Peter principle

Concept, introduced by Canadian academic Laurence Peter, who stated that in any hierarchy, an employee tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence. The idea is that employees who are perfectly competent at one level are automatically promoted regardless of their ability to do the job they are promoted to, or whether they wish to be promoted. The result may be an employee who is unable to do the new job adequately, thus becoming unhappy and stressed as a result. This situation benefits neither the individual nor the organization.