We’ve all seen or borne the burden of working for a person who seems utterly incompetent. You want ... [+]
With all the challenges people currently face, wouldn’t it be nice to have a great boss? How comforting would it be to have an empathetic, caring, experienced and smart professional during a time of crisis? Sadly, this is not the case for most workers. They, unfortunately, have a boss who hit the “Peter Principle” ceiling or a “Dunning-Kruger” supervisor.
The Peter Principle
We’ve all seen or borne the burden of working for someone who seems utterly incompetent. You want to give the guy the benefit of the doubt and make excuses for him. As time goes by, you can’t defend the manager any longer. His actions, behavior, management style and how he interacts with staff are off-putting, rude, demeaning and inappropriate.
You’ve spoken with co-workers to see if maybe it's just you, and no one else is seeing this happen. When your division agrees that the behavior is odd and unreasonable, you feel better knowing that you're not imagining things.
After doing some homework, you stumble across the term “Peter Principle.” This term was coined by Laurence J. Peter, a Canadian professor. In the 1960s, he wrote a book theorizing the topic. Peter concluded that in every hierarchical structure, each employee rises to their level of incompetence. If you’ve wondered why your entire team or company seems to be ineffectual, Peter has an answer: over time, every job gets filled with a person who is incapable of rising to the duties and responsibilities required to execute their job effectively.
Now that you know the principle, everything makes sense. An employee works hard, does a good job and is likable. When an internal role opens up, the employee is chosen to fill the position as a reward for their efforts and results. In a war for talent during the Great Resignation, attracting, recruiting, and retaining people is hard. The previously promoted worker has started grumbling that they'll quit and find another job if they don’t receive a promotion and raise.
Management, keenly aware of how hard and long it will take to find a replacement for them and backfill the opening, gives in and offers the job to the person. This upward cycle continues—until it doesn’t. It could be two or six more bump-ups before the person plateaus. The employee finally rose to their level of incompetence. The person has reached a level in which their skills, talents, intelligence and abilities are insufficient to discharge their responsibilities.
Executives find themselves in a quandary: what do they do with this person? Until now, the person was viewed as a fast-track rockstar destined for bigger and better things within the organization. Senior management now ponders if it’s the person or something else. The person most likely is unaware of their own incompetence. It’s easy to blame the staff. The person will push and micromanage the team. Since the decisions are made from the top, it’s not the team’s fault.
The Company Is Left With A Dysfunctional Division With Everyone Secretly Planning To Leave
Nevertheless, a person or two will be fired, taking the blame for anything and everything that went wrong. The seats are left open, as it's hard to find people when the unemployment rate is at record-low levels, and potential incumbents demand more compensation than the former employees earned. The applicants say that the economy is weak, there are layoffs, hiring freezes and rescinded offers happening and they deserve a large premium to take the risk of switching jobs.
The longer it takes to refill the headcount, the more work is piled upon the remaining workers. They grow disenchanted, unengaged and feeling aggrieved that they must work longer hours and weekends to keep up with the workflow. Over time, the quality of work substantially declines due to the situation they've been put into.
The result is that the company is left with a person in charge who isn’t right for the role. The rest of the team secretly speaks with recruiters and plots their escape. Since their time is spent searching and interviewing for a new job, the morale and productivity plummet. The entire group is now dysfunctional.
The Dunning–Kruger Effect
There is one in every department. It’s the person who has low abilities but suffers from illusory superiority. The Dunning-Kruger effect, named after two professors who studied this phenomenon, demonstrates that a person with this trait mistakes their own cognitive ability and intelligence to be greater than those around them. Since the person has the faulty cognitive bias of illusory superiority, the low-ability person is incapable of recognizing and evaluating their own ineptitude. Basically, the person is too dumb to realize that they are stupid.
You all know a person or two in your company who fit this description. It's the individual who adamantly believes that they know all the right answers. When anyone offers another perspective, it’s shot down. It's worse when the boss has this affliction. You could push back on a colleague, but the situation is more delicate when it’s your boss. You’re forced to endure their pontifications, bad ideas and abusive management style.
The Opposite Of Dunning-Kruger Effect: Imposter Syndrome
The opposite of the Peter Principle and Dunning-Kruger effect is the imposter syndrome. This is when smart, capable people underestimate their abilities. This takes a toll on people. They feel they don’t deserve the job they’re holding. The person feels like a fraud who will one day get exposed. Meanwhile, their boss, colleagues and clients feel that they are terrific and love working with them.
Imposter syndrome was initially identified in the late 1970s by two psychologists Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes. In their research paper, the psychologists contended that women were uniquely affected by impostor syndrome, but later updated to reflect that men faced this too.
Imposter syndrome is believed to result from factors, including personality traits, such as perfectionism, family background and the push for achievements when young. Though they have accomplished much in their career, feelings of self-doubt and incompetence plague a person. The grueling self-introspection causes anxiety and stress. They also lose out on great job opportunities, as they don’t feel they possess the requisite skills, education and experience. The quandary is that the person does hold these requirements.
Finding Solutions To These Problems
To counter imposter syndrome, you might work harder and hold yourself to even higher standards. Unfortunately, it disproportionately affects high-achieving people, who find it difficult to accept their accomplishments. Feeling like a poser or fraud forces people with imposter syndrome to work harder and longer hours.
To help alleviate the stress, acknowledge your feelings. Push back when the unwanted thoughts keep popping up in your head. Remind yourself that it's not luck that got you where you are now. You worked hard for it and deserve all the success and accolades. Speak with friends and family to gain their perspectives and insights. Set an appointment with a professional therapist to work things out.
A possible solution to both the Peter Principle and Dunning-Kruger effect is for leadership to establish protocols. Companies should offer upskilling, coaching and mentoring for both the rising manager and difficult workers.
Human resources and senior-level professionals can monitor the person who received a promotion and continually offer their advice and guidance. If they are lacking, provide the training and skills needed to succeed. Send micro surveys to staff to gain a pulse of how they view their manager and the person having difficulties due to Dunner-Kruger.
