A phenomenon where workers get promoted to a higher role until they reach a level of incompetence. Like how workers rise in the ranks of managerial positions but end up being bad managers and were better off as workers.
I'm not there to discuss the subject in academic lens but this is the answer I was looking for when it comes to my own experience with management. As a physician, we have job titles that correspond to a salary grade. The higher the salary grade the fancier the job title sounds, and more responsibilities.
Majority of the time, doctors are just fine being sole proprietors to their craft. This is a profession that doesn't require a higher management to function in private practice. But the story hits different when we're part of an organization like public or public institution because now there are administrative responsibilities tied to the roles.
I met a lot of colleagues that are just fine on their own but the performance drops as soon as they get reassigned to manage other people or administrative work that has little to do with the practice of medicine. Some people just don't have the social skills for the job but because a lack of candidates, tenure, and tradition they get promoted anyway.
From an organizational point of view that maximizes profits, why would you promote someone good at their job and doesn't complain about raises? moving them up the ladder costs more and they might not be setup for the role.
From the wage slave's point of view, years spent in loyalty for the company and no career progress is soul draining. Asking for a promotion makes sense but this entails acquiring more responsibilities that one may not suited to do. And it the event they do get promoted, they just become bad in the role but at least they get paid more. This is just a simplification of the issue and shouldn't be taken generally.
Peter Principle says that workers are promoted until they hit a role where their incompetence shows. And I agree, because why would you promote someone that botches their key performance indicators to the next role? So you get really good at your job, then become a candidate for promotion due to some metrics fulfilled and then adjust to your new role until you can't.
Have this happen in the large scale and you have a Peter Principle at work.
I just think it's amazing that we have labels for how these things happen and come up with explanations that make sense. I know there are many ways to come up with plausible reasons why such phenomenon exists in the workplace but it is interesting to notice.
Thanks for your time.
