How the “Peter Principle” Manifests in Army Leadership

The Army prides itself on meritocracy. In concept, if you perform well at your current rank, demonstrate some leadership potential, and complete the required schooling and jobs, you’ll probably be promoted.

Allegedly.

On paper, it’s clean and logical. In practice, however, the system often runs headlong into a concept first articulated in 1969 by Dr. Laurence J. Peter: “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”

That idea—now known as the Peter Principle—wasn’t written with the US Army in mind, but it fits our institution uncomfortably well.

From Tactical Excellence to Organizational Struggle

At the junior levels, the Army is exceptionally good at identifying competence. A squad leader who can maneuver fire teams under pressure, keep Soldiers alive, and maintain discipline usually stands out quickly. The problem begins when excellence at one level becomes the primary justification for promotion into an entirely different role.

A stellar team leader may be promoted to squad leader. A great squad leader becomes a platoon sergeant. Eventually, that same Soldier, whose competence was once defined by tactical instincts and hands-on leadership, finds himself buried in training calendars, property books, counseling packets, and PowerPoint slides.

The skill set that made him exceptional has changed, but the promotion system assumes it naturally transfers. Often, it doesn’t.

Leadership Isn’t a Single Skill

The situation described above isn’t limited to the enlisted ranks. I’ve seen it manifested in warrant officers and commissioned officers as well. That’s because the Army frequently treats leadership as a universal trait rather than a collection of distinct competencies. Tactical leadership, administrative leadership, and strategic leadership are not the same things. They require different temperaments, strengths, and even personalities. It’s possible to be good (or get good) at each of these things, of course, but not everyone is naturally good at–or can become good at–every skill required at every level of leadership.

Some leaders thrive in chaos and immediacy, under conditions we call VUCA. Others excel at long-term planning and organizational management. The Peter Principle asserts that promotion systems reward past performance without adequately measuring future requirements—and the Army is no exception.

That is because, despite what we claim about potential, we tend to promote based on how well someone did the job, not how well they will do the next one.

When Rank Outpaces Capability

The result is a familiar sight across formations: leaders who were once outstanding are now struggling visibly. That’s not because they are lazy or malicious, but because they have been promoted into roles that demand strengths they never had to develop.

This manifests in predictable ways:

• Micromanagement, as leaders cling to the tasks they understand instead of delegating effectively.
• Administrative paralysis, where paperwork and planning overwhelm decision-making.
• Erosion of trust, as subordinates sense uncertainty or inconsistency at the top.
• Risk aversion, where leaders avoid decisive action because they lack confidence in their new role.

The damage isn’t limited to performance metric, it bleeds into morale. It affects readiness, mission accomplishment, and even rentention. Soldiers notice when their leaders are out of depth, even if they don’t have the vocabulary to articulate it.

The NCO Corps and the Burden of Promotion

Nowhere is the Peter Principle more painfully visible than in the Army’s Noncommissioned Officer Corps. NCOs are expected to be tactical experts, disciplinarians, mentors, administrators, and managers—all while remaining “the backbone of the Army.”

Promotion for NCOs is often treated as both reward and obligation. Declining advancement can be perceived as lack of motivation or professionalism, even when the individual knows their strengths lie elsewhere.

The system rarely allows for respected plateauing—remaining at a rank where one is maximally effective—without stigma. As a result, many excellent NCOs are promoted out of the roles where they are most valuable.

Officer Promotions and Strategic Drift

Officers face a similar, though differently shaped, problem. Early officer evaluations focus heavily on command presence, confidence, and tactical execution. Later promotions demand political acumen, interagency coordination, and abstract strategic thinking.

The Army assumes that success at company command predicts success at battalion and brigade level. Sometimes it does. Often, it doesn’t.

The Peter Principle shows itself when leaders who were decisive and inspirational at lower echelons become indecisive, disconnected, or overly bureaucratic at higher ones.

Why the System Persists

The Army continues to reproduce this problem for several reasons:

1. Cultural momentum: Promotion equals success. Anything else feels like failure.
2. Structural rigidity: Career paths are narrow, and alternative tracks are limited.
3. Evaluation bias: Reports reward visibility and short-term wins over long-term suitability.
4. Institutional optimism: We assume leaders will “grow into” roles, even when evidence suggests otherwise.
5. Bad Assumptions: We often assume that just because someone is good in job “A,” they are automatically going to be good in job “B,” even if those jobs are very different.
6. Simple human nature: things like nepotism, favoritism, real or imagined quota systems,

Growth can happen, but it isn’t guaranteed. And the cost of failure is borne by the formation.

Mitigating the Peter Principle

The Army cannot eliminate the Peter Principle entirely, but it can blunt its effects.

• Earlier differentiation of leadership tracks, separating tactical experts from organizational managers without diminishing either.
• Legitimizing career plateaus, where Soldiers can remain at a rank by choice and be valued for it.
• Promotion criteria tied to future roles, not just past performance.
• Honest mentorship, where leaders are told not just that they can promote, but whether they should.

Most importantly, the Army must accept a difficult truth: not everyone is meant to lead at every level, and that’s not a moral failing.

The Cost of Ignoring Reality

When the Peter Principle goes unaddressed, the Army pays in inefficiency, burnout, and cynicism. Talented leaders lose confidence. Subordinates lose trust. The institution becomes top-heavy with rank and thin on competence. Worse, we risk teaching young Soldiers the wrong lesson: that advancement matters more than effectiveness, and that rank matters more than mastery.

I have personally seen the Peter Principle manifested, up close and personal, many times during my 27 years of military service. Many times it was manageable, more like a benign tumor infecting the unit ranger than a malignant one. But on occasion, it was a fatal condition when it came to things like morale, retention, and mission accomplishment.

During one of the last assignments of my military career, our unit had a boss who was so bad that she was not just a “toxic” leader, but a “radioactive” one. She had been promoted past her capabilities so often, and failed forward up the Army ranks so far, that she was seen as unstoppable. That is, until, she got into a position where her protective network could no longer shield her, and her incompetence was on such a big public stage (and the list of IG complaints too long to ignore), that her supervisors finally had to take action. But by then, the damage was done.

But at least that was in a garrison environment, and not in combat.

Wrapping it Up

This article isn’t an indictment of Army leadership. It’s simply a warning about systems that confuse progression with growth. The Army is filled with capable, dedicated professionals, but even the best people can be placed in the wrong roles.

Real leadership isn’t about climbing endlessly upward. Sometimes, it’s about staying where you do the most good.

And that may be the hardest lesson for a hierarchical institution to learn.

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Charles served over 27 years in the US Army, which included seven combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with various Special Operations Forces units and two stints as an instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He also completed operational tours in Egypt, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea and earned a Doctor of Business Administration from Temple University as well as a Master of Arts in International Relations from Yale University. He is the owner of The Havok Journal, and the views expressed herein are his own and do not reflect those of the US Government or any other person or entity.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.