The Peter Principle

People in a hierarchy tend to rise to their "level of incompetence".

Laurence J. Peter

A management concept developed by Laurence J. Peter, the Peter Principle observes that people who are good at their jobs are promoted, until they reach a level where they are no longer successful (their "level of incompetence"). At this point, as they are more senior, they are less likely to be removed from the organisation (unless they perform spectacularly badly) and will continue to reside in a role which they have few intrinsic skills at, as their original skills which made them successful are not necessarily the skills required for their new jobs.

This is of particular interest to engineers - who initially start out in deeply technical roles, but often have a career path which leads to managing other engineers - which requires a fundamentally different skill set.