> The crux is that "competence" and promotion is not a one dimensional ladder where each promotion requires you to simply be more competent than in your previous position.
This doesn't contradict the Peter Principle, which doesn't imply you're increasing competence on a single axis.
In its most bare form, the principle states that people get promoted until they get stuck at a role in which they cannot adapt and do a bad job at. It never states it's a single dimension of competence or incremental over their last role.
The counterargument above is that people do not get promoted until they can’t do a good job at the new role - they only get the promotion once they’re good enough at their next position to get the promotion.
That's a good point. However, in my opinion, what you describe only happens sometimes; it's what companies claim they do, but very often they don't. I've seen too many times (embarrassingly, including myself on some occasions) people forcefully promoted to a role they are incompetent in. I've seen an extremely solid staff engineer get promoted to principal, riddled with bullshit responsibilities, given a bad performance review when he didn't meet them, and quitting as a result. It absolutely happens, and often.
This doesn't contradict the Peter Principle, which doesn't imply you're increasing competence on a single axis.
In its most bare form, the principle states that people get promoted until they get stuck at a role in which they cannot adapt and do a bad job at. It never states it's a single dimension of competence or incremental over their last role.