The Peter principle and the probability of leadership failure

Let’s assume the case of a leader who has never failed throughout his career.

This leader has always managed to successfully accomplish all of his goals, thus setting an example for others that is hard to copy or even believe.

However, one day, he finally runs out of luck.

He fails to accomplish a task that was assigned to him!

All of a sudden, his world collapses, and he starts panicking.

People around him realize that something is wrong, and a feeling of anxiety and worry spreads all over the place in a matter of minutes.

What happened to the ever-successful leader?

Could his ongoing success be purely coincidental?

His supporters would argue that such a long record of one-hundred-percent success is not possible to be coincidental, and it actually serves as proof of the leader’s unquestionable skills and abilities to run the organization effectively and efficiently.

On the other hand, they seem to be short of words, when it comes to explaining why the leader has failed this time.

The leader’s failure affects the performance of the entire organization, even causing the latter to struggle to stay afloat.

This is where leadership theorists, academics, and gurus enter the picture, in an effort to explain the leader’s failure by creating case studies and formulating explanatory theories.

However, the leader’s failure seems to be contagious, since even these leadership experts fail themselves to interpret it convincingly.

The Peter principle comes to the rescue

Although the Peter principle has been around as a concept since 1969, I have to admit that I only learned about it recently.

It think that it is a very interesting concept that explains why a leader will finally “run out of luck”, once he has reached the limits of his skill, ability, knowledge, and experience.

After that point, a leader will not be much different from a newly-recruited employee who is still trying to learn the ropes.

Even worse than that, he will feel like a fish out of water, since an experienced leader will not be treated as “softly” as a new employee and will not be offered a probation period, being expected to perform at high level and deliver results from Day One.

It is like completing computer game levels, when you finally fail to complete a level, and you feel like the worst loser in the world.

According to the Peter principle, sooner or later, the time comes that a leader who managed to climb the corporate ladder without actually deserving it, falls off it as fast as he climbed on it.

However, this is not always the fault of a person that is unfairly promoted, since there are many cases that employees are promoted even against their own will, and have to accept promotion, otherwise they may have to face dismissal.

Conclusion

I believe that something like that happened to the leader who suddenly and unexpectedly failed.

Perhaps, he kept being promoted within the organization, and finally took up senior leadership roles, without realizing that these roles required strong skills, knowledge, and practical experience in a number of areas, which he may lacked.

It could be that he had no other option than accepting to become a leader.

Those who promoted him and never cared to offer him proper training to be able to successfully carry out the duties and take up the responsibilities that come with the job should be blamed for the leader’s failure, as well.

Perhaps, it could be a good idea to change the criteria for promotion in the workplace, and instead of rewarding superficial and unproven competence in a new role, it could be worth considering the benefits of failure at an early stage, when there is still time for mistakes to be corrected through training and learning.

Sources and further reading:

Good Leaders Fail Well How Mistakes Become a Staircase

New Evidence The Peter Principle Is Real - And What To Do About It

The Peter Principle: What It Is and How to Overcome It

Research: Do People Really Get Promoted to Their Level of Incompetence?