Tag Archives: Peter Principle

High performing Leaders avoid the damaging effects of the Peter Principle in their company. Do you?

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At your next board or management meeting take a look at your colleagues and as soon as you can, take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror too.  Then ask yourself if you or any of your colleagues is a living embodiment of the Peter Principle?

In their satirical book published in 1969 “The Peter Principle: why things always go wrong” Dr Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull explain the Peter Principle. Its main tenets are:

  • employees rise in the organisation to their level of incompetence
  • they tend to be promoted or given more authority until they are no longer capable of working competently
  • productive work is typically carried out by those who have not been promoted to their level of incompetence
  • competent employees ‘manage upwards’ to limit the impact of those who have reached their level of incompetence.

So take another look at your colleagues and then yourself. What behaviours should you be on the look out for to guard against the Peter Principle taking hold and damaging your company?

One example would be a colleague or you showing signs of ‘Hypercaninophobia Complex’. Dr. Peter explains this complex as a fear evident in a ‘superior’ when a ‘subordinate’ demonstrates strong leadership potential! Think Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby in BBC’s Yes, Minister/Yes Prime Minister. A second example would be not taking responsibility and blaming others, particularly more junior members of the team. This will give you an idea of what to look for.

While there is a humorous angle to the Peter Principle, there is of course a more serious point here and that is prior to promoting a colleague, ensure that they have sufficiently demonstrated the behaviour or skill required to be promoted to the next level. For instance, avoid promoting your top sales person to sales manager until they have demonstrated the management potential, otherwise you’ll have lost your best sales person and you’ll have a manager who can’t manage others. Find some other way to reward and acknowledge your top sales person’s performance in their current role. You’ll be saving yourself and your company time and money in the long run, not to mention keeping your employees as productive and as engaged as possible.

What’s your experience of the Peter Principle? Post a reply. It will be great to hear from you.