Competence and Loyalty Controversy by Bolutife Oluwadele

I had three conversations recently that dissected the issues of competence and loyalty. I led two of those conversations, while the third one was at the instance of a passive listener to our first conversation.

In the first conversation, I reiterated my public opinion that I favoured competence over loyalty. I defended that allegiance could be faked, but you cannot fake competence. There was an agreement with my stance with my first conversationist.

A passive listener to the conversation above decided to engage me one-on-one with his deep-rooted disagreement with my position. Upon analysis, he showed me the other side of the coin. In his submission, he made two valid assertions:

Competence may also be faked in the short run. I disagreed with him! My disagreement is that if a person claims to know how to drive a car and cannot even open the car, how is the claim justified? He counter-emphasized that people claimed things on their resume (CV) that were not true. Again, I asserted that competence is not judged by what you put on your resume but by what you can deliver.

Loyalty is more critical than I had slightly explained. He further claimed that my position is skewed because I may have suffered betrayals in the past. Though a rarity, he echoed that ‘genuine’ loyalty is an invaluable asset. He swept me off my feet. No doubt, I have been narrow-minded in my description of loyalty. He emphasized that not all loyalty, contrary to my view, leads to sycophancy.

I yielded to his superior argument. Genuine loyalty is a treasure. I then asked him, what if a highly loyal person is incompetent? He took a deep breath. He said, “That is another issue altogether”.

In the third conversation, we created distinctions between competence based on self-awareness and not.

A self-aware, competent person is either humble or arrogant. We agreed that such an individual may need the God factor or excellent home training to remain humble.

When competence is not self-aware, the tendency is to become timid and grossly overused.

In this third conversation, I was asked a question that I had yet to muster an answer to:

“When you are self-aware of your competence, how should you respond to those deliberately doing everything to frustrate you?” 

How would you answer this question?

From these three experiences, certain things may be analyzed further.

Competent people seem to undermine or perhaps disrespect other colleagues who may not be as well grounded as themselves. This attitude often leads to a lack of effective collaboration with such colleagues. They then become lone wolves and may fail the test as team players.

The unaware, competent people are often overused with no benefits derived from their high competencies. They give more than they get in return, which may lead to dissatisfaction and pulling out eventually.

Loyalty is a treasured asset, but it can hardly survive in the long run as a standalone. Loyalty combined with competence is the ultimate and highly desirable by organizations.

In politics, loyalty is placed above competence. Therefore, neutrality in politics is viewed as disloyalty, and competence is rubbished in such circumstances.

For loyalty to stand the test of time, it must be constantly evaluated and not given a blank cheque hence it may become obsolete and tend towards sycophancy.

In the final analysis, competence gets the job done, and very well, loyalty ensures dependability and reliance. One can be competent and loyal where there is commonality and good ethos from both parties.

Is it any better than the other?

Your thoughts and experiences are welcome.

©TheVillageBoy.