Conscious Incompetence: Definition, Examples, and How to Move Through It

Conscious Incompetence: Definition, Examples, and How to Move Through It

Conscious incompetence is the second of the four stages of competence: the point at which you become aware of a skill gap but have not yet begun to close it. It’s the most uncomfortable stage of learning, and the one most people want to skip. This article explains what it is, where it sits in the full model, and what it actually feels like to move through it.

What Is Conscious Incompetence?

I was recently introduced to a learning model that’s opened up a lot of space around my own development and my work with clients. It’s known as the four stages of competence, the stages themselves being: (1) unconscious incompetence, (2) conscious incompetence, (3) conscious competence, and (4) unconscious competence.

We’re going to specifically explore “conscious incompetence” – where we face a gap between seeing our habits, skills, or behavior we want to change or work on, versus being able to do it, and why this is so uncomfortable. We know something is “missing” but we don’t quite know what to do about it yet. The good news is that it’s the perfect place to open up, instead of shrinking back to our old ways (and find that comfort zone we can easily get stuck in again).

Let’s dive in.

Unconscious incompetence is when our blind spots are still blind, and we’re blissfully ignorant of what we’re capable of growing into (or maybe it’s not so blissful, and that’s why we seek coaching). Once introduced to the new possibility or skill we want to develop, we may begin vague cognitive understanding of it, but the rest of our system has no reference for it yet. We don’t yet know what we can’t do.

Conscious incompetence then ensues. This is the stage when we are aware of the thing that needs to shift but we haven’t yet shifted. It’s having the desire for change while feeling stuck being how we’ve always been. I’ll talk more about this in a second.

Conscious competence comes when we’ve gotten the hang of the new skill or quality, but it’s not yet second nature. For example, if we’re learning to drive a car, we still need to pay attention to which way we need to turn our ankle to reach the brake pedal, remind ourselves to check the rearview mirror, and largely ignore whomever is riding with us so that we can concentrate on what we’re doing.

But eventually, finally, blessedly, comes unconscious competence, when we’ve embodied the new skill and it starts to happen automatically. We’re cruising with the radio on full blast, with our attention on the scenery, on our companions, on our own inner life.

A few versions of the model have been developed over the decades, with the main one often attributed to Abraham Maslow (who also created the famous Hierarchy of Needs). However, the model doesn’t appear in any of Maslow’s published work. Martin M. Broadwell described four levels of teaching in a 1969 article in The Gospel Guardian, and a widely-used version was developed by Noel Burch at Gordon Training International during the 1970s.

Why does its history matter? Because it sheds a light on the purpose of the model. It was designed to help educators understand their students better, including where they were at, so they could support them appropriately. But more importantly, it’s still very useful to this day. When we know which stage we’re in, we can ask for the right kind of help.

Let’s back up for a moment to that second stage, conscious incompetence. This phase can be pesky. Actually, it can be hell. To use a driving example, it’s the stage when your mother is sitting terrified in the passenger’s seat, digging her nails into the dashboard and pushing down on the nonexistent brake pedal with both feet, shrieking at you to not hit the squirrel. It’s rolling backwards down hills and bouncing off the side of the garage. It’s making mistake after mistake after mistake and thinking you’re never, ever going to get it.

Another example is when a leader reads her 360-degree feedback for the first time and begins to realize how she comes across in meetings. She starts to understand that her certainty and directiveness may be landing as dismissiveness of her team, and that her speedy pace is translating as she’s not really listening. She wants to change, but she keeps making this mistake again and again. So, we see that she’s in the territory of conscious incompetence as she experiences this knowing, but isn’t stepping into the doing.

Can you see how this applies to growth edges in self-development? We are invited into a new narrative that is possible for us, but which we have not yet embodied. It can be immensely frustrating to see a new way of being in front of us, understand and be inspired by the possibility of it, and yet still employ our old set of behaviors because it’s all our system knows how to do.

