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The Mystery of Failing Upward: Why Incompetent Employees Get Promoted While High Performers Stay Stuck

MarketDash Editorial Team
6 hours ago
A viral Reddit discussion reveals the uncomfortable truth about corporate promotions: performance often takes a backseat to politics, perception, and knowing the right people. Workers across industries share why mediocre employees sometimes rise faster than their talented peers.

An insurance manager recently sparked a fascinating Reddit discussion by sharing a story that probably sounds familiar to anyone who's ever worked in a large organization. A friend at a bank witnessed something baffling: a new hire who showed up late, left early, sometimes wore sweatpants, and routinely avoided responsibilities somehow got promoted to senior banker, then assistant manager within six months, and eventually landed the branch manager role in about a year.

All of this happened while more experienced and capable employees watched from the sidelines. The frustrated original poster asked the question echoing through break rooms everywhere: "How are they doing it?"

The Art of Failing Upward

This wasn't an isolated incident. The Redditor noted they'd seen the same pattern across multiple large companies: underwhelming employees "failing upward" and leapfrogging more qualified colleagues. The thread exploded with hundreds of responses from workers in education, finance, construction, tech, and government, all recognizing the phenomenon.

The consensus? Promotions often have more to do with perception, politics, and personal connections than actual performance. As one commenter put it simply: "They're nice to the people that make decisions." Others elaborated that these employees might look incompetent to their peers, but they've mastered the art of sweet-talking the right people.

One worker described a peer who appears "dramatic, emotional, incompetent, and overall a bad attitude" to colleagues. But here's the twist: "I discovered this week that they put on a completely different personality with people above them. It doesn't matter what your peers think if leadership likes you."

That's the uncomfortable reality. Managing upward relationships can matter more than managing actual work.

When Excellence Becomes a Career Trap

Several responses highlighted an ironic truth that high performers know all too well: being good at your job can actually keep you stuck. "Reliable and hard working will get you stuck right where you're at," one commenter explained. "We can't afford to move you."

Someone else labeled this "Shawshank Syndrome," referencing the character in "The Shawshank Redemption" whose usefulness to prison management prevented him from getting paroled. If you're too valuable where you are, you might never get the chance to move up.

And then there's another angle: sometimes managers promote problem employees just to make them someone else's headache. "That's usually it. Who ya know, not what ya know," said one Redditor. "If a promotion means leaving the team to go be another team's problem, they'll do it even if it's technically undeserved."

No Easy Answers

The thread circled back to where it started, with the original poster still puzzling over the dynamics. "There are lots of mediocre people to choose from," they wrote. "Why do some really mediocre people absolutely skyrocket through the ranks, leaving the other mediocrities behind?"

No single answer emerged from the discussion, but one clear takeaway did: in many companies, perception can outweigh competence, and politics can override productivity. It's not a particularly comforting conclusion, but it might explain why that person in sweatpants is now running the branch.

Back to News

The Mystery of Failing Upward: Why Incompetent Employees Get Promoted While High Performers Stay Stuck

MarketDash Editorial Team
6 hours ago
A viral Reddit discussion reveals the uncomfortable truth about corporate promotions: performance often takes a backseat to politics, perception, and knowing the right people. Workers across industries share why mediocre employees sometimes rise faster than their talented peers.

An insurance manager recently sparked a fascinating Reddit discussion by sharing a story that probably sounds familiar to anyone who's ever worked in a large organization. A friend at a bank witnessed something baffling: a new hire who showed up late, left early, sometimes wore sweatpants, and routinely avoided responsibilities somehow got promoted to senior banker, then assistant manager within six months, and eventually landed the branch manager role in about a year.

All of this happened while more experienced and capable employees watched from the sidelines. The frustrated original poster asked the question echoing through break rooms everywhere: "How are they doing it?"

The Art of Failing Upward

This wasn't an isolated incident. The Redditor noted they'd seen the same pattern across multiple large companies: underwhelming employees "failing upward" and leapfrogging more qualified colleagues. The thread exploded with hundreds of responses from workers in education, finance, construction, tech, and government, all recognizing the phenomenon.

The consensus? Promotions often have more to do with perception, politics, and personal connections than actual performance. As one commenter put it simply: "They're nice to the people that make decisions." Others elaborated that these employees might look incompetent to their peers, but they've mastered the art of sweet-talking the right people.

One worker described a peer who appears "dramatic, emotional, incompetent, and overall a bad attitude" to colleagues. But here's the twist: "I discovered this week that they put on a completely different personality with people above them. It doesn't matter what your peers think if leadership likes you."

That's the uncomfortable reality. Managing upward relationships can matter more than managing actual work.

When Excellence Becomes a Career Trap

Several responses highlighted an ironic truth that high performers know all too well: being good at your job can actually keep you stuck. "Reliable and hard working will get you stuck right where you're at," one commenter explained. "We can't afford to move you."

Someone else labeled this "Shawshank Syndrome," referencing the character in "The Shawshank Redemption" whose usefulness to prison management prevented him from getting paroled. If you're too valuable where you are, you might never get the chance to move up.

And then there's another angle: sometimes managers promote problem employees just to make them someone else's headache. "That's usually it. Who ya know, not what ya know," said one Redditor. "If a promotion means leaving the team to go be another team's problem, they'll do it even if it's technically undeserved."

No Easy Answers

The thread circled back to where it started, with the original poster still puzzling over the dynamics. "There are lots of mediocre people to choose from," they wrote. "Why do some really mediocre people absolutely skyrocket through the ranks, leaving the other mediocrities behind?"

No single answer emerged from the discussion, but one clear takeaway did: in many companies, perception can outweigh competence, and politics can override productivity. It's not a particularly comforting conclusion, but it might explain why that person in sweatpants is now running the branch.