What is Peter Principle?
‘Peter Principle’ is a principle related to the merit based style of promoting the employees. It states that organizations promoting their staff based solely on their merit will eventually lead to them being promoted beyond their competencies.
The principle is named after Laurence J Peter and Raymond Hull who developed and discussed this concept in their book titled ‘The Peter Principle’, which was published in 1969.
Once the employee reaches this stage where they are handing a designation beyond their abilities, they are essentially stuck in a kind of void career wise. They cannot proceed further due to their lack of skills, however, they will not be able to leave the designation as they will not be able to pass an interview for the same designation elsewhere due to them lacking the required abilities.