I was a professional musician in the 1980s. I played guitar, but this was always a sideline to my real work as a recording engineer and producer. Competence, not virtuosity, was the coin of the realm in the studio, and I was competent. Still, I spent much of my time surrounded by musicians who left me slack-jawed: people who could sight-read Bach at breakfast and bash out Van Halen riffs after lunch without missing a beat. Next to them, I was, charitably, merely competent.
Thatâs the thing about competence: it doesnât make you the star, but it keeps the machine running. I knew I wasnât the flash guitarist or the prodigy bassist, but I could play my parts cleanly and hold a band together. When later groups already had lead guitarists, I played bass. Was I a bassist? No. But I was competent enough to lock in with the drummer and serve the ensemble. Nobody mistook me for a virtuoso, least of all me. I wasnât an impostor; I was a cog in the machine, good enough to keep the show on the road. That was my ego attachment: not âmusicianâ as identity, but member of a band.
The Hallucination of âImpostor Syndromeâ
Much ink is spilt on impostor syndrome, that anxious whisper that one is a fraud who doesnât belong. The polite story is that itâs just nerves: you are competent, you do belong, youâre simply holding yourself against impossible standards. Nonsense. The truth is darker. Most people are impostors.
The nervous tension is not a malfunction of self-esteem; itâs a moment of clarity. A faint recognition that youâve been miscast in a role you canât quite play, but are forced to mime anyway. The Peter Principle doesnât kick in at some distant managerial plateau; itâs the basic law of organisational gravity. People rise past their competence almost immediately, buoyed not by skill but by connections, bluff, and HRâs obsession with âfit.â
The Consultantâs View from the Cheap Seats
As a Management Consultantâ˘, I met countless âleadersâ whose only discernible talent was staying afloat whilst already over their heads. Organisations, too blind or too immature to notice, rewarded them with raises and promotions anyway. Somebodyâs got to get them, after all. HR dutifully signed the paperwork, called it âtalent management,â and congratulated itself on another triumph of culture-fit over competence.
In music, incompetence is self-correcting: audiences walk out, bands dissolve, the market punishes mediocrity. In corporate life, incompetence metastasises. Bluffers thrive. Mediocrity is embalmed, padded with stock options, and paraded on stage at leadership summits.
Good Enough vs. Bluff Enough
Competence, though, is underrated. You donât need to be the best guitarist or the savviest CEO. You need to be good enough for the role youâre actually playing, and honest enough not to mistake the role for your identity. In bands, that worked fine. In business and politics, itâs subversive. The whole edifice depends on people pretending to be more than they are, rehearsing confidence in lieu of competence.
No wonder impostor syndrome is rampant. Itâs not a pathology; itâs the ghost of truth in a system of lies.
The antidote isnât TED-talk therapy or self-affirmation mantras. Itâs honesty: admit the limits of your competence, stop mistaking ego for ability, and refuse to play HRâs charade. Competence is enough. The rest is noise.
Philosophics 