# What term? someone who shows knowledge and skill but proves incomopetent when given authority. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 9, 2013, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-term-someone-who-shows-knowledge-and-skill-but-proves-incomopetent-when-given-authority/646592 "2013-01-09T06:02:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![FlippyFly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e95f7d/32.png) [@FlippyFly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlippyFly)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2013, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-term-someone-who-shows-knowledge-and-skill-but-proves-incomopetent-when-given-authority/646592/21 "2013-01-09T20:56:26Z")
A bit different but my understanding is that as a form of government, a kakistocracy is defined as rule by the least qualified. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2013, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-term-someone-who-shows-knowledge-and-skill-but-proves-incomopetent-when-given-authority/646592/22 "2013-01-09T21:15:54Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > Right, because doing the given job is one set of skills and managing people is a completely different set of skills. I am very, very good at print production. I am terrible at managing other people. I’ve had a lot of training and experience in print production. I’ve had zero training and very little experience with management. I was promoted to manager once and had the good sense to (eventually) step back down to production slave because it was clear to me that either my management skills sucked or I simply hated management because I wasn’t doing the work I enjoyed anymore. That is the way I look at it too. I work in IT and I think it is a little different than some other fields in that you aren’t expected to move up just because you are good at your job. I am a systems analyst for example and there are other systems analysts in their 20’s and some in their 70’s. It is fairly high paying and requires a lot of skill that isn’t just based on raw age. The same thing is true among other technical fields too. Great surgeons don’t typically hope to become hospital administrators one day and research scientists rarely dream of becoming president of their university. That type of administration is a completely different job and not one that I have ever wanted (I do too much of it already against my will). You shouldn’t become a manager in a technical field just because you were good at doing the hands on work, you should only take that path if you want it and have good management skills. Truly good managers can typically manage anything whether they know how to do the work themselves or not. I have had managers that made a lot less money than I did because they didn’t have many technical skills but they wanted to get management track experience. It is two completely separate career path in some fields and the main thing that matters is how good of a manager you are in general, not how much you excelled doing the work yourself. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2013, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-term-someone-who-shows-knowledge-and-skill-but-proves-incomopetent-when-given-authority/646592/23 "2013-01-09T21:16:33Z")
“Professor” of course. 😉 Or as I always hear it, in my Grandfather’s strong New Hampshire accent: Them as can’t do, teach. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-term-someone-who-shows-knowledge-and-skill-but-proves-incomopetent-when-given-authority/646592/24 "2013-01-09T22:22:12Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > “Professor” of course. 😉 Or as I always hear it, in my Grandfather’s strong New Hampshire accent: Them as can’t do, teach. Then there’s them who think that, just because they can do something, they must be able to teach it. :rolleyes: And, in the case of most professors, what they do apart from teaching is something that nobody else at all (except, sometimes, a handful of other professors) has the knowledge and competence to do. Incidentally, for those of you who _keep_ saying it, it is quite apparent from post #10 that the OP did not mean anything along the lines of “book smart”. Quite the contrary: he meant people who are competent at doing some job, but prove not to be good at managing (or mentoring, teaching, or whatever) other people doing it. ---
**Author:** ![Blakeyrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blakeyrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blakeyrat)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2013, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-term-someone-who-shows-knowledge-and-skill-but-proves-incomopetent-when-given-authority/646592/25 "2013-01-10T00:24:42Z")
> [@chargerrich](#): > > I will go with the “[Sobel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Sobel) Effect” > > Yeah I am watching too much Band of Brothers :smack: That’s almost the opposite… Sobel was incompetent, but a hard-ass. Those he trained said he was incompetent, but learning to deal with his being a hard-ass helped them survive in the battlefield. So Sobel was incompetent at his actual job, but ended up being useful despite himself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-term-someone-who-shows-knowledge-and-skill-but-proves-incomopetent-when-given-authority/646592.md?page=1)