To think that “failing upward” is way too common?

[ForBreezySloth]

I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve come across who were clearly struggling in their roles - only to end up getting promoted. It’s like some workplaces would rather move someone up than deal with the hassle of replacing them properly. Is this just my experience or is failing upwards a real phenomenon?

NHS nursing definitely. Can't nurse or manage people? Make them a Matron. So many Matrons. Probably save the NHS by removing that layer.

As a country we had an entire governing party doing nothing else for a good decade. Particularly the last five years!

YES! cs, so true, its about being good at the interview process. I don't think it even matters if your STAR examples are made up, as long as you answer in the correct format you'll get the scores.

Happens in frontline health. Much better to promote people who are, frankly, dangerous with patients to non-patient facing roles where the potential for serious harm is greatly reduced. Yes, it sticks in people’s craw in a way, but in another most people are just relieved to be shot of the person.

In HE and see it all the time. Meanwhile I have made myself indispensable to the team I work with (not bragging just being honest) that I would never be promoted or fail upwards lol. Where as I see the shit ones getting on. Sadly my role is so flexible that I need to stay currently.

It starts at the top in this country...

You only have to look at politicians/MPs for the past 20 years, the current chancellor, Post Office bosses and utility bosses, Dido Harding...

Incompetence seems to be rewarded as long as you have the right contacts.

I think that's why those who get promoted are just the ones who either are good at networking/shouting about their perceived 'achievements' and fit in with what upper management/the Board look like (usually middle aged white men promoting other white men).

I've seen plenty of examples. Most recent was that of one of our suppliers.

Where I used to work the managers did less of the day to day stuff, so they fucked up less than they would have in a less senior role.

Yep seen it in various sectors - public and private. It’s actually more prevalent in private ime - it’s total bollocks private enterprise is more efficient and better managed than the public sector. No one I’ve met who manages anything in private would be able to manage a classroom for an afternoon never mind a department or a school.

100% this! So many incompetent nurses get promoted 🤦‍♀️

I'm in law and see this too but il the business model works like that. A lot of equity partners don't actually do a lot of case work because their role is managing teams/departments/delegating to others and most importantly client relationship building, winning new clients etc. My boss is really good at all that but I'm a much better technical lawyer than him (and he knows that too). When he does take on a complex case 9 times out of 10 he finds it too much - not just technically but time wise as he's always dashing all over the country seeing clients - and it gets handed over to me.

I'm a salaried partner and I don't think I'll get to equity because I'm too useful in the technical role and to be honest I prefer it too.

I don't think my boss is "failing". His strengths lie in managing the bigger business elements. I'm better at making the "product" that we sell. Equity partners who aren't any good at pulling in new business get pushed off the perch pretty quickly these days. (It wasn't always like that. Some crap ones used to hang around until retirement doing fuck all and collecting the profits.)

What, like Liz Truss?
Nah, never seen it.

I also agree about the civil service, if you talk the right talk to the right people, you'll shoot up the grades. So many hopeless but overconfident young men in senior roles.
I have just had a promotion myself but waited until I hit every requirement, scored 6 & 7 at interview but I still have major imposter syndrome and worry I've got ahead of myself!

Absolutely the norm in the NHS.
Absolutely the norm in Higher Education.
I've seen this happen again and again over the last 35 years.
Is it happening more often? Yes, it is, for a range of reasons.

My current workplace has gone from being a start-up to an international company in only a few years, and generally people have been promoted on merit. However, some of the people now in very senior positions were brilliant when the company was still in it's start-up phase, had exactly the right skills, but now that the company is much bigger, they basically can't do the senior role that they've ended up in - it's almost a different job. In a way, they could do with starting again at the bottom and re-learning everything.

Nursing is RIFE for this.

OP isn't describing the Peter Principle. She's talking about people who hit their level of incompetence and THEN are promoted.

Yes, I've seen this often and the injustice of it never stops grating! The first lesson in unfairness you receive in the workplace is that good work and results are often not enough in themselves for promotion. But at least poor performance leads to negative consequences, right? You are then confronted by someone who is evidently poor at their current job (so NOT the Peter Principle, which is far more understandable) getting a peachy promotion rather than the richly-rewarded boot or a demotion.

I've come across two examples where very junior members of staff (think first year of work) were failing in their roles and the response by senior management was to hand them highly covetable management roles (in one case not even advertised). Meanwhile, their fellow career starters have been rewarded for performing in line with expectations with the usual modest progression through the ranks.

Those are the most egregious cases I've encountered. Then there are just the common or garden crap-at-their-jobs people who manage to secure more everyday promotion and continue in their crap ways but on higher pay with a fancier title.

It's so difficult to get rid of under-performers in some organisations, public mostly, that managers do get rid of problems by promotion. I've seen and hear of it myself.

This . Our tutors at teacher training college couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. Every few years they had to do a term in a school . Hopeless

I have heard this as being 'promoted to the level of incompetence ', in that, someone is good at their job, so they get promoted, they are good at the new role, they get promoted again...but eventually promoted to a level where they don't/can't do that role, but can't 'drop back' to the role they were good at, so are stuck in a role they don't have the competence for.

It's happened in my company, not so much a person struggling but a complete bully who verbally abused people in a meeting who was then promoted. Of course he was a middle-aged white man who was promoted to senior management 🙄

Completely off topic, but I couldn't help chuckle at naughties... Perhaps things were naughtier in the '90s, or perhaps you meant noughties. Though, as you reference marketing, perhaps naughties is what you meant 😂

That's because a deal gets made to leave quietly and we will give you a good reference. Seen and heard it many times in my school.

I don’t think this happens now, but years ago (1980s) in the NHS, if you were senior but shit at your job, you were seconded (effectively promoted) from a trust to the regional health authority. Those jobs should have been hard to get, because they were more strategic and the “special projects “ could have been interesting and relevant. But no, dump poor performers in them. It got to the stage in our region where natural promotion to the RHA (regional health authority), which should have been an honour, was an immediate query over your character! Even though, at the same time, some very capable people also held them. Regions as such no longer exist.