When Competence Becomes the Enemy of Growth

Competence Is a Gift—and a Risk

Competence is a gift. It is earned through experience, discipline, and faithfulness over time. Organizations depend on it. Teams trust it. Results often follow it. And yet, for leaders, competence carries a quiet danger: what once fueled growth can eventually limit it.

Most leaders do not stall because they lack ability. They stall because they rely too heavily on the ability they already have.

When Strength Replaces Listening

Competence becomes an enemy when it removes the need to listen. When leaders know what works, they are tempted to repeat rather than reexamine. Efficiency replaces curiosity. Confidence replaces reflection. Proverbs 3:5–6 offers a warning and an invitation: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Competence leans easily on its own understanding. Growth requires surrender.

This is why high-performing leaders are often the most vulnerable. Success reinforces patterns. Praise affirms methods. Results delay self-examination. There is little pressure to change when things appear to be working. Yet growth rarely announces itself with urgency—it often arrives disguised as discomfort.

Unlearning Before Advancing

Scripture consistently shows that advancement follows unlearning. Moses was highly competent in Pharaoh’s court—educated, influential, and capable—yet unprepared to shepherd a people. The wilderness stripped away his reliance on position and replaced it with dependence on God. The apostle Paul captures this paradox when he writes, “When I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10). Strength that is not surrendered eventually becomes brittle.

A Personal Leadership Lesson

I have encountered many challenging situations in business. Negotiating and working through conflict is part of my work, and experience has taught me valuable principles. But I have also learned that no two situations are the same. What worked once cannot simply be replicated again.

There are overarching principles that are consistently helpful—humility, showing grace, and prayer—but the path to reconciliation or resolution is different each time. I often need to step back and seek God for wisdom on how best to approach the issue in front of me. Pulling back and asking God for help prevents me from trying to recreate past victories in my own self-reliant ways. Competence may give confidence, but dependence provides discernment.

Choosing Growth Over Control

Growing leaders begin to ask different questions. Instead of “How do I solve this?” they ask, “Who needs to grow through this?” Instead of leading from expertise, they lead from humility. Philippians 2:3 challenges leaders directly: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.” Humility creates space for others to rise.

Competence should never be discarded, but it must be held loosely. When it replaces dependence—on God, on others, on learning—it becomes a ceiling. When it is surrendered, it becomes a foundation.

The Question That Matters Most

The question for leaders is not whether they are competent. The question is whether their competence is still serving growth—or quietly standing in its way.

True leadership maturity is marked not by how capable we are, but by how willing we are to grow beyond what once made us successful.