to be an individual struggle is exposed as a
Every person in an organisation has a threshold, a point where they approach the limits of what genuinely suits their abilities.
structural flaw. The Peter Principle,
Through Mad Men Popular culture has explored this dynamic in quieter, more serious ways. If you have seen Mad Men , you will be familiar with the iconic Don Draper, who is valuable for a very specific reason. He sees things others don’t. He understands how people think, he knows what they want, and he knows how to turn that into a story that sells. When the job is about ideas, instinct, and taste, he is hard to replace. But when his role expands, the tension begins. As Don moves further into leadership, the work slowly stops rewarding the qualities that made him successful. The organisation no longer needs flashes of
brilliance alone; it needs steadiness, follow- through, emotional presence, and a willingness to stay in the room when things are uncomfortable. Those expectations did not sit well with Don, not because he lacked intelligence or capability, but because they were never the reason he was promoted. He doesn’t just suddenly lose his edge; he is still sharp, perceptive, and capable of exceptional work. The job has shifted under his feet, and the role simply stops being built around the things he knows how to do well. That is the Peter
expose failure. It exposes a quiet misalignment between what a person is valued for and what the role eventually demands of them. What the Peter Principle Really Says to the Individual “In hierarchical systems, every employee eventually rises to their level of incompetence.” A recent post by Veysel Bozkurt on X brought Laurence J. Peter’s principle back to mind. The principle discusses why promotions don’t always lead to better outcomes. People aren’t promoted because they fail. They are promoted because they succeed,
Principle in its most recognisable form. Promotion doesn’t
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ISSUE 20 GLOBAL PAYROLL MAGAZINE
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