I had a client who had always believed that he was the catalyst for everything that happened in his life and in the lives of those around him. He didn’t think people would do things if he didn’t remind them.

Once he realized it was possible to trust that the world could take care of itself, he began to taste the joy and freedom that comes with being able to let go. So he didn’t understand why, soon after he had this realization, he was still micromanaging his employees and doing the lion’s share of tasks at home. He became frustrated with himself and wondered why he was “sliding.” Which, of course, wasn’t the case at all.

He was just learning.

There are many instances where we can experience our conscious incompetence, but the good news is that we can do something about it.

Usually, the advice shared with someone in this stage of competence is: practice, get feedback, and persist. This advice can prove fruitful and true, but there’s something beyond practice and persistence. It’s permission to be exactly where we are.

When we encounter conscious incompetence, I think we have a choice. We could let our inner critic grab the mic and begin a running commentary on all the ways we’re utterly inadequate, for not being The Better Person We Know We Can Be, which invariably snowballs into greater self-loathing and a much slower progression toward the new way.

Or, we can remember what it was like to be a teenager learning to drive a car. We can observe toddlers learning to walk, falling on their little bums again and again and again. We can appreciate how huge it is to be aware of something that wasn’t even in our consciousness until now. We can give ourselves permission to fall, and crash, and fail, and cry. We can surround ourselves with a support system of folks who will pick us up, dust us off, encourage us, forgive the messes we make, and remind us how far we’ve come.

What we’ve found in our work at New Ventures West is that the people who move most gracefully through this stage share a few things in common.

And then finally, when we’ve reached that blissful state where we’re so used to our new way of being that we’re no longer aware of it, those same folks can remind us of the time when we thought it was impossible.

And this is the gift we have the privilege of giving our clients as well: letting them bounce off as many garage doors as they need to, and reassuring them that one day, they’ll be on cruise control.

Q1: What is conscious incompetence?

Conscious incompetence is the second stage in the four stages of the competence model. It describes the experience of being aware of a skill gap but not yet having the ability to close it. You know what you don’t know — and that knowing is uncomfortable.

Q2: What is an example of conscious incompetence?

A new driver who knows they aren’t yet coordinating the pedals and mirrors smoothly is consciously incompetent. So is a leader who has received feedback about how she shows up in meetings but hasn’t yet changed the patterns. The awareness is there; the fluency isn’t.

Q3: What is unconscious incompetence?

Unconscious incompetence is the first stage of the model. You don’t know what you don’t know. The gap is real but invisible to you. Feedback, coaching, or a significant experience often surfaces it — and moves you into conscious incompetence.

Q4: What is the difference between unconscious incompetence and conscious incompetence?

In unconscious incompetence, the gap is invisible. In conscious incompetence, it’s visible and felt. Both involve a skill deficit; the distinction is whether the person can see it.

Q5: How do you move from conscious incompetence to conscious competence?

Through deliberate practice, reflection, and support. Awareness of the gap is necessary but not sufficient. Sustained effort — ideally within a structured development process, and supported by skilled coaching — is what moves a person through to the next stage.

Q6: Who created the four stages of competence?

The model is most reliably traced to Martin M. Broadwell (1969) and Noel Burch of Gordon Training International (1970s). It is sometimes attributed to Abraham Maslow, but that attribution isn’t supported by his published works.

Q7: What does it mean to be consciously incompetent?

To be unconsciously incompetent means a skill gap exists but you can’t see it yet. You’re not failing on purpose — you simply don’t have the awareness to know there’s something to work on. This stage usually ends when outside feedback, a coach, or a hard experience makes the gap visible for the first time.

Integral Coaching is built for people at exactly this stage, the moment of seeing the gap. If you’re a coach, a leader, or simply someone who takes your own development to a new level of transformation, our Foundations of Coaching course offers a new set of skills and a practical, grounded starting point.

New Ventures West has offered professional coaching training and certification for over 40 years. Our Professional Coaching Course is an International Coach Federation (ICF) Level 2 Accredited Coach Program.