize yourself and put focus on your weakness even if you do it in a humorous way you're still denying yourself the credit that you deserve the credit that you've earned and the credit you've worked hard for and you're basically telling people directly that you are not competent that you are not up to the job there is no need to be overly modest in the workplace you might think that it makes you appear humble but in reality it causes people to think that you don't have confidence in yourself or in your ability which in turn makes them question your competence another leadership mistake that makes you look incompetent is laziness this is where you don't perform the tasks you're supposed to or when you perform them half-heartedly and with mistakes or when you drag your feet and take longer than necessary to get them done as well as making you look like you don't care laziness makes you look incompetent because your boss's first assumption when you make mistakes or when you take longer than necessary is going to be that you don't have the skill set needed to perform that task they might offer you training or support to help you perform better but if you are still lazy and producing mediocre results your boss will come to the conclusion that you're probably in the wrong job so if you want to be seen as competent in the workplace competent as a leader don't let laziness get in your way way your competence as a leader will be expressed most of the time through your communication through your ability to explain complicated topics through your ability to describe innovative ideas or depict solutions to problems as a leader the majority of what you do in your job is communicate and as such this is an Avenue through which people may or may not see you as competent if you're able to speak with Clarity organize your thoughts and articulate yourself well well chances are those listening to you will conclude that you are a competent professional if you're not able to do those things and your communication is hazy unclear or muddled the only conclusion people will make is that you don't know the concepts or content well enough to explain them therefore you are incompetent basically you can't understand it enough to explain it well avoid this leadership mistake and stop people concluding that you are incompetent by putting more effort into your communication ation I have many videos on my Channel about how to improve your communication particularly about how to articulate better and how to organize your thoughts well I'll put a playlist in the description below and I don't know if you know about this but I have a podcast called the leadership pod where I talk about topics very similar to what we talk about on this channel leadership career related topics so if you prefer to learn why you are driving while you are running or while you're cleaning the house then a podcast is a really good way to do this you'll find the leadership pod on Apple podcasts Amazon Spotify Google podcasts all the major podcasting platforms and I will put a link for that in the description below repeating other people's ideas after they have announced them is another leadership mistake that will make you look incompetent let's say you work for the local Council you're in a meeting with your colleagues and one of your colleagues called Jack says he thinks it's a good idea to notify people in the neighborhood that there will be road work going on next week then you after he's announced his idea you step in and you repeat the exact same idea this is what I mean by repeating other people's ideas which is really not far from stealing other people's ideas which is also found upon you might do this because you want to be credited with that idea but at the end of the day that idea isn't yours so people are not only going to question your lack of Integrity they will also question your lack of listening skills and they they might assume a slowness to comprehend your colleagues ideas if you don't want people to think that you lack listening skills intelligence or Integrity then don't repeat other people's ideas you can talk about them in a positive way but make sure that you credit the person who came up with that idea in the first place being tactless is about having no regard for other people's feelings being offending blunt or undiplomatic and this is another way that other people can think you are incompetent this is how it plays out in leadership smart leaders know that people's skills and emotional intelligence are important and a big part of having emotional intelligence is to recognize the impact your words and your actions have on other people when you're tactless or when you say blunt thoughtless remarks to other people it makes you look like you don't care or that you don't realize you're being hurtful as though you don't have the mental capacity to be emotionally intelligent this is why leaders without emotional intelligence in today's workplace are often seen as incompetent because in order to be a good leader you need a solid combination of both technical skills and people skills to manage and lead people well so start to put thought into the impact of your words actions and behavior on other people in your team so they can start to see you as a competent leader you can watch this video up here if you want some more help on learning about emotional intelligence the next leadership mistake that will will make you look incompetent is not aligning your ideas with the company's goals you see everything that you do as a leader should be in alignment with the bigger picture with the corporate goals and the corporate objectives you don't work in a vacuum you don't work alone you're part of a larger team and your focus as a leader should be on those bigger goals and making them come to life every time you offer an idea that is not in line with those corporate goals it makes you look like you don't even know what they are and people will start to question whether you've understood those corporate goals and the big picture that everyone is working towards you might think that your idea is a great one and it might be but if it doesn't align with the corporate goals then it's not a valuable contribution probably the biggest mistake that leaders and all professionals make that lead people to think they are incompetent is staying silent in meetings I know you do this because you probably want to fly under the radar you don't want to be visible maybe you're worried that you will say the wrong thing or that someone will ask you a question you don't know the answer to or maybe you don't want to draw attention to yourself so you can walk out of the meeting maintaining the illusion of competence that you've built but people won't buy into this illusion of competence instead they're going to think that you have nothing to contribute that you don't know much about the job you were hired to do or that you don't have the skills or the competence needed to do the job well so staying silent doesn't help you at all when you want to develop your leadership presence or when you want to develop your leadership brand and speaking up in meetings is something that you absolutely need to get used to you need to become confident doing because it would definitely help you out in your leadership journey and knowing how to speak up more in meetings is something that I talk about in this video right here thank you so much for watching this video I do hope you liked it and got some valuable insights into leadership if you did like it please hit the like button below subscribe to my channel and hit the notification Bell so you know every time I release a new video thank you again for watching and I will see you next week in another video