Is the Peter Principle empirically verifiable, that people who are good at their jobs routinely get promoted into bigger jobs they’re bad at? And, if so, what does that have to teach us about leadership?
There’s a radio broadcast that comes on Sunday mornings. I often catch it on my way home from church. I suppose I could listen to it at other times, but I’m just now learning how to tune into podcasts. Being as we’re this far into the twenty-first century, it is probably time for me to get onboard.
Freakonomics Radio, which airs on my local public radio station, is a fascinating exploration of all things economic, as well as human behavior, science, and more. I’m not here to promote the series (unless I can get compensation), but you are welcome to check it out for yourself.
On a recent episode, they tackled the first of my leadoff questions above: Can we demonstrate from data the idea that people get promoted to the level of their incompetence? Freakonomics’ answer, in short, is yes. You can listen for yourself as to how they reached that conclusion.
I remember a person, a man of very good character. He and his wife were both kind-hearted to me just starting out as I was. He had risen to the level of divisional head in a nonprofit I worked for in my younger days.
He was kind and thoughtful, but how he got into his role of overseeing several department heads I will never know. He lacked both adequate leadership and management skills to the point of being painfully ineffective. Granted, he worked under a very strong CEO, one who made it difficult for his subordinates to lead creatively. But other subordinates had demonstrated their ability to be creative despite the CEO. So, there was more to this friend’s problems than just who he worked for.
The Peter Principle had been developed by Laurence J. Peter and published in a book just a few short years before I encountered the principle alive in this divisional head. Well before I knew the principle had a name, I’d certainly found it in numerous other examples.
Recognizing there is a difference between management and leadership, I’m using the terms interchangeably for the moment to keep my wordcount down. They both require unique sets of skills that are not needed in other roles in an organization. Not everyone has the inclination, let alone the skillset to move up, though there is something to be said for developing these skills for use in other areas of life – like that most common of roles, parenting.
The Freakonomics episode examined the data on sales personnel and sales managers. What they found was clear evidence that the best salespersons do not necessarily make the best managers of salespersons. But what all too often happens is that those who sell the most get promoted because they are so good at sales, only to stumble at leading others in sales.
Among the skills required for successful sales management are collaborative skills and the desire to help others shine, two qualities that do not necessarily make a good salesperson. As I listened to that episode, I thought about what I’ve learned and experienced over the years. Bad leaders, good leaders, they all have something valuable to teach us about leadership, though I’d rather learn from good leaders any day.
Letting them pass you
I’m struck by one statement Jesus is recorded to have made to his protégées in his final days with them. To paraphrase, he told them that they would surpass him in performance. He said his believers would do the very things he had been doing – and even greater. You can verify that statement in John 14:12.
We tend to get excited about how much more we are going to do than Jesus ever did, well, except for the cross thing. In doing so, we miss the point, and miss what Jesus was really saying, namely that who we are in Jesus is what defines us, not what we do for him. But there is something else often overlooked in this statement.
Jesus, as a leader – granted, the greatest leader that ever lived – was not worried about being passed up by those he led. He was quite confident in who he was, the Son of God. That confidence came in handy when the devil tempted him with greater things in that wilderness experience. Jesus also delighted in the idea that his followers would do greater things than him. Go ahead, run faster – and we’ll all celebrate!
A 60 Minutes segment recently highlighted the achievement of two high school students at St. Mary’s Academy in New Orleans. Very impressively, the girls found a new proof for the 2,000 year-old Pythagorean theorem. Not to distract from the stellar achievement of these students, what impressed me even more was the philosophy and track record of the school. The school is dedicated to instilling in every student that they can accomplish anything. My kind of school!
Leadership is all about instilling vision. But it is best accomplished by mentors who are not worried about being outperformed. One could argue that Jesus is hard to outshine. Point well taken, though some have tried. But maybe the reason he cannot be outshone is because he isn’t bothered that he might be. I don’t mean that he thinks he is better than everyone else – even though he is. What makes him better than everyone else is that he doesn’t care to be thought of as better than anyone else.
