These thoughts came after listening to the April 11th episode of the WorkLife podcast.  WorkLife is a podcast about organizational psychology.
 
The podcast episode, near the end, talked about the Peter Principle.  The Peter Principle says that people get promoted based on current performance rather than the skills necessary for the new position.  People get promoted to their place of mediocrity and then get stuck there.  They are not good enough to get promoted again and not bad enough to get demoted.  Important decisions are usually made by seniority rather than those who have proven their capability. 
 
I was really struck when I heard this.  With the Army’s strong emphasis on chain of command and rank, I see this principle being even more relevant. 
 
 
Questions I am thinking about:
 
– How do we develop leaders for service at a higher level?
– What do we do when we feel like subordinate leaders are not capable of excelling at the next level, but will not do enough to prevent promotion (i.e. how do we prevent mediocrity)?
– As a leader, how do I identify/leverage the knowledge and skills of my subordinates? 
– How can I effectively empower subordinates with proven capability (potentially superior to mine) to serve the greater good of the organization?