In the past couple of weeks, a regular topic of discussion among my friends has been the prevalence of laziness and weaponized incompetence in club leadership. Weaponized incompetence is when people pretend to not know how to do something or give excuses as to why they can’t complete a task in order to make someone else finish the task. In club leadership, it usually shows up when people who are fully capable of doing a task either act like they have no idea how to do it or do it poorly so someone else has to do it for them. 

I think this problem has always existed but has been amplified the past couple of years. I would say a major reason behind the increase in weaponized incompetence is the competitive college admissions process. At a school like this one, tons of kids are vying for a few spots at elite colleges. To get into these colleges, students are required to be heavily involved in clubs and extracurricular activities. But colleges have no actual way of checking if the hours a student reports on their activity log are accurate representations of their work ethic or involvement in the club. This sets up a system where people can be lazy, ineffective club leaders and face no repercussions for it. So more and more people feel empowered to not do any work because they know they can’t be held accountable.

But when some members don’t do the work, other leaders of the club have to pick up their slack. This leads to unequal workloads and undue stress for the contributing members and can seriously harm the success of a club. Oftentimes, the members who are contributing have no outlet to express their unhappiness with other members and face more difficulty in leading a club than they signed up for. 

To mitigate this problem, clubs should have more thorough screening processes for leadership positions. Often, club leadership is determined by a person’s closeness with prior leadership and not actually their merit or work ethic. Every club is entitled to pick leaders however they want to, but club leaders and sponsors should make a bigger effort to give positions to people who have displayed commitment and genuine leadership instead of perpetuating a “spoils system” where they solely give leadership positions to their friends. This would go a long way in ensuring leadership remains merit-based and doesn’t reward people for connections instead of work ethic. 

Additionally, club leaders and sponsors should have more open communication available. A lot of club leaders don’t feel like they can share their grievances about certain members with their sponsors because they are afraid of causing drama, and that is a system that seriously needs to change. To address this problem, I recommend all clubs have anonymous feedback forms with their club sponsor so students can air grievances and give insight into their perspectives. This also gives the club sponsor the ability to intervene and resolve issues students can’t themselves. 

Ultimately, club leadership is a team effort that requires all students to chip in. When this doesn’t happen, resentment and stress build, leading to a less successful leadership team and club culture. To counter a culture where people get rewarded for doing the bare minimum, I encourage all students to pull their weight and contribute meaningfully to the clubs they are a part of. Weaponized incompetence is a student-created problem and its solution can be student led too.

The views in this column do not necessarily reflect the views of the HiLite staff. Reach Mahitha Konjeti at [email protected].