What Jesus does care about is his own Father’s glory and how well his followers do. He finds his glory in them, just like parents tend to do with their own kids. Parents, good parents that is, want to see their children exceed them, to reach levels they never reached.
So, he prays to his Father. I’ve been protecting them while I am physically with them, but please take care of them from now on. (see John 17) Take them to the next level, Father! Which the Father proceeds to do a few weeks later when the Holy Spirit comes on them on the Day of Pentecost.
When Jesus calls someone, he is committed to them all the way. Whatever it takes, including laying down his own life for them. Not too often are we called to physically die for those we lead, not even for our own children. But leadership, rather than some glory trip, is all about sacrificing our own goals so that those we lead can do greater things.
Seeing those we lead surpass us has much to do with character, with attitude. Getting beyond ourselves to see that whatever glory we might want is to be found in those in whom we invest. When they excel, we do too. That’s true of those amazing teachers at St. Mary’s. That can also be true of you and me.
Passing on the good stuff
Helping others excel also takes skill, not just specific task skills, like healing people or walking on water. The skill I am talking about is the ability to impart what we know and understand, in such a way that those we teach/lead are firmly able to grasp that knowledge and take it to the next level. Transference, we call it.
To be a good leader, I don’t have to know more than my subordinates about specifics of their jobs. For example, in my most recent position, I supervised one of the best immigration attorneys in the field. Caroline had the training, had passed the bar exam, and had loads of experience. She knew U.S. immigration law inside and out and knew how to serve her clients. She wasn’t going to come to me with questions about legal matters – that would have been malpractice. She was going to come to me about growing and building her team, about dealing with political situations, about communicating her vision to the larger world, about budgets, about management and HR problems, about taking her operation to the next level.
I oversaw leaders like her who were far more skilled in their roles than I ever cared to be. My job was to understand their work enough to help them take it to the next level. But I also had years of experience in management and leadership, in nonprofit organization, in sharing vision outside the organization that I could impart to them. And I had honed a sense of character and vision that was required to make all that work well. How you treat people – your boss, your coworkers, your staff, your clients, your donors.
My father-in-law, Bob Robbins, was a very patient teacher. Bob lost his father to lung cancer as a boy, and he grew up very poor. Fortunately, he had an older mentor or two that shepherded him through his young years. He married right out of high school and found a job sweeping floors, as he put it, for Boeing, the airplane manufacturing behemoth in Seattle. It was tough going for years and raising six kids to boot. But eventually he rose to the level of plant manager in Boeings’s fabrications division. From there he retired and tended to his own garden and woodshop at home.
It was there he became my teacher, showing me how to look after a garden, how to use the shop tools, how to grill. His skills exceeded mine, and he loved to do his own work, but he enjoyed teaching me how to use his tools. And he got very excited about what I was beginning to do with what he taught me. I don’t know first-hand what kind of manager Bob Robbins was at Boeing, but I do know that as a father-in-law, he was a great mentor.
Dad Robbins teaching his grandkids how to golf
The Peter Principle makes sense. However, while I do think people can be put into positions for which they don’t fit, I am a firm believer that just about everyone can become a leader. Case in point is that most of us are biologically prepared to parent. Being prepared beyond just the biology is another matter and one that has to do with learning good leadership and management skills. I do think we can all grow with good training and mentoring.
If you are interested in growing your leadership skills, I’d love to coach you. I’ve been in leadership roles since I was a teenager – that’s a half-century of trial and error and much study. And I’ve had lots of mentors – both the good and the bad. In this next season of life, I am committed to coaching a handful of people, helping them get to the next level in their leadership. If you are interested in what I have to offer, go to my coaching page, find out what’s involved, and sign up.
For information on the St. Mary’s Academy school and the Freakonomics story, check out my resource page. And, if you haven’t already, you can follow my twice-weekly writings, by subscribing for free. I’ll be writing more on leadership in the months to come.